In 1974, a slew of changes from the then Jamaican government, ushered in a new era of quasi-socialism for Jamaica. Free uniforms, minimum wage limits, investment in agriculture, and, importantly, the reverting of bauxite lands, back into Jamaican hands, all brought a return to a sort of nationalism, and hope for a brighter future.

Published Thursday, May 30, 1974

TURNING POINT IN JAMAICA’S HISTORY

PM: BAUXITE LANDS TO BE IN JAMAICAN HANDS

• National Minimum Wage
• Local Govt tax reform
• Free primary school uniforms
• Street market for vendors
• New mental health law
• Subsidy on fertilizers
• Prime lands for sugar workers
• Compulsory recognition of unions
• 5 complexes for small industrialists
• Family Courts

 

A NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE LAW which will also set maximum working hours for all categories of workers in Jamaica will come into effect by December 1, Prime Minister, the Hon. Michael Manley announced to the House of Representatives and the nation on May 29, 1974

The announcement came as a highpoint of a five-and-a-half-hour Budget presentation, in which the Prime Minister also announced implementation of certain aspects of Local Government reform this year, salary increases for nurses, increases in NIS pensions, the extension of free education to handicapped children, and subsidies on the prices of all fertilizers for farmers.

Other new measures will Increase allowances to indigents, establish street markets for sidewalk vendors, create five complexes for small businessmen; set up a farming project for young farmers at Montpelier as well as a scheme for co-operative ownership of prime sugar land by sugar workers in St. Catherine, Clarendon and Westmoreland and also wage increases-to workers of Statutory bodies.

In a speech ranting over the broad spectrum of national affairs, the Prime Minister dealt with human resource development, detailing a new thrust in the literacy drive, reiterating the commitment to a compulsory National Youth Service and proclaiming a new emphasis on sports that will devote more finances to grassroot development.

 

On bauxite, Mr Manley said the recent happenings may become a turning point in Jamaica's history and he invited the companies "to share in a future of dynamic partnership” with Jamaica.

The revenue side is settled and done with, the Prime Minister said. They were now looking to bring the land back into Jamaican ownership at "a fair price."  All future new operations would only be on the basis of majority ownership by the Jamaican people.

 

NON-UNIONISED WORKERS

 

Establishment of a National Minimum Wage Law was designed, Mr Manley said, to provide for the 450,000 members of the labour force who are now without union protection.

The draft law will go before the Labour Advisory Council on Monday. It will empower the Minister of Labour to make minimum wage orders for the whole nation along with national regulations affecting working hours.

A three-man Advisory Commission will be created to advise the Minister on a full-time basis. The chairman will be named by Government and the other two from panels recommended by the trade unions and employers organisations.

The timetable towards enactment of the law is as follows;

After a study by the Labour Advisory Council, the bill will be brought to Parliament no later than August 1. It will be referred to a select committee of the House and two months later the law will be passed — by October 1.

For eight weeks thereafter the Advisory Commission will conduct hearings of submissions from interested bodies as to what should be appropriate levels for the national minimum wage and what would be proper regulations in respect of working hours.

The Commission will then advise the Minister and a decision .taken at Cabinet level in time for the proclamation by law of a 'national minimum wage and maximum working hours to come into effect by December 1.

LOCAL GOVT. REFORM

The machinery for specific trades will be retained with a permanent advisory group taking the place of the independent members who are appointed under the Minimum Wage Law.

In announcing aspect of Local Government reform the Prime Minister said a Green Paper would be brought to Parliament embodying four principles which government had decided.

(1) Councillors -will continue to serve without payment but allowances have been increased.

(2) An area of autonomy in taxation, matters will be given to Local Government authorities.

(3) They will have areas of action without Central Government interference.

(4) The local authorities will sit by themselves without the presence of Members of Parliament.

Public discussion will be invited on the proposals around the firm commitment by Government to the four principles which constitute new policy.

The Prime Minister announced these new allowances for mayors, their deputies and for councillors:

Effective April 1 travelling allowances which are now 25 cents for the first mile with 12 cents for each mile thereafter will be standardized at 37.5 cents per mile.

Allowances for travelling in rural divisions will be increased from $200 to $300 and subsistence has been increased from $2.50 per day to $6 per day.

Mayors’ allowances are adjusted as follows: the KSAC from $3,900 to $6,500; Montego Bay from $2,000 to $6,000; Spanish Town and St. Ann’s Bay from $2,000 to $5,500; other mayors from 2,000 to $4,500.

Allowance to Deputy Mayors will be increased in the KSAC from $600 to $1,500; in Montego Bay from $400 to $1,000; in Spanish Town and St. Ann’s Bay from $400 to $850; and the others from $400 to $700.

All the proposals will be brought to Parliament for approval.

SIDEWALK VENDORS

To tackle the problem of sidewalk vendors the Prime Minister said it had been decided to block off certain streets in big towns as market streets. Stalls will be built, water coolers and sanitation facilities will be provided as well as special street cleaning forces and a fee will be charged to the vendors.

Among the new projects to be launched this year are five multiple-occupant factory complexes to be sited at the Kingston Industrial Estate, at Glendevon in Montego Bay; in Central Kingston; at Hague in Falmouth; and in Manchester.

A total of $2 million will be spent on the projects which will provide for small businessmen managerial guidance and expert organization of materials arid other aspects of his business.

Developments in Agriculture this year will see 10,000 farmers on 25,000 acres under Project Land Lease. Project Food Farms will see 11,000 acres under production by year-end.

The latest project, however, will involve the opening up of new land that had originally been intended for cattle development. Instead, 6,000 acres will be developed at Montpelier to be called the Cornwall Youth and Community. Development Project for food crops, forestry and livestock farming. Some 1,300 young farmers will be settled on the project over the next three to four years.

In another agricultural venture, the Frome/Monymusk Land Company will supervise a scheme of co-operative ownership of sugar lands by sugar workers at Salt Pond (Bernard Lodge); Morelands (Monymusk) and Baraham (Frome).

Farmers are also to get a general subsidy of 331/3% on the ex-factory price of all fertilizers at a cost of $2.3m to Government which will go up to a limit of $3 million to accommodate price changes.

FAMILY COURT

The Prime Minister announced also that a Family Court will be established this year to deal with matters of adoption maintenance and affiliated matters. The concept involved is that all problems of the family relating to the law should be handled by this court to foster the idea of the judicial process being set up as an agency of help.

Amendments will also be introduced in the Mental Health Law. The big change will require that when a constable apprehends a person thought to be mentally ill the person is not to be taken to jail but to a clinic or hospital until he can be seen by a doctor for treatment to be determined.

Persons voluntarily entering mental institutions may do so at the expense of the Government and panels of doctors will be named to diagnose instances of suspected mental illness.

In other welfare measures the Prime Minister announced an increase in basic pensions under the National Insurance Scheme from $3 weekly to $4 weekly, the Increase to be retroactive to April 1.

Welfare payments to the aged and indigent will be increased from $4 per fortnight to S5 and the number of persons to get assistance goes up from 13,000 to 24,000.

In dealing with human resource development, Mr Manley said the Government was working toward an ultimate objective where it would be unnecessary to have what he called “reclamation education” in institutions such as youth camps and trade training centres and all training needs would be taken care of by the formal education system.

With all existing voluntary agencies to be registered with the Ministry of Youth and Community Development a three-tier level of activity would be established involving the Literacy Programme, the Community Youth Centres and finally the Trade Training Centres.

Mr Manley said the early difficulties of the Literacy Programme had been identified, reorganization instituted and it was now set to move. A total of 5,000 volunteer teachers were now being trained by 53 teacher trainers, another 100 of whom were needed.

VOLUNTEER TEACHERS

By next year 150 full-time day centres will be established; there will be 120 young people in each centre; 5,000 night classes are to be organized on a parish basis, and 200 in-house day classes are to be organised in factories and places of business.

In the community centres there will be a total of 3,100 enrolled and in vocation training centres a total of 2,200.

The Prime Minister said the National Youth Service was put on a compulsory basis because “we are trying to create a new generation of people in Jamaica, who begin with an understanding that we live in society, that we owe a responsibility to society and that service is the way in which we express the brotherhood of man, the sisterhood of woman and the love of country”.

He said that the young people of the country were overwhelmingly behind the programme and it would eventually embrace all persons at age 18, the limitations at present being because of limited resources and management leadership.

On formal education, the Prime Minister said the free education policy was costing over $4 million and not $2 million as Mr Edward Seaga had suggested.

The first Common Entrance Examination under this policy provided for entry on a basis of pure merit with 4,504 places being awarded. It worked but that 72% of the places went to primary school students without the artificial barrier of the 70/30 system having to stipulate the distribution. Next year September because of free education the intake will go up from 4,500 to 6,000.

FREE UNIFORMS

This September a remedial reading programme will be introduced into the later grades of the primary school to eliminate the incidence of functional illiterates emerging from the school system.

This year also free school uniforms will be provided for all the 450,000 primary school children.

What Mr Manley described as "the greatest single educational advance in this history of the country" is the provision whereby 19,000 in Junior Secondary schools would remain a further two years after age 17 to acquire “life skills”- being taught the principles of good citizenship, discipline, attitudes to work and the like.

This year also, instead of the 3,000 in 1971 that went on to higher training after primary school the number would be 31,000.

On culture and art, Mr Manley said that a National Gallery of Art would be established at Devon House to accommodate the outpourings of national talent.

Sport development would follow a trend away from emphasis on what Mr Manley described as the “star system” to greater financial investment in grassroots development, some $500,000 being allocated.

National Sports Ltd would be the central co-ordinating agency with the implementing arms being the traditional sporting associations on the one hand and the Social Development Commission on the other.

Development of the Agency for Public Information would transform that body into something beyond a Government information agency into an agency to promote things like public dialogue and adult education.

The JBC would be getting $1 million in new capital for major reorganization and refinancing, among other things to improve reception facilities in remote areas.

NO WAGE FREEZE

Reacting to criticisms from the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Manley said the Government was not planning a wage freeze. He cited statistics of the record of the Government in granting wage increases of some 90% at the lowest unskilled level in two years as against a rise in the cost of living of 40%. This he said compared with a 44% increase at the unskilled level between 1962 and 1972 exists as against a 45% COL rise over the period.

He announced at this stage wage increases for workers employed to statutory bodies and the Local government interim payments pending their reclassification as well as the increases to nurses which he said would give them $435,000 in one year.

What Government was proposing, he said, was a wages policy involving a planned approach to basic problems in the wage structure as between different sectors and also involving considerations of efficiency and productivity and how to get the earnings of the better paid, funnelled into savings.

In 1973, Mr Manley said, $16 million of wages were provided, under Government employment programmes and the figure will be increased this year to 37 million.

In response to suggestions that had been made by the Rt. Hon. Hugh Shearer in his Budget speech on Tuesday Mr Manley said he had given instructions for investigations to be made to determine an appropriate allowance for students in Trade Training Centres. 

On another suggestion regarding Government subsidy for interest rates for low-income housing, Mr Manley said the National Planning Agency had been instructed to collaborate with the Ministries of Finance and Housing to investigate that idea.

Reacting to suggestions about fear of the Gun Court Mr Manley emphasised that the law applied to everyone, Politicians should not depart from the path of principles because of personal friendship, he said.

Much of the investigation had revealed that crime was being manipulated by “Mr Big” operators on behalf of organized forces abroad. An international conspiracy was at work and the Government intended to get to the bottom, he said.

LONG FIGHT

Progress in the battle against crime indicated that they were winning and had turned the corner although a long fight lay ahead. In a brief foray into foreign policy, the Prime Minister spoke in defence of the oil-producing countries and what their action in raising oil prices had meant for the relationship between the developed and the developing world.

“The metropolitan world must realize that the day of exploitation of the rest of us is done”, he said and went on to develop the theme in connection with Jamaica’s own involvement with the bauxite companies.

“In this context foreign policy means that the poor countries have to unite to boost their bargaining power in trade”. He defended the frequent trips abroad by Senator Dudley Thompson as the standard-bearer of the mission of Third World economics.

Bauxite lands would be reverted to Jamaican ownership, he said, and a fair price would be paid for it. The companies could have whatever ore they wanted to produce.

“We invite the companies to share a future of dynamic partnership”, he said pointing to the coming negotiations on participation in ownership.

Answering some criticisms in the foreign press about Jamaica’s attitude in the bauxite situation, Mr Manley cited the steep increases in wheat, soya and other imports that had inflated the cost of living.

“In return for that battering we are taking our share for our bauxite”, Mr Manley said.

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