Final decision on minimum wage expected in September

A final proposal for the creation of a minimum wage is expected to be forwarded to the president in September by Labour Minister Kyriacos Koushios, the federation of independent trade unions Poaso said on Monday after a meeting with him.

Poaso met Koushios on Friday to discuss developments surrounding the national minimum wage.

Poaso said it foresaw a satisfactory outcome to establish a decent living standard for workers as well as in establishing a threshold that companies will be able to pay without endangering their survivability, while at the same time eliminating unfair competition since companies will no longer be able to provide disparate salaries.

At the meeting, the two methods of determining a median salary, either based on data from the social insurance fund or via data from EU-SILC, were also discussed.

“We hope that in the final stage of the consultation no new claims will be made on behalf of the employers’ organisation, hindering the implementation of a measure which admittedly improves the incomes and living standards of the most economically vulnerable workers, prevents unfair competition between businesses while favouring honest and proper employers,” Poaso concluded.