British farm labour programme could expand

Hundreds more Barbadians stand to benefit from increased job opportunities in the United Kingdom if Government is able to convert the pilot Farm Labour Programme into a permanent undertaking next year.

According to Christopher Griffith, the Barbados-born British-based independent consultant in charge of the UK Farm Labour Programme while 105 Barbadians found jobs during the six-month season that started in March, he expects those numbers and earnings to double next year.

“People sometimes look down on people who work in the fields, but these people are coming up here, once they have the right attitude and earning a minimum of 500 pounds a week easily. The average earning for people who had the manual labour background was an average of 300 pounds easily. If you look at the level of remittances, even if you take a minimum average of 200 pounds per week, they would have earned over a million dollars in Barbados currency which they send back to Barbados every month,” said Griffith, a consultant for Concordia, a 70-year-old charity which supplies workers for the programme.

He pointed out that the figures were conservative and do not factor in the multiplier effect once the money arrives in Barbados.

“When that money comes into Barbados, that money is going to expand because it is going to be used to pay expenses, rent, paying off debt, whatever. I know some people send back to their husbands and their wives. The contribution to the local economy is considerable. So that is another factor to bear in mind,” he told Barbados TODAY.

The consultant also revealed that a major shortage of workers in the UK has created tremendous job opportunities for Barbadians to fill in such areas outside of the fields as administration, driving and supervisory.

“We are going to plan for next year. The only thing we can see happening is that we can see the demand growing. The UK is finding itself at the moment in a situation because of Brexit, that the labour force that the Eastern European countries used to supply has vanished. So we are having shortages now across multiple sectors in the UK; transportation, drivers, hospitality, people working in hotels, care sector, things of this nature. The farming sector has not been exempted,” Griffith disclosed.

“I believe easily next year, with the right set of people who have a desire to work, we could double the number of Barbadians working on the Farm Labour Programme. Once we get the people who have a desire to work, acknowledge it is hard work, people who previously worked in manual labour, former Canadian Farm Labour workers, we can get these people in the UK,” he stated.

“I might seem overly optimistic, but I just think that some of the demands this year which were not satisfied, we can potentially double the programme next year easily,” Griffith suggested.

“Because Barbadians went into supervisory positions on the farms, driving roles on the farms, people have seen now that we can work,” he added.

In fact, he disclosed that other non-farm employment was in the process of being opened up on Jersey and Guernsey, two sister islands off the British mainland.

Griffith said considering that Barbadians are currently the only nationals from the English-speaking Caribbean legally allowed to work on the UK Farm Labour Programme, priority would be given to them when the new jobs in construction, home care and hospitality become available.

“For the first time my company has broken into Jersey. There are two islands in the channel; very upper end islands where a lot of people that are wealthy live. Because of that, they have had an issue with labour. So they have a shortage of construction workers, home care assistants and even hospitality workers,” he disclosed.

“I am working with an entity there now to bring in Barbadians to work in positions on those two islands,” Griffith announced.

with agricultural or field work backgrounds would be chosen to work on the farms.

“Even though during the interview some Barbadians said they were hard workers, what I realized was that when some of them came on the farm they could not cope with the manual labour involved. So what we are going to do is use previous Canadian Farm Labour Programme workers.

“The Canadian Farm Labour Programme is now dwindling and we will use people who have an agricultural background in Barbados and we will use people who come from a manual labour background. That was the key thing missing this year,” Griffith contended.

And Minister of Labour and Social Partnership Relations Colin Jordan said workers returning from the UK on the pilot programme are currently being debriefed by the Barbados Employment and Career Counselling Service so that a clear picture can be obtained of the working conditions in the UK.

“This information is critical in order to allow us to fix the challenges that exist. And we will fix those issues. The department has also been liaising with the Barbados High Commission in the UK to assist us with addressing some of the current complaints,” Minister Jordan told Barbados TODAY.

“The department is in the final stages of determining the structure of the programme and the people resources we will need on the ground as we seek to transition from the pilot programme to a permanent programme. This is likely to mean that we have a permanent presence similar to what we have in Canada and in the USA,” he said.

Jordan said the ministry was significantly strengthening its orientation process and programme.

“It is evident that we need to do a better job in that area. We will engage some resources from outside of the department to ensure that we prepare our workers in the best way possible for the work environment that they will be going to,” he stated.

The labour minister said the government was also determining the farms with which it will work.

“The Ministry of Labour and Social Partnership Relations have the legal authority to assist financially [Barbadians who can’t afford to buy plane tickets]. That obviously depends on available resources. We are considering providing some assistance to workers. Given the level of funding available, we are being careful in how we make assessments,” Jordan added.
(emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb)