DP proposes supplement for school bus workers’ pay

(CNS): Deputy Premier and Social Development Minister André Ebanks has proposed that the government pay a stipend during the summer months to people employed by private companies contracted to provide school bus transportation services for Cayman Islands Government (CIG) primary and high schools.

In a statement to parliament last week, Ebanks said that private bus companies used in the education system are only paid for the ten months of each academic year that they are engaged to provide services. In turn, the bus companies only pay their employees for this time.

In his calculations for MPs, the deputy premier also reduced the time for which bus wardens and bus drivers are compensated by the number of days in weekends, public holidays, and vacation breaks during those ten months, concluding that they are only paid for approximately 8.75 months out of every twelve.

According to the Labour Law, employers are required to pay staff their regular wages on public holidays or pay them double if they are required to work. It would also be very unusual for any employer to pay wages for weekends off, and it is generally accepted that people paid by the week or the hour must find a way for that to last the whole week.

Making a case for paying private sector workers a stipend, Ebanks said that while bus wardens and drivers are only paid for the days they work, civil servants in similar roles receive a fixed salary throughout the entire year.

Although the UPM government has rejected recommendations by the Minimum Wage Advisory Committee to raise the minimum wage from an unlivable $6 per hour, the deputy premier also noted the rise in the cost of living as a factor in the need to pay the stipend for this particular group of workers.

However, the deputy premier has not suggested that the bus companies pay their employees more so that they have enough to live on in the summer months, even if that means increasing the value of their contract with the government. Nor is he suggesting that the drivers and wardens become full-time civil servants employed by the government to drive the buses or short-term government employees doing some kind of work over the summer months.

Instead, he said that his ministry is finalising a policy to give a stipend during the summer directly to the bus company employees, which would somehow bridge the gap between the pay structures of civil servants and employees of private companies.

However, if they receive a government stipend instead of a pay rise, their employers would not have to pay more into their pension plans.

“Through this summer stipend, we seek to address the deficiency in pay structures and ensure fairness for individuals providing transportation services to our children so they can access education,” Ebanks told MPs.

The ministry is also developing a supporting policy to set parameters for the proposed summer stipend and potentially continue the programme in future years, budget permitting, he said.