Multiyear work permits for expats bad for locals — Labour Commish
Acting Labour Commissioner Michelle McLean has suggested that multiyear work permits for expatriate workers may put locals at a disadvantage in the workforce.
While acknowledging in a recent virtual stakeholders meeting that there are provisions currently in the labour Code to implement three-year work permits, McLean was hesitant about using this as an across-the-board measure to alleviate the significant backlog faced by her department.
“I think we would have to look at the specific industry… because doing so would place BVIslanders/Belongers at a disadvantage,” McLean said while responding to a resident who proposed for the department to use multiyear permits.
She continued: “You would appoint somebody with a three-year work permit and a BVIslander/Belonger may want to come home, they desire to go into another job and because of that, they are unable to.”
McLean told stakeholders that she felt there couldn’t be a blanket approach to addressing the particular challenge of processing work permits quickly. She said a clause may need to be implemented to somehow push the Labour Department to process permits in a workable timeframe.
Meanwhile, Labour Minister Vincent Wheatley said he was in agreement with the Labour Commissioner on the matter and shared her concerns.
“We have to make sure that as we get our Labour Force organised, that at the same time, we don’t disenfranchise the locals,” Minister Wheatley stated.
The minister said he agreed, though, that the proposal of multi-year work permits was something worth exploring deeper and expressed that it may work as a short term solution.
“In the short term, if somebody is going to get a two-year permit or you decide a certain number gets two years, it’s going to cut down on the congestion in the office for next year,” he shared.
The Labour Department has come in for considerable flack over the last few months for months-long delays in renewing work permits and approving new ones.
A new system that allows for online work permit applications to be processed has been riddled with challenges since its implementation. This has been cited as the main reason for the backlog.
The Labour Commissioner also argued that the new system required duplication of efforts on the part of an already severely short-staffed department.
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I second the motion and I approved this message
Education is the key to success, stop your dependency and improve yourself academically ability so that you will standout in the work force market. It is stiff competition and soon most people will be working from their homes as technology advance. Education and ignorance are to different meaning.
Just wait and see if the BVI is really for BVIslanders and not the man with the knowledge;
PROTECTIONISM
This most certainly is NOT protecting the economy in this situation. This is a disservice to the Virgin Islands and all her residents.
We love you Mrs Mcclean for looking out for us locals because you’re the lone voice in the wilderness.
Yes! We should make daily work permits – just in case anyone else wants the jobs.
Brilliant… NOT!
As a Belonger I am ashamed and embarrassed by the lack of vision and harmful protectionism demonstrated by those in charge. They have no clue that it is impossible to grow a business without stability in the work force, and without growth BVIslanders and Belongers are harmed. Short term protectionism for long term stagnation.
One is always disliked whenever they try to protect their own, why is that?
how?? hidden racism simple as that / the people from here always has the FIRST PREFERENCE , all our ancestors came down on the slave ships families was separated and sent everywhere
It’s our country, fool.
Who is looking out for the graduates and the returnees??
Mehson we dont owe these people nothing.
“ You would appoint somebody with a three-year work permit and a BVIslander/Belonger may want to come home”
MAY. Passing up a sure for a maybe
As already mentioned, short term protectionism for long term stagnation.
I like this lady because she is not afraid to speak out for her people unlike those other set of coward bvislanders who afraid to protect them own
She got gutz….I wish she was the minister….We need more brave patriotic souls like her.
For the past couple days this lady always making the news talking nonsense I guess that’s all she can do with a low performance.
Her body language was appalling, to say the least in that virtual meeting.
Does she clearly dislike expats?
Show me where a BVIslander says I want this expat job in the private sector, and the private sector will say ok I agree. Replace a dependable expat who has worked for me for 10 years maybe more for uncertainty?
Stop the madness.
The Govt may be the only place where this is happening and rightfully so.
Stop killing the economy with the nonsensical things you guys are coming up with.
