‘Tighten entry’ - by Colville Mounsey October 31, 2019

The recent calls from Opposition Senator Caswell Franklyn for Government to tighten the screws on work permits issued to non-nationals outside of the region, have received support from Barbados’ Ambassador to CARICOM David Comissiong.

This morning the Ambassador told Barbados TODAY that with the employment pool extended as a result of the free movement of skilled labour within CARICOM, there are very few jobs which would require international expertise to fill.

“In terms of the work permits situation in Barbados, we tend to find that the vast majority of these are issued to non-CARICOM foreigners. I would like to think that as we build our Caribbean community and as we deepen our CARICOM Skills National programme, we must begin to see more CARICOM nationals rather than non-CARICOM foreigners coming into Barbados to fill whatever deficiencies we may have in terms of skilled workers,” said Comissiong.

He noted that an examination of the immigration statistics for the last year, would go a long way in determining if there is a widespread problem with the issuance of work permits. However, he contended that the current legislation governing work permits, may need to be adjusted in order to safeguard local and CARICOM development goals.

“It would be interesting to look at the statistics as it relates to work permits issued in the last year to see if we have been making any progress in this regard. I would agree that we should all be thinking about replacing the issuing of work permits to non-CARICOM foreigners with Barbadians and our CARICOM brothers and sisters who are part and parcel of the single market and single economy that we are building,” he said.

Earlier this month, Franklyn, a veteran trade unionist highlighted the issue as being especially problematic in the hotel sector. He contended that while low level local hotel staff were being treated like “dirt”, top level positions were being filled by outside labour, some of whom he argued, “know nothing about what they are doing”.

During his contribution in the Upper Chamber during debate on the Barbados Tourism Product Authority Amendment Bill 2019, Franklyn said he had encountered hotels employing human resource managers from as far away as Egypt.

“I don’t know of any Egyptian who is more familiar with Barbados’ labour laws than the Barbadians who have been doing it for all of these years, but this is happening in the tourism sector in Barbados,” he said.

The General Secretary of the Unity Trade Union charged that fraudulent tactics were being used to keep non-nationals employed and he claimed that in some cases the high-level staff from overseas were more likely to disregard labour laws.  A week prior to broaching the issue from the floor of the Senate, Franklyn blasted attempts by North American club-style retailer, Cost U Less, to fill the position of store manager with an overseas applicant after claiming to have found no suitable candidates locally.

This morning Comissiong told Barbados TODAY that Government needed to keep a close eye on the situation, as this, if true, runs counter to national and regional development.

“Our goal should be to provide all of the skilled labour that we need from within our own nation and CARICOM community. This should be one of the benchmarks that we keep in mind and that we keep track of to determine to what extent we are making progress,” he stressed.
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