Crawford calls for special minimum wage for hotel workers
Published:Tuesday | June 21, 2022 | 12:08 AMBryan Miller/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Senator Damion Crawford is calling for a special minimum wage to be introduced in the hotel sector, similar to what is in place for security guards.
Crawford, who was addressing a combined People’s National Party (PNP) divisional and constituency conference in Hanover Eastern on the weekend, noted that this was among proposals pitched in the party’s manifesto leading into the 2020 general election in which the PNP was trounced by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).
He also lambasted the JLP for pouring scorn on some of the PNP’s proposals to introduce various projects and programmes, only to now adopt them as if they are ideas originating in the JLP.
“When we decided to take on what was Cable & Wireless, the JLP resisted. When we built the highway, the JLP resisted. When we come with the hotel pension plan, the JLP resisted. And when our manifesto said that a hotel worker should get a special minimum wage, they laughed and said it was foolishness, when security guards get a special minimum wage,” he stated.
Unable to afford basic necessities
In justifying the call, Crawford, who has lectured in tourism management at the university level, said that several persons working in the hotel sector were unable to afford certain basic necessities of life.
“Now we have people cleaning the biggest bathroom and cannot go home to a bathroom, people looking at the highest of opulence and cannot go home to a roof which is not leaking, people looking at unlimited food and cannot go home and eat. There must be a special hotel minimum wage so that the people who work in the hotel can reflect what the hotels are offering to the visitors,” he said to loud applause from the audience, which had many tourism workers from across Hanover among them.
While encouraging Comrades to be unified in the fight against oppression, he asked them to recognise that there is quality and competence still existing within the PNP.
He noted that several of the milestones of the PNP were achieved with the support of the people of the nation, adding that the party needs the continued support of Jamaicans to build on the successes.
“While only Sam Sharpe is a hero, he was not the only one in the fight; while only Michael Manley is remembered, he was not the only one to make us win; why P.J. Patterson went for 18 years is because you, the people, went out there to fight and argue for the PNP. Everything P.J. achieved, you achieved; everything Michael achieved, you achieved, because without you, nothing would have been possible,” he argued.
“I reminding unnu of when JLP used to walk and say PNP old, but they have a man wa call Mike Henry, and I say Mike Henry is older dan di Word and in di beginning was di Word,” he said to a riled-up audience, which took up to five minutes to calm down from their shouting and noise making after that statement.
Crawford encouraged his audience to live a lifestyle with the future and their children in mind.
In what seemed like a philosophical mood, he continued: “When we look back, we will see that the future was built by those who committed themselves in the past for the future.”