Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley has defended workers’ rights to pay and has advised them to educate themselves on the conditions and provisions surrounding such rights.

“Once a worker has done the work, the employer must pay money on time. The employer must not take money from their pay packet without proper authority,” Mottley said yesterday, reinforcing the provisions set out in the Protection of Wages Bill, 2026, which was later passed after extensive debate in two successive sittings of the House.

Mottley explained the legislation “recognises the imbalance between the relationship between employer and employee and seeks to level that playing field, such that advantage is not taken of the workers, and that if it is, the employer must face real consequences when the law is broken”.