ST JAMES, Jamaica — Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett has indicated the Government’s intention to remove the tax on gratuities for workers in the tourism industry.

He argued that the move will increase the workers’ take home pay by almost 100 per cent.

“We are determined, for example, that the gratuity, which we know is theirs (tourism workers), must be given to them in full. However you do the arrangements to enable it, yes, enable it, because once you do that, the immediate take home pay for the worker will almost double, and it will change the arrangements and will reduce the space for others to intervene and foment instability,” Bartlett said.

He was speaking at the Golden Tourism Day Awards at the Montego Bay Convention Centre on Sunday night.  Tourism workers who dedicated 50 years or more of outstanding services were honoured during the ceremony.

Bartlett insisted that the labour market in the tourism industry must be improved.

“I just want you to appreciate that that pivot must take place. The labour market arrangements in tourism needs total reformation, and the current little situations that we’re experiencing of some level of instability in the labour market arrangements, definitely the industrial relations situation, we have to fix. And as your minister, we are going to work together to fix it. We are going to make the workers of the tourism industry in Jamaica feel good about being part of this great industry. Your industry,” the tourism minister said.