Did not come away from the stakeholders meeting exactly “thrilled” with the political nor the professional leadership and management at Labour.
The meeting was more of an excuse to be able to say, “We are listening to your needs and responding,” without doing either.
Crippling businesses while they wait for those who MAY decide to return. MAY!
So what she is saying is that if you’re on an annual work permit they want to kick you out if someone wants to come “home”?
You mean business owners will have to train someone else again because someone wants to come “home”?
You’re saying you’re going to ruin someone’s life after a year because someone else wants to come home?
Sure, locals first. But if you’ve been abroad for years perhaps it’s not so weird you need to wait for a suitable job to come available instead of forcing your way into a business.
Or are local businesses and the labour department just in the slave trade business?
I don’t believe a word, tell me which department in the private sector allows for persons to get a three year work permit.
Number two your own department is short staffed and there is no expat position there, so why isn’t your department vacancies filled then? Is it expats stopping that. We come here with all kinds of excuses for our mistakes.
All of the law firms and trust companies. While the work permits are renewed yearly, they continue to be renewed, so they are for way more than three years in some cases, and they think they are entitled.
ayo outsiders think ayo goin come we run we outta here ayo lie?
Congratulations BVI Education system!
This exact what it comes down too… EDUCATION!
The Gov’t talks a good show about wanting more BVIslanders in managerial roles in the trust companies, yet how many barristers or chartered accountants do you see our schools producing?
A begets B. It’s a long row to hoe, but it’s how it works. Want to bet repairing the Little A Racetrack has greater priority than education?
Whenever Virgin Islanders take a Stand and speak up for Our Own, We are forever being criticized and downplayed by Non Belongers who came here for the betterment of their Lives from their Home destination that would not give Preferences to Virgin Islanders over their own Citizens. These are the few who always have NEGATIVE remarks about the VIRGIN ISLANDS. WHA MEK DEY DON’T OR CAN’T GO HOME AND LEAVE US ALONE! CHA MON!
This is nothing about not protecting BVIslanders. We act as if locals are only workers, in these scenarios a lot of the time locals are the employers that are seeking said permits. If I own a restaurant and bring a top chef from overseas after going through recruitment firms, travelling directly and sourcing the person that I want to run my establishment. Do you think after working with this person, investing heavily, creating a value added service, that it’s fair that my chef may not get their permit approved because a local chef looking to move back home from abroad wants a chef job? That’s fair to me as a local? The pendulum swings both ways, not one way. Local is no less of a local simply because they are wearing the employer’s hat. We always seem to think local = worker and it’s not true. Every business owner, local or expat has a right to run their business to provide stellar service and remain profitable and if that means employing a few expatriates on work permits then so be it. Welcome to the real world!
This is a British territory, and, being so, everyone lives here at Her Majesties pleasure. The US, UK and the EU do not discriminate between the locally born populations and legal residents, and, being British neither should the BVI. We are perhaps at the point where locals need to decide whether that want to cease their discriminatory / racist ways, or, find somewhere else to live, because THEY do not own this territory. Hopefully the UK will enforce such standards after the issuance of the COI report.
She continued: “You would appoint somebody with a three-year work permit and a BVIslander/Belonger may want to come home, they desire to go into another job and because of that, they are unable to.”
So, businesses should operate on the basis that a local ‘may’ want to return home and ‘deserve’ a job with them so hold a space? What the F**K is wrong with this lady??????? If you want to return home you plan, no job should be vacant waiting for anybody. What kind of dreamland bulls**t are we really dealing with in the BVI? Do you really think an employer will go through all the risk and expense to bring in an expat on permit if they have an equally or more qualified local that can do the task? We act as if locals are along the road begging in droves and cannot find jobs here. If you are honest with yourselves while there is some unfairness in the job place, majority of locals that want to work and have the right attitude are working. Some may not have the job they want, but they make do with it until they can find better. We are f**ked if we think simply being local will ensure that we have a job. Technology and COVID (remote working etc.) has made it even more so that physical employment will be reduced even more now so keep up the entitlement attitudes.
