By YOURI KEMP
Tribune Business Reporter
ykemp@tribunemedia.net
A Cabinet minister yesterday said he was behind a planned “tightening” of understudy programmes so that Bahamians are properly trained up to replace expatriate work permit holders.
Dion Foulkes, minister of labour, said outside the Cabinet Office that the Department of Labour has had the understudy/apprenticeship initiative in place for “about three to four years.”
He added: “I established a working committee of the Department of Labour to tighten the whole question of apprenticeship; to ensure that Bahamians who are trained by persons who have work permits within a reasonable time [are able] to assume those jobs when the work permits expire.
“We are trying to tighten that process, but we are doing it in conjunction with the trade union movement and also the business community. That, too, also has been placed before the National Tripartite Council.”
Peter Goudie, who sits as the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation’s (BCCEC) representative on the Tripartite Council, said: “Well, John (Pinder, director of labour) is on the National Tripartite Council and that programme is a part of our mandate, and so we will be talking about it a lot.
“But I’m not so sure that the apprenticeship programme was necessarily made to replace foreigners. I guess that’s possible, but that wasn’t the point of the apprenticeship programme to replace foreign workers. Not that I’m aware of.
“It was just to give people skills so they can get jobs, right? I don’t know if there was a mandate to replace foreign workers, even though that may be possible. But I can discuss it further with Robert Farquharson (council chairman). I’d like to verify that first.”
Mr Pinder last year said employers requesting work permits will have to provide the Department of Labour with named understudies to expatriate workers and their training programmes to ensure Bahamians can replace them.
“We will now make it mandatory for the employer who is applying for a labour certificate to have understudies named,” Mr Pinder said. “We are going to start that process effective January to start asking the employer to provide us the understudy programme, so that we can monitor it to ensure that the understudy gains the necessary training to fill the position of the person on the work permit.”
Mr Pinder’s comments elicited a sharp response from former minister for immigration, Branville McCartney, who said that the Department of Labour’s plan will be too costly and was “good in theory but bad in practice”. He also insisted that the policy, if implemented, should be looked at on a “case-by-case basis” rather than a blanket approach across the board.
Comments
TalRussell 4 years, 3 months ago
Oh what government supervised closed shop understudy in hypocrisy ongoing work permits sham!
Did I tell you that the comrades at ministry of labour, does operate and fully staff an actual physical office right inside a portion rental space at The Pointe? To put it bluntly, this is some weird shocking tightening up on work permits issued right under crown minister's nose? Can't write this. You just, cant.
jamaicaproud 4 years, 3 months ago
Hmm a company lacks a skill set. or claim they do. They need expertise and have a spot for one guy/lady. But to get the needed expertise they have to get a 'prento". You can't make this stuff up in the 21st or is this the 19th century and they are looking for cobblers?
moncurcool 4 years, 3 months ago
Cayman Islands and Qatar are prime examples of what the Minister is advocating. And it works. About time. Long overdue.
SP 4 years, 3 months ago
Unfortunately, the horse left the barn many, many years ago leaving us top to bottom inundated with ex-pats doing unemployed Bahamians can do!
It is no wonder so many ex-pats have such huge superiority complexes knowing they are barely average in home countries and considered "needed" here.
We do not need to reinvent the wheel on this one. The Cayman Islands model has worked perfectly for decades.
What Pindling, Ingraham, and Christie were thinking is beyond comprehension.
banker 4 years, 3 months ago
You need to look closer at the Cayman Islands model. The work permit has a 7 year shelf life. They must have an "understudy" in place before the 7 years is up. There is no minimum requirement as to when this understudy has to start. But the way that they play the game, is that during those seven years, they send the permit holder on courses and conferences to train them up in STEP (Society of Trust & Estate Practitioners) or Compliance courses or ISO standards or something not originally listed in the qualifications of the original permit holder. At the end of seven years, they announce that the position has become redundant not requiring an understudy. Then they send the permit holder home for a couple of months, and create a new job with the listings of the old permit plus the qualifications that old permit holder gained during his/her tenure. The new job has a different title. They advertise & no Caymanian is available (there is worker shortage in most professional fields in the Caymans). Then the perfect candidate applies, and they get the job. The other option, is to have the applicant apply for permanent residency during the seven years, and it is usually granted. It is fast-tracked if the person comes in through the business-building Cayman Enterprise City. All this to say, is that Cayman recognises that having more qualified professionals for a long term increases business, jobs and the economy.
ThisIsOurs 4 years, 3 months ago
I get it.
my concern with referencing Cayman and what works in Cayman is they're structurally different from us. We can't take what they have and have it work here as is. The biggest difference I see, theor population is 60,000 max. Theyre UNDER populated, they don't have the people to fill the jobs. That's a totally different problem than having people who don't get the opportunity because they truly aren't skilled, non-white or skilled but dont speak Italian.... and Portuguese (this happens, there's one major company who requests your race during the application process. Why you would need that information in a majority black nation is beyond me). It's 2 completely different problems.
Personally I'm tired of hearing about our skills gap. Because after 20 years there should be none...unless it's orchestrated.
Well_mudda_take_sic 4 years, 3 months ago
You can't believe anything coming out of Dion Foulkes's mouth. This guy has always been a con man and no friend to Bahamian labourers, especially less qualified blue collar workers.
And its well known that Dion Foulkes and John Pinder have all along been providing cover for Red Chinese investors getting their way. Neither Foulkes nor Pinder could care less about whether qualified Bahamian workers are wrongfully left without jobs because of the desire by greedy Red Chinese investors to breach their contractual commitments made to government by importing cheap unqualified labourers from Red China and elsewhere who are then subjected to abusive labour practices that should not be tolerated in our country.
Foulkes is a useless and loathesome dinosaur who should be made to permanently retire from active politics by the voters in his constituency.
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