Minister wants only limited increase in minimum wage
(CNS): Jay Ebanks, who is still part of the outgoing UDP minority administration while campaigning to keep his parliamentary seat in North Side as an independent candidate, has backed away from a commitment to supporting an increase in Cayman’s woefully inadequate minimum wage. Answering a question at the Chamber of Commerce Candidate Forum on Friday, Ebanks appeared to indicate that he only supported increasing the pay in sectors where Caymanians were employed.
Seeming to back the position taken by his ministerial colleague, Dwayne Seymour, who is now on the PPM team and supporting Justin Ebanks, who is challenging him on the PPMticket, the minister said that increasing the minimum wage would push up the cost of living, largely because Caymanians would not be able to afford a helper.
Seymour, the outgoing border control and labour minister who rejected the findings of the Minimum Wage Advisory Committee and failed to raise basic pay during his tenure, employs a number of minimum wage workers in his airport security company.
Airport Professional Services, which Seymour owns and continues to hold the position of CEO, has had a government contract with the Cayman Islands Airports Authority since 2021 — a clear conflict of interest that has never been addressed.
Seymour has confirmed that starting in July of this year, there will be a minimum wage increase that will only apply to those working in the hospitality sector. However, this will only increase it to $7 per hour, far short of the committee’s recommendation of $8.75
Jay Ebanks, who, according to the register of interests, no longer has any businesses employing low-paid workers, took a similar position to that of his Cabinet colleague. He said it would push up the cost of living even though the MWAC’s report showed that the increase it recommended was considerably lower than already paid by most of Cayman’s leading employers. But from his comments, it appears the minister wants Cabinet to control how much people are paid in each sector.
“We have to look at the sectors we want to have Caymanians in,” Ebanks said. “There are going to be sectors that I think the minimum, yes, needs to go into, but what sectors are they going to be? Is it the ones we want to see our Caymanians into, or do we just want to put a blanket right across everything?” he said before pointing once again to people who have helpers but can’t afford them.
Justin Ebanks said that the minimum wage needs to be increased as it’s already been established that the current $6 rate is definitely not enough to survive on in the Cayman Islands. “If you are going to pay someone that kind of money, you are going to introduce poverty,” he said.
He added that not increasing the basic pay, which everyone knows is nowhere near enough, was akin to saying poverty is acceptable, even though we know mathematically that the current rate is not enough to live on.
Calling for proper implementation of a minimum wage, he said that as well as increasing it, the government had to tackle the value of wages by bringing down inflation. He pointed out that some people here are now just surviving, not living, because their wages have stagnated and failed to keep pace with inflation.
Vocational training and immigration reform were also things that both men pointed to as a means of creating better job opportunities for Caymanians.
However, Jay Ebanks, who for the last four years has been part of the PACT/UPM
PACT was a group of independent MPs who came together after the 2021 elections to form a government. It later became the UPM. More Cabinet, which has done little to improve education standards, seemed to give up altogether on students’ basic academic needs. He suggested the government should be in the business of helping children to become what they wanted to be as soon as possible. He said if primary school kids say they want to be firefighters when they grow up, then from then on, they should be trained to do that.
The second of 19 district forums, the North Side event failed to provide what could have been a head-to-head debate for voters to see the policy differences between the incumbent and the challenger. The Chamber is posing open-ended questions, and candidates are not being challenged on the details because, the organisation has said, it is taking an objective position.
When talking about Cayman’s housing crisis, Jay Ebanks, who has been responsible for housing for the last four years, claimed he had developed a housing policy. However, no such policy has been released to the public. The policy report that was started during the PACT Cabinet is said to be based on the work of consultants and the Cabinet’s inter-ministerial task force.
The government refused to release it to the public following an FOI request by CNS. We understand it is not yet complete. However, since the Chamber is not moderating, fact-checking or holding the candidates accountable for their answers, the minister was not asked to address the missing policy or report.
Justin Ebanks also missed the opportunity to challenge the minister on his claimed record on housing, even though nothing has been done to address the significant increases in the cost of renting as well as the prohibitive rise in property prices, fuelled largely by the concentration of planning applications luxury developments for overseas owners. Planning is another area the minister has been responsible for over the last four years.
The forums continue this week when the three candidates fighting for the constituency of Prospect will be on the panel: incumbent Sabrina Turner (TCCP), Crystal Gomez Wilson (PPM) and Michael Myles (CINP), who lost to Turner in 2021 when he ran as an independent.
Watch the forum on the Chamber’s YouTube channel below:
Check out the CNS Election Section interactive map to see who is running in each constituency.
See the list of candidates and their party affiliations here.
Category: Election News
You know what it’s going to take to fix this? Extreme pain, that’s what. We will have to send most, except for the medical and most essential expats home after raising the minimum wage to a living wage, and then after those Caymanians who are willing to leave the NAU and join the workforce will step up and join us all in our struggle to stay alive. It might not have to play out like that, but it will take radical change, but I truly believe those growing pains will be worth it, because that change will foster not only more employed Caymanians, but a path of employment for Caymanians when they leave High School.
