Bakers Raise Concerns Despite Supporting The Minimum Wage

“Before you even bite a piece of that bread, half of it has already been paid for,” Minister for Commerce Emma Hippolyte told reporters last week with an obvious chuckle.

Hippolyte was at the time responding to a reporter’s question on correspondence from the Saint Lucia Bakers Association on the impact the minimum wage and inputs was having.

She also reiterated the heavily subsidized flour (and sugar) to bakers.

In 2020 Government increased the flour subsidy for bakers from EC$12 to EC$17 as a direct response to the impact from Covid.

Then on January 1, 2023, Government approved the increase in price of controlled bread, namely sliced pan and creole loaves.

The last increase was in 2008.

However, the recent implementation of the minimum wage has resulted in an increase in operations bakers say.

“Very early the bakers were worried that all their members might not be able to meet the minimum wage,” Hippolyte told reporters last week.

“As you know when you look at  bakeries around the island you have large, medium and small… and so the very small bakers, how can we assist them so that they can navigate the  minimum wage,” she added.

St. Lucia Times has since spoken to the president of the Saint Lucia Bakers Association, Anthony Bosquet about their concerns.

“The bakers association received notification of a consultation which took place on May 22, 2024. This was relative to the minimum wage and was led by the minimum wage commission. At that time the baking industry had not examined the impact as an industry, so we took in all the information and we went back, we discussed with members and for us there were a few things, in that our industry was different,” Bosquet says.

“We are not at liberty for example to adjust prices since two of the products the pan bread and the creole loaves are priced controlled,” he explained.

According to Bosquet, for such an industry any impacts on costs cannot be automatically handled with an increase in prices.

“Some of our businesses by the way implemented the minimum wage even before the October implementation,” he informed St. Lucia Times.

“However since that time a few of the bakeries have reached out to us in terms of their increase in cost and that includes an increase in the cost of security as well, up by twenty percent in some cases,” he says.

“So then we wrote to the ministry in  October, seeking some additional information and advising of the impacts we were seeing regarding a large bakery versus smaller bakeries,” Bosquet says.

One of the areas of discussion for the association is the salary bands within businesses which have seen not only persons who were previously below the minimum wage receiving increases, but also those already above the minimum wage.

The Bakers President believes that another area that was not properly considered was the overall compensation package some companies may give to an employee.

He told St. Lucia Times that the association has made some recommendations to Government but was not at liberty to disclose what those were at this time.

The Bakers association comprises approximately fifty  bakeries and seeks to make representation on behalf of members to Government and other agencies. The Association also speaks to standards, quality and customer service.

Besides the rising cost of production, bakers say they are facing the challenge of recruiting young bakers and crime.

“Off the top of my head I cannot think of any of our members who have not been affected by crime, including robberies and again this has caused an increase in security. The difficult part is that we do not get any closure since these crimes are hardly ever solved,” Bosquet says.

However he says that members are aware of the importance of their service despite trying times.

The Bakers Association president told St. Lucia Times that there is an excellent working relationship with the Department of Commerce. He reiterated support for minimum wage, saying that whatever the outcome of recommendations it will be to mitigate the impact on bakers overall and taking into consideration consumers as well.