Ten percent of each work permit fee currently paid to the Cayman Islands government would be set aside for training and income “supplements” for local workers, if two backbench MLAs get their way.
George Town MLA Winston Connolly and Bodden Town MLA Alva Suckoo are expected to put forward a private members’ motion during next week’s meeting of the Legislative Assembly that urges government to implement a long-debated immigration accreditation system for local businesses.
The accreditation system, first proposed in 2008 by then-Chief Immigration Officer Franz Manderson, was created as an immigration management scheme with the dual goal of punishing delinquent employers and rewarding good corporate citizens for their efforts. Messrs. Connolly and Suckoo have asked the government to implement a version of that system within six months of the motion’s passage.
As part of the accreditation system, the motion asks that government consider what it refers to as the Singapore work permit model, whereby 10 percent of each work permit fee charged to the employer of a non-Caymanian would be placed in a segregated fund.
“The fund should be used solely for the training and upskilling of locals in order to teach skills and retool workers,” the motion states. “Such [a] fund can also act as a workforce income supplement to replace social services for those able to work and [who are] actively looking for work and [are] willing to undergo such training.
Another stated goal of the fund, according to the motion, is to “incentivize employers by supplementing salaries of locals training for employment.”
According to government budget documents, about $71 million in annual fees charged to permanent residents and work permit holders is expected to be collected during the current year. A 10 percent levy on that could raise more than $7 million for the purposes stated in the backbencher’s motion.
Premier Alden McLaughlin has already signaled that the government intends to revive the old immigration accreditation system put forward during the former People’s Progressive Movement administration, although he did not mention the possibility of setting up a segregated fund for a portion of annual work permit fees.
During a June statement in the Legislative Assembly, Premier McLaughlin acknowledged support for the accreditation system mainly because he said local companies could never be forced to hire people they didn’t want.
“We do have to be careful about how insular and restrictive we are with respect to immigration,” Mr. McLaughlin said at the time. “There is [the tendency], particularly in tough times like this, to want more enforcement, to want to force companies to employ Caymanians and to say we don’t want more work permits.
“For 40 years, we have striven to drive employer behavior by virtue of penalties. I’m not suggesting that we remove those provisions from the law … but we have to develop an accreditation scheme which incentivizes employers to hire Caymanians and to train Caymanians. We’re not going to succeed by trying to force them by threat, intimidation and prosecution. In my view, it’s never going to work.”
A draft of a revised accreditation system would be brought back before the LA during the 2014/15 budget cycle, which ends on June 30, 2015, the premier indicated.
As it was introduced in January 2009, the Immigration Accreditation System created separate tiers of rankings for businesses, from those that are least compliant with the country’s immigration laws and procedures to those that are most active in the community and do the best job of training and promoting Caymanians.
Under that plan, all businesses in Cayman that hold trade and business licenses and that employed at least one work permit holder would have to fill out a form that would judge the business on six criteria: compliance with Cayman’s licensing regulations, talent development programs, employment practices, support for community programs, Caymanian business ownership, and the company’s activity in creating new job opportunities. Based on the information provided, and research by Immigration Department officials, the companies would then either be accredited or not. If they were granted accreditation, they would then be ranked in one of six tiers by Immigration.
If companies were not accredited, they would not then be able to get new work permits or have any current work permits renewed. Higher-ranked employers would have been given certain benefits under the islands’ immigration regime.
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How much will it cost for government to teach Caymanians that they aren’t entitled to be the CEO or get his pay after one year on the job.
I find there are more than enough qualified workers, if they are willing to work their way up the corporate ladder like everyone else in the world.
I understand the part about 10 going towards training for local people, but I am a little confused about the income supplement, how is this supposed to work. Are they looking to supplement the salaries of locals by paying directly to the employers or directly to the employees. Also he mentions that the fund can also act as a workforce income supplement to replace social services, isn’t that like take money out of your right hand and put it into your left then saying your left hand made a profit. Same for the 7 million they say this will raise. That no different than if I pay my wife to cook and clean and then says she’s making money on her cleaning or if she pays me to paint the house then says I’m making money. Isn’t it all coming out of the same pot. Unless of course the plans are to raise the Work Permit fees by the 10 percent, but if that’s what it is than say it. I am a little hesitant to have any confidence in this because these guys are always moving money around to make it seem like they are making or saving it, when in actuality they’re not. In nutshell, if you hire someone to keep them off Social Services, it’s not really saving you any money. On the other hand at least they are working for their money, that part I can agree with.
Workfare will always be better than Welfare. I think a good way to get folks off social services would be to create a host of low paying government jobs, anything from Cleaning the roads, beaches and government offices to Administrative Assistant interns. There could be jobs designated as SSE ( Social Services Employee) in all sorts of government business units treated just like interns where they would get on the job training, and the minimum wages would motivate people to seek more lucrative employment in the private sector or work their way up in the CIG. If people were required to work for their Social Services check the CIG would be getting value for money and people wouldn’t be getting something for nothing. And I am sure there will be people who say they can’t go to these jobs each day because they have kids, the solution to that would be the government Day Care center for SSE employees, staffed by SSE Employees.