The Worker’s Case for A Decent Rage

THE NASSAU HERALD — PAGE THREE

The Worker's Case For A Decent Wage
By RANDOL FAWKES
PLP Candidate For The Southern District

The minimum wage which many a worker earns today is 2/6 per hour. Whether this pittance is compatible with the high cost of living is another question. Suffice it to say that the cost of living in the Bahamas Islands is higher than in any other part of the Western hemisphere. This is so because practically everything we use is imported and also because there are no controls on prices.

In America and in England the true test of a good minimum wage is that it must afford the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and the general well-being of the worker.

Vital moral and social principles are wrapped up in the consideration of a good minimum wage that 4/- per hour will bring. The higher the minimum wage the lower will be the toll taken by disease, slums and crimes.

An inadequate minimum wage is morally wrong. How can government countenance the payment of 2/6 per hour that is being paid by most of our local contractors to the common labourer?

How can this government be a party to the wreckage of family life? How can this government be pleased to see the flower of her youth being reduced to creatures in order to keep body and soul together? Mr. and Mrs. Bahamas: Our self-respect as a growing democracy requires that such wrongs be wiped away by an adequate wage scale.

Workers in low income brackets are a drag and a drain on the entire community. The general progress of the community is limited because these poor men—through lack of the means—are unable to make their contributions to society. Because of this failure much manpower is wasted. Furthermore low income families cannot live like normal human beings. Low income and its miseries breed disease, filth, degraded living habits, crimes and other social ills — including juvenile delinquency. The cost for hospitals and jails to house those physically and mentally sick are met by the public as a whole.

Now, My Friend, carry this argument to its logical conclusion and you will discover that it costs government more to cure the physically and mentally ill than to prevent their creation in the first instance.

Contractors who pay low wages are making an unholy profit at the expense and miseries of the workers. These contractors are actually being subsidized by the rest of the community. It is the Taxpayer—you—Mr. and Mrs. Bahamas — who bear the financial loss resulting from the payment of poor wages. The low-wage worker is a community burden which you yourself have to bear.

With higher wages the merchant will sell more of his articles because the worker will have more money to buy more. This extra cash made by the merchants will provide more jobs for people thereby reducing the number of Street-walkers who suffer poverty in the midst of plenty.

But there is another aspect to the question of low wages. Communism thrives on poverty. Unionism fights against the very things on which Communism thrives. Communism can only be stopped by the creation of more jobs at better wages.

Remember what happened in British Guiana? Listen, Friend, it can happen here unless government takes the leadership and removes the circumstances that produce poverty. In short, pay the worker a decent wage so that he can maintain and support his family.

Mr. and Mrs. Bahamas: Who is the real thief: the contractor, who by low wages, keeps bread away from the mouths of babies or the father who takes a loaf of bread to feed his family?

I think you know my answer; What's yours?