I think the best thing sometimes on subjects like this is silence and both sides stay on their side of the room. I am a local and proud. I have no problem, absolutely no problem with persons coming to my home for a better life. What I have a problem with is that they seem to hate their home so much that just the mere suggestion that I should have a right to jobs and promotions in my country makes them curse.
Mrs. McClean has a point, a very, very good point. Why? I will add to locals wanting to come home.
We have a lot of young people graduating High School and HLSCC who need an entry level position like I did back 40 years ago when I graduated. Most then meandered into higher positions in the same company based on job experience and others went off to College and returned, knowing that there will be jobs available in their homeland. 2022, well that is not so because we have opened the floodgates and all who enter are entitled and locals must be quiet as they are uneducated, dubm and stupid and let’s not forget, lazy.
Well being local may not guarantee that I have a job, but if there are jobs aplenty hell yeah I should get first preference and not an outsider. I am not even considered in lots of cases.
I will tell all who needs to hear this, a lot of our young people are being disenfranchised because of this rubber stamping that goes on at the work permit office. If one needs a boat cleaner, a waiter/waitress, a filing clerk, a babysitter, a banker, a boat captain, an accountant and they all have to be brought in from overseas, well nobody is training the local work force, are they? And exactly how much training does one need to clean, babysit and serve food? At the end of the day, before blogging, sit quietly and think about the sister or brother back home if they call you and tell you that the influx of Tortolians taking over their country they can’t get a promotion or even work to feed their families or their young people are wild on the streets as the competition for jobs is disenfranchising them. Everyone is not going to have a college degree and truth be told lots of people who move here to work does not. In fact, many don’t have a high school diploma. So curse if you like, but living and working in someone else’s country is a privelege and not a right. And yes, it is my privilege and my children’s children’s privilege to work and live happily in their country before this sorry world comes to an end.
The audacity of such thinking. Clearly, the colonial and anti-Virgin Islander/Black are dominant mental schemes, among others. How sad.
First, every word and thought espoused therein that comment are pregnant with anti- BVIslander hate and racism.
Second, only an evil devil would steal/thief a mans’ house and land, then turn and tell him to “find some where else to live.” How evil!
Please enlighten those undesirables with concrete facts as to how the UK legally came to be owners of these territories. They await truths and facts.
What is it you understand about being British and living in a British Territory, drop the ludicrous rhetoric and wake up to reality. And, as far as audacity is concerned, you appear to believe the US, UK and Europe are all wrong, suggest you stop living in a vacuum.
Yet to explain how legally and morally these territories became british territories.
Further, the US, UK and Europe, the spaniards and Portugese have been wrong since the day they made contact with people of color, whether Black or other.
That contact, to present, has been a complete nightmare for all non white people, history has shown..
I don’t think Obama, Colin Powell and dozens of other high ranking black government people would agree with you, perhaps you should not base the performance of the Black race on your own progress in life.
Typical laughable, puke promoting white male narrative.
Yes, that comment about sums you up.
Black human hating monger.
When a work permit is renewed it isnt re-advertised. Therefore the idea that a returning belonger might apply for that position is nonsense.
The 2010 Labor Code specically allowed for the issuance of three-year work permits. The legislators were clear that this is something they wished to see. The civil servants who run the ministry are deciding that they know better than the elected legislators by not issuing these permits.
If an employer pays a three-year permit this:
* improves government cashflow (as they get 300% of the fee now)
* reduces civil service administration time as no renewal process is made the following two years, leading to overall efficiencies, which in turn, improves government cashflow.
If the individual leaves the Territory before the end of the three-year period (as many will do), then this improves government revenue, as the Territory benefits from the over-paid fee and also gives the opportunity for an additional fee to be paid by the replacement work-permit holder.
Economically, there is simply no argument to be had here, not unless the systems of renewals is changed, but if that were to happen, then many senior executives will not consider locating to BVI because they will be worried (reasonably) that they may be kicked out after one year’s residency. This will be bad economically for the Territory as those people do create jobs, pay high taxes, rent expensive houses etc.
Thank you! The problem is we are so emotional about everything we lose sight of what’s practical and reality!!
how so will it affect locals? if the expat is renewing and get three years I don’t see a problem. If within that three years they get fired or resign the company can hire a local or someone else. If there is a new vacancy somewhere I do agree that locals should get first preference. Also someone need to look into this issue where locals keep jumping from one job to the next. some employers go all out and hired locals only to have them leaving to another job. this keep happening and it is just because local can do that because they need no permit. have anyone ever think about the employers facing these scenarios where they keep having to look for someone new.
Check your dissatisfaction variables.
more and more highing paying jobs are remote . locals can live in the bvi and work remotely and bring money into the bvi. vice versa bvi companies can outsource to remote workers. the key is a focus on quality education
Too bad the Minister and the Commissioner don’t see what a slap in the face they have given those who have made a commitment to be in the BVI, for an extended period of time. I first moved to the BVI in 2005, setting up a business with an investment of several hundred thousand dollars. A local, willing to make the same investment, could have undergone the training and set up exactly the same business, but it appeared none were willing to do so. My business used many local businesses, some Belonger owned, and some expat owned. I deprived no local of work, and brought quite a bit of business to the BVI and its people. There were definitely those who might have wanted my position, but none willing to make the investment.
In the intervening years, nothing has changed. The opportunity for a Belonger still exists, and it is still the case that none make the investment.
When I arrived, I went through the standard BVI quagmire to get a Trade License, Work Permit, and the rest. The work permit took months, and the Trade License took years. All done with, shall I say, deliberate inefficiency, to protect some non-existent local, in the hope that one might pop up, willing to invest what I was willing to. Never happened. Eventually, I was allowed to be a contributing member of the BVI community, from which both that community, and I, benefited. Arguably, the community benefited more, in fact. And that is fine. It’s how an integrated and interconnected world work. There is nothing special about the BVI that makes it exempt from this fact.
In most of the world, a community of 30,000 would constitute a small town. There would be a relatively small public sector. City Council members might not be paid, nor those on the School Board. Outsiders would be welcomed, because they would bring skills or jobs not previously present in the community, investment, and growth. Without those, the community would be stagnant.
Our community of 30,000 likes to take itself very seriously. We have a huge, well paid but only semi productive public sector. Our elected officials pull down salaries in six figures, before accounting for numerous perks. Many like to think of us as a country, not a territory! That is all well and good, but the numbers don’t change, nor do the economic facts of life. Country or not, we are still a very, very small community, even though we may be blessed with many unique things.
But, it still takes a long time to get anything done by the Public Sector, whether it be work permits, Trade Licenses, sometimes even answering the phone. Opportunities are wasted, and outsiders, who could help, are not welcomed, because he or she might keep a local from the prospective job. Mind you, that local has to not only be desirous of the position, but trained and competent to execute it, and, if necessary, willing to invest. I am guessing that those who are in this category are not sitting around without jobs, except very rarely. And, if they were, they could certainly be put to work in the Labour Department, which, according to the Commissioner, is sadly understaffed!
In the years since I first arrived, we have heard countless promises of improvement, new regulations, online processing, and minimum waiting times. Instead of that, we have an obviously very flawed online system that makes things worse (who designed that, I wonder?), a Minister who doesn’t appreciate outsiders, and a Commissioner who sees no reason to follow new and ezisting regulations that should have improved things. Sadly, there are quite a few in our society who approve of all this! All whilst benefitting from the contributions of people such as myself. Shame.
