Government is establishing a blacklist of rogue employers and employees who will face penalties and possible prosecution over repeated work-permit-related breaches.
“You may get away with it for a while, but… we find that things eventually catch up with you and you end up paying some significant penalties,” said Mervin Manderson, acting deputy director for compliance at Workforce Opportunities and Residency Cayman, as he served notice that breaking labour laws and permit regulations to disenfranchise Caymanian workers will not be tolerated.
Manderson, in a recent interview with the Cayman Compass, said the department has established a risk-assessment register that will help flag offenders and enable