30 years ago, all hospitality, bartender, waiter, dive industry, clerk, caretaker, construction jobs were held by Caymanians. Back then, all construction companies had to have more than 50% Caymanians on their crews.
I am not blaming expats; they are necessary, and all just trying to make their way in their own manner. No problem. Thank you for being here. Every job that expats hold, Caymanians could hold if they could earn enough to fend for their family. As their ancestors did. Our ancestors were likely no more afraid of the world than we are.
Jay and Dwayne are cousins so I’m not surprised by their similarities. Stanley Seymour was Dwayne “John John” Seymour’s father and his brother, George Seymour, was Cathy Seymour’s father. Johany “Jay” Ebanks is Cathy Seymour’s son. Family traits can be real.
I know Justin is not ready but we can do better than Mac”s protege and his extremely correct entourage following this maniacal Buffoon and his sibling running northside like it’s their fiefdom, Talking about he is the action man He has delivered by fleecing government coffers on the shovel and loader of his father heavy equipment business. Not a word from government who are complicit about this nepotism and conflict of interest. so long as keeps the prince of the DG safely tucked away from accountability. Erryting Kriss!!
Justin is ready and capable. All North Siders are aware of the favourtism and nepotism in the district.
Jay spoke about supporting codes of conduct but is a walking contradiction. It is unfortunate that many turn a blind eye to the blatant corruption going on in the district as long as some things get done.
We got off the grey list and we can be placed right back on it for these deeds.
Let us not forget the boards under his belt like NRA and NHDT and their track record.
The former chair went to court for theft – removal of fill. There is a civil servant on the NHDT board as he is a registered voter for North Side that campaigns for the minister despite the code of conduct prohibiting same and the list goes on but would take up too much space.
The people need to understand that poor governance will have severe consequences.
The country will lose if people like Jay are re-elected so the people of North Side need to realize it will impact them too.
Import labour, pay poverty wages and then complain about crime….
And then blame the cheap labour for Caymanians out of work.
If Caymanians want more than the minimum wage to live on – try to stop living on minimum skills and education! Spend some time upskilling and continuing education and stop expecting to build an empire and raise a family on minimum wage. There should be no Caymanian who deems ”an increase in minimum wage” to be their only and last hope for a higher income, home ownership and support for their family. I mean, seriously?
We can’t say “the minimum wage is impossible to live on”, because thousands of people are, in fact, living on it.
We can say that they do not live at a level we would want to live at, or that our contrymen and women ought to live at, but they are evidently better off here on minimum wage than at home on an even lower one, or they would not be here. (If anyone is here against their will that is a human rights abuse, nothing to do with the level of minimum wage).
If you increase minimum wage, the increase will probably go to three places: landlords, cost of living and remittances. There is no evidence that increasing the minimum wage will go to increasing low paid workers’ living standards.
That does not mean that it should not be increased, but we should make sure that what we are proposing works in theory and accomplishes the goals of the policy. Increase the minimum wage by $1, monitor the impact on each of these factors and see what happens. If the goals are achieved and downsides immaterial, consider another increase. If they are not, stop.
If the goal is to help Caymanians, the Ministers are correct. Increasing the min wage across the board will increase the cost of living for everyone, transfer wealth from Caymanians to non-Caymanians, increase the economic leakage from remittances, and, quite possibly, have no impact whatsoever on living standards.
I wish Justin ran with one of the other parties. He doesn’t sound like a PPM person. He seems more suited to one of the other parties.
That’s how they get you. Silver tongue to match the silver dagger they leave in our backs.
Being a PPM candidate makes Justin complicit with the low life PPM have taken on board.
Can’t vote for any of their team members.
At least the people know exactly who Justin is aligned with. Jay told North Siders that he was working with PPM the last election and then joined PACT. We all know why.
Jay was part of 2 failed governments and we all know why.
Why don’t you ask Jay right now who he would form the government with IF elected. I’m waiting!!!
If Jay will join whoever is in a position to form the government, there is a chance that that is *not* PPM, so by default he gets my vote. If someone comes right out the gates and says they’re on-board with PPM’s direction of continuing to sell out our country, they are a non-starter for me. After decades of watching the PPM run our island into the ground, it’s honestly that simple of a decision for me (and many others).
A Better Business Bureau, or other consumer-feedback sorting mechanism would really help clean out some of the unregulated contracting companies, run as hobby hustles, that lure hatfuls of unskilled laborers to Cayman, to reside in grubby accommodation, and ride in flatbeds to skilled trade job sites pretending to know what to do. A minimum living wage, would require more recruitment filtering, that lazy side-hustle business owners don’t know how, or want to do. Sometime we get lucky, most of the time, the client suffers for it – having to pay three or more times to get the same task done.
the minister said that increasing the minimum wage would push up the cost of living, largely because Caymanians would not be able to afford a helper.
Has anyone with this view ever wondered about what the “helper” can afford?
Do we as a people feel proud of building a country on the backs of people whom we will send back to their home country to live in abject poverty with no pension when they are no longer able to perform menial tasks for $6 per hour?
If you can’t afford a helper clean your own home. Simple.
slave ownership alive and well in Cayman! For Caymanians
“Caymanians”
A French community avoided 173 tons of landfill food waste by giving everyone a chicken – sounds perfect for Cayman. Domesticate the feral chickens; food security and reduced landfill in one!
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250317-these-european-towns-in-france-and-belgium-hand-out-free-chickens
These are what I call “paycheck candidates “. They are just looking for easy money for the next 4 years.
They have the support from legions of side hustling companies run by public servants and others.
Time was when Cayman men went to sea or overseas to work in the US young, and Cayman woman ran the home, raised children and grew food. An island famed for hard working people who made do with little. Now according to Jay the world will come to an end if Cayman families cant have a helper.
At 302pm
What i also noticed was Jay kept saying what we need to do, what we need to do, what we need to do, and if he is re-elected he will look into this and look into that. Can somebody tell me who was there for the last 4 years? And why Jay wasnt saying what he did to actually resolve the national issues?
I remember him also saying that what you need in govt is people who can agree on issues. Does he not realize that he played right into PPM hands with that response?
Whilst wearing a watch worth over 20k!! you couldn’t make it up.
Let’s not keep the NS vote as a popularity contest. Vote for someone with brains. Vote for Justin.
Justin , like everyone else, has more brain than Jay, but Justin brings with him Kenneth Mac Jujudas DuhWayne and cruise piers and Saunders and so on.
Rather have Jay in that case.
To 5:08pm: if Justin gets elected, it doesn’t mean the rest of the crooks will too. Vote for who is best for your constituency. 👍🏻
Not Mac and from what I have heard Kenneth and Jay weren’t getting along. All 3 parties have candidates that are solid but not one party has the perfect mix. If Justin is elected he will be a valuable contributor to serve the people of this country and that is key. We need MPs with morals and business ethics.
Anyone who has a helper and pays CI$6 an hour should be ashamed of themselves. Are there Caymanians that pay people that? I don’t know. But if there are they certainly keep quiet about it.
On Sundays and holidays too.
Agree completely, we pay $12/hour plus bonus.
Yes unfortunately the Forum did not allow for a debate.
Jay incorrectly blamed the inability to complete the houses in North Side on NHDT’s failure to produce financials which is completely false. NHDT produced audited financials with unqualified opinions however they didn’t file Annual Reports.
So what is Jay’s excuse for his entire ministry not producing financial records since 2022 as reported by the OAG???
He talked about being accountable but he is not accountable to the people of this country for failing to complete audits since 2022!
Jay claimed he is not part of any special interests and doesn’t cater to the elite yet under his watch luxury condo developments are increasing and many other large projects are getting the green light.
Jay talked about deporting people whereas Justin spoke about using Immigration data to determine how to place Caymanians in jobs.
Jay talked about kids wanting to be firefighters whereas Justin tackled the lack of STEM in the education system and that jobs are not aligned with the economy. Justin spoke about how to get our kids workforce ready.
Jay refuses to release the housing policy and claims he wrote the food security policy. Has anyone seen that or has it borne fruit?
I am glad Justin brought to light the “bullying and favourtism that has crept into politics”.
I have heard story after story about projects for certain individuals being stopped altogether if they are not aligned with the Minister. That is bullying.
The favourtism can be referenced to the fact that both Jay’s teenage kids got jobs in government, his wife and cousin work in the district office too.
So Jay your track record of helping who you want and when you want is evident to many.
You built a basketball court but who is running programs??
Name one business that has opened in the district under your watch.
Jay why don’t you tell the people the real reason why those houses in North Side aren’t completed and ready for occupancy. Unfortunately as the audits haven’t been done since 2022 the people won’t know until its too late. PPM bought the land and had a plan for the site and you took it and changed the design of the houses etc. so the project costs have sky rocketed.
The fact remains that Jay was part of 2 failed governments. He is only running as an Independent as PPM, TCCP
or CINP do not have him on their ticket so how will he represent if elected and what does he stand for??
PPM Justin won’t want to upset his friend Dumdum’s profits by wanting to increase min wage…
I’m finding these debates hard to watch. The candidates so far are clearly in it for the salary. I haven’t heard them make one sensible solution.
Most of us remain cannon fodder, or even just the unimportant minutiae of the MP’s existence.
Justin answered the questions and offered solutions. It shows that he is an analytical thinker and a great problem solver.
The last time he ran and offered a road map Jay implemented some of them so he was wise this time to provide insights without giving away the farm.
Keep in mind that the candidate you vote for might end up with a ministry and might have to go overseas to represent the Cayman Islands. We form cabinet with our lil’ yellow pencils so… vote carefully.