And, now, in the stakeholders Zoom meeting, a thoroughly discouraging session, we find that the “country” only has one person processing new applications, at any time. Either the Commissioner or her Deputy. To process the permits of the majority of the workforce? Out of all those public servants? With backlogs of months and months?
Please explain how this is reasonable, and not a woeful dereliction of duty? If you want to be serious, then get serious.
give all the work permit holders two consecutive three yrs and then they have to leave the country and reapplied if they are still interested in the job but only if a belonger or a bvi lander is not available and cannot take the job.this Island is to small for outside business to say and do what they want.
only people who are on contracts should be illegible for this
Why not offer multi year permits for expats that have been in the BVI for 5 years or more? Surely they have demonstrated their indispensability to the employer by simply being continuously employed for so long?
Do you know how much it cost me to move to these beautiful islands? I invested much of my savings then Irma hit and we all lost far too much. But I reinvested in staying. I invest my time in helping and training. You want to withdraw my work permit? Time to go where I am truly wanted!!
My Premier making me sad and making them happy
LOL
Not for BVIslanders, not for belongers, not for residents or visitors- for our competition. They also have to look after their local populations but do so in a fair and productive way. You know, the opposite of how we do it.
There are many jobs held by business owners that will never be filled by a Belonger do what’s the point in making them process every year ? Plus, it’s takes extra time for Labour to process those permits. Nobody but me as an owner will ever be qualified to take my job.
Thank you, Mrs. McLean for this voice of reason.
It’s been too long that we’ve had a candid discussion on this issue. I believe that many expatriate employers are really not interested in hiring Belongers.
They arrive with spoken premises of doing such, but then the vast assets of our people get in the way of truly wanting a Belonger workforce!
There is no way that employable Belongers could still be looking for work, if there was a willingness on the hirers to do so.
Continue, in your capacity, to protect our people.
I have never agreed to having a three year work permitting schedule. It should have been an annual affair.
Herein lies our problem and until we straighten it out, Belongers will still be an unemployed lot in a land where others are employed at our expense!
Nothing more but social control. And labour Department and the ministerial is doing a bad job at it.
Locals will be affected badly by their own employment. Firstly through observation not many local business employ their own people. For those expat business they will start to employed only expat of their own origin.
Government will forced those expat business into employing their local people, then limit their work permit, limit the time span on the work permit ( three months, six months or less ) they are actually planning how to eventually exclude the expat, this will then decreased the expat community, as some of them will return home, and others will migrate to other countries.
I don’t know why some of you worrying. Not to long ago Hon. Wheatley said the work permit delays was as a result of due diligence. Holding up the people work permit for months because he said he wants to find suitable local to fill. Now he giving the expat multiyear. I think it was better to just say he will work to make the work permit process smoother while letting them know that local must get a fighting chance in their country. There is no apology for that.
Has it ever occurred to her that not every BVIslander wants or is qualified for every job, which is why expats have these jobs to begin with? Whether they have the permit for 1 or 3 years will make no difference in this case.
Nonsense. BVIslanders wants and are qualified for jobs. They are passed over for several reasons.
The expat population has become experts in ensuring every job opening that they know about where they work, they recommend friends and family both abroad and local to fill them. The Filipino workforce a case in point. At first only one or two were here and even knew where we existed on the map and now you can’t move around in a small circle in any business in the BVI without running into one. The ones that were here recommended their family and friends and most have no work experience in the positions they are taking up. But someone is willing to train them for cheap labour. That is what we have come to in the BVI, employers disenfranchising their own to save a buck. So every BVIslander who wants a job does not have one. They do not even know about job vacancies so those fresh out of high school and HLSCC are left wandering around. Our Dr. D. Orlando Smith Hospital is a huge case in point. You can count on your fingers how many locals work there in that huge workforce. It is obvious hiring locals is not a priority.
Really? I don’t know many locals interested in $6 an hour house cleaner jobs. Do you?
Was Trump qualified?