BVI News

New Focus | Renaming Labour Department more than just a label

Government officials with the new ‘Department of Labour & Workforce Development’ sign.

The Labour Department is now officially operating under a new name with a new focus, Labour Minister Vincent Wheatley has said.

The new name – the Department of Labour and Workforce Development – was officially changed during a ceremony at the Noel Lloyd Positive Action Movement Park on Friday.

“This name change is set up with the hope of changing the lens through which the department is viewed. We want a message of hope to the future generations of Virgin Islanders, Belonger’s and residents of this territory with this name change,” Wheatley said.

The Labour Minister also said changing the mindset of locals, particularly youths, is among the department’s renewed objects.

Wheatley said the department further hopes to ‘awaken the spirit of patriotism and hard work’ in locals “so that they can develop positive attitudes in knowing their self-development may eventually lead to a Virgin Islander or Belonger being part of the territory’s workforce development”.

“[This] which can lead to a fulfilling and rewarding experience,” the minister said.

He added that transforming the department includes creating linkages with educational institutions and employers to develop curriculum that addresses workforce deficiencies and create job opportunities, empowering and utilizing the Workforce Development Unit as a catalyst to develop and fuel the new vision for workforce development.

“Let me reiterate, it is more than just words, it is also action to this name. It is a refocus on developing our workforce,” he said.

 Embrace the name, changes 

In the meantime, Deputy Premier Kye Rymer who also delivered remarks at the event said he wants persons to entirely embrace the new name.

“It is hoped that when the new name of the Department of Labour and Workforce Development is said, it will engender in all of us a positive mental image based on the work of a motivated staff whose output represents the true nature of this extremely beneficial department,” Rymer stated.

The Deputy Premier added that the name change is “a truer and more accurate reflection of the services including mitigating labour disputes, streamlining the work permit processing, and the strict implementation of the updated labour code which locals and alike can make use of from this department.”

To complement the change, the staff of the department was dressed in new uniforms at Friday’s ceremony.

Shares

Copyright 2024 BVI News, Media Expressions Limited. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or distributed.

25 Comments

Disclaimer: BVI News and its affiliated companies are not responsible for the content of comments posted or for anything arising out of use of the comments below or other interaction among the users.

  1. Nice says:

    I think this is a great idea once it works out in practice as they envision it in theory.

    Like 3
    Dislike 5
  2. Expat slavery says:

    So the Department going to continue to issue work permits to expats where the Belongers hold the permits and take a third of their pay? You are a cheating and sorrowful people. I just love all the Jesus s++t you sprout while you hold people in slavery. Your day is coming. Financial sector going, tourist sector going, graduating substandard morons from your schools that can’t pass a basic test. You have no future. The end of all of you is near.

    Like 45
    Dislike 17
    • @Expat Slavery says:

      Then you’ll be gone to. Thank God!

      Like 7
      Dislike 10
      • Truth says:

        Truth hurts doesn’t it. It’s amazing that your comment was the only comeback. I guess there is no answer to the truth but stupid comments f**ted out of your a**e. There’s always the U. S. Where you can wash cars or dig ditches. Start practicing.

        Like 11
        Dislike 5
    • @Expat slavery says:

      Where you posting from…h**l?

      Like 5
      Dislike 8
    • Bahahahahah says:

      And your substandard a**have to be a slave here? Go to your home country and prosper then…….oh….I forgot yah a** run from there looking a better life here….but you too substandard to get a decent employer you have to just take what you can get right??? So stfu

    • WOW says:

      The airport is open! The seaports are open! No one is keeping you here. LEAVE already!

      Like 1
      Dislike 4
  3. NDP says:

    Putting lipstick on pig is what you call this

    Like 20
    Dislike 3
  4. Citizen says:

    Now let us form a National Labour Union to fight for the people when need be.

    Like 16
    Dislike 3
    • BuzzBvi says:

      Which people?

    • Rubber Duck says:

      What is needed is a Non Belongers Association to unite the oppressed , because in truth the future of this country is not in the hands of the sitters under trees or their succession of inept and corrupt governments, but in the hands of the people who have made the investments and done the work to turn these rocks into a world class financial and tourist centre.

      And for their efforts are treated like second class citizens at best and indentured slaves at worst.

      Like 26
      Dislike 5
      • @Rubber Duck & The Rest says:

        You are writing and spewing filth and hatred.

        You are judging an entire people by the behaviors of a few, and those conclusions are small minded and destructive as they are hateful.

        You were not around when for the last hundred and fifty plus years to work from scratch and educate the children to arrive at where we are at today.

        Therefore, to speak from your apparent lack of knowledge, but from a hateful greedy base, it is clear that your intention is to co-opt that which Virgin Islanders have spent generations building.

        I am old enough to know where these Virgin Islands were. I know who worked their asses and brains to bring them thus far.

        Now you and your greedy, badmided and hateful sons of w****s want to come and take what we and our ancestors toiled day and night to create.

        I suggest you change your views and way of thinking, or leave our home. Our ancestors are with us and they are watching over us. So do thread humanly.

        Leave our lands, return to yours, improve upon your consciousness and seek a new mind.

        Like 12
        Dislike 14
        • Rubber Duck says:

          Not a single financial company or charter yacht company or resort hotel was created by belongers.

          Like 16
          Dislike 8
          • @Rubber Duck says:

            And your point is?

            Well, i’ll tell yah. It is based in ignorance, assumed priviledge, arrogance, extreme prejudice and unadulterated lunacy, and a mentality suited only for existence in 1st century cave environment.

            Be taught, financial, charter yacht and resort hotel companies were approved by established governments and legislators to conduct business investments here beginning around 1959-1960, in ernest.

            Be reminded as such historical facts, the offspring of slave profiteers were given the priviledge to come and invest their blood money in those areas, make a huge profit while providing slave wages and no professional or economic advancemet then to present.

            So anal – yze your evident hypocrisy please.

            In evidentual facts, we were and are a people who enriched every european country, spanish and american, [caps, deliberately left out] for four plus centuries.

            So, indeed, a people not paid for four centuries for labour rendered would not have accumulated the wealth necessary to establish financial, yachting and hotel companies.

            Hence, the beneficiaries of the slave trader and profiteers offsprings were granted opportunities to return and establish those businesses.

            This in turn provided opportunities to further lift ourselves and country upwards and into modernity.

            Further, and do note, if the Afro Caribbean and Afro American and Afro South American were the slave masters for four hundred years plus, reaping huge wealth earnings generated from caucausions at the end of a whip, barrel of a gun and raping by a penis, we would be the ones today establishing the financial, yachting and hotel industries right here in the BVI and not you, and you would be our low paid servants. So stick those facts where difficulty will be most pronounced.

            These facts then completely nullifies your arrogant and misiformed prejudicial and abhorrent economic racism relative to historicl facts.

            Meanwhile, take your exploitative business practices and equal mentality away from our shores. We will surely create our own now. As, we are not as destitute as we were one hundred and fifty plus years ago.

            Nessescity is the mother of invention. We will reinvent our selves and economy if need be. Our lives and future will become stronger after you leave.

            Why? because history has shown that we are the strongest and greates reslient race on the planet. Our ancestors survived every conceivable atrocity and brutality your ancestors threw at us, and we are still here.

            So take your infantile mentality right back to your cave from whence you came, hater. History has taught us well!

            Last, you are either a very nasty thinking caucau or a very brainwashed negrite. Either one, both species have limited intelligence and even less time left on earth.

            So this history lesson in moral conscience is for both of yah, or to whom ever it applies.

            Like 11
            Dislike 8
          • Rubber *uck says:

            And your point is?

            Well, I’ll tell yah. It is based in ignorance, assumed privilege, arrogance, extreme prejudice and unadulterated lunacy, and a mentality suited only for existence in 1st century cave environment.

            Be taught, financial, charter yacht and resort hotel companies were approved by established governments and legislators to conduct business investments here beginning around 1959-1960, in earnest.

            Be reminded as such historical facts, the offspring of slave profiteers were given the privilege to come and invest their blood money in those areas, make a huge profit while providing slave wages and no professional or economic advancement then to present.

            So anal – yze your evident hypocrisy please.

            In evidential facts, we were and are a people who enriched every european country, spanish and american, [caps, deliberately left out] for four plus centuries.

            So, indeed, a people not paid for four centuries for labour rendered would not have accumulated the wealth necessary to establish financial, yachting and hotel companies.

            Hence, the beneficiaries of the slave trader and profiteers offspring’s were granted opportunities to return and establish those businesses.

            This in turn provided opportunities to further lift ourselves and country upwards and into modernity.

            Further, and do note, if the Afro Caribbean and Afro American and Afro South American were the slave masters for four hundred years plus, reaping huge wealth earnings generated from caucausions at the end of a whip, barrel of a gun and raping by a penis, we would be the ones today establishing the financial, yachting and hotel industries right here in the BVI and not you, and you would be our low paid servants. So stick those facts where difficulty will be most pronounced.

            These facts then completely nullify your arrogant and misinformed prejudicial and abhorrent economic racism relative to historical facts.

            Meanwhile, take your exploitative business practices and equal mentality away from our shores. We will surely create our own now. As, we are not as destitute as we were one hundred and fifty plus years ago.

            Necessity is the mother of invention. We will reinvent our selves and economy if need be. Our lives and future will become stronger after you leave.

            Why? Because history has shown that we are the strongest and greatest resilient race on the planet. Our ancestors survived every conceivable atrocity and brutality your ancestors threw at us, and we are still here.

            So take your infantile mentality right back to your cave from whence you came, hater. History has taught us well!

            Like 9
            Dislike 7
          • Ok... says:

            But none of them belong to residence of other Caribbean islands either, just a bunch of rich white men, so what’s your point

            Like 3
            Dislike 1
    • Belongers says:

      Belongers don’t work. Sit under trees, sell drugs and pick their noses. The ones that need help are the mistreated expats from other islands. The Belonger would not lift a finger to help anyone except if there is money in it for them.

      Like 25
      Dislike 10
  5. Nonsense says:

    Labour departmen is doing such a poor job, it seems they are getting money under the table . The amount of permit goinout to people that don’t have jobs. They should have something in place to see if employers have work before giving permits and also renewing this place gone to the dogs right now because of Labour Department . There eyes are close for not seeing the amount of people that are unemployed. The government need to step in because the crime start.

    Like 11
    Dislike 2
  6. CW says:

    look at these comments. Hateful. Vile. Egotistical. Defeated.

    If you want something better for yourself you need to want something better for everybody because those goals are the same thing. If it helps people it’s awesome. All this whining and STRUPE COMMENTS about the past are exactly that- past. All the STRUPES playing at WHAT IF are ensuring their own ability to have more tantrums in the future. Grow up!

    BVI has the worst storm recovery because everyone expects somebody else to do it. Be the change people, or shut your mouth and let the grown folks do their best with limited resources and especially manpower. The people you lot b*tch about are the only people actually trying for the betterment of BVI. The rest of you are SELFISH, wondering “what’s in it for me”. It isn’t lost on me that those of you acting worst pretend to be Christians- go pray on that and come back when you’re ready to act like you preach. Go do something good with your time and stop tearing each other down.

    ONLY STRUPES THINK THEY HAVE THE SOLUTION WITHOUT THE HELP OF EVERYONE. GROW UP YOUNGSTERS OR GET OUT FROM UNDER FOOT

    Like 3
    Dislike 10
  7. Ausar says:

    Im sorry to admit”@ rubber duck and the rest”, but “expat slavery” and “rubber duck” are correct!

    Too many good-for-nothing Belongers treat expats as indentured servants!

    And I think while we as a people have prospered, we have suffered greatly from this form of injustice!

    A laundry list of diseases run amok in this country. And its victims are becoming younger and more young!

    It’s indicative of something spiritually amiss taking place.
    What it will take to solve this dilemma, I will not know.

    But, if we as a so-called “Christian” claim-to-be people are to live to old ages, with mental faculties and physical strength intact, changes must be made toward our attitudes to others that live among us!

    Like 7
    Dislike 5
  8. @Ok says:

    Sorry, about your evident comprehension deficiency. Just so sorry for such a phathetic mind.

  9. Facts says:

    You all need to change the vg. Department them a bunch of sell outs. They don’t deal with people issue in a fair way they side with the employer and take forever to deal with Issue

Leave a Reply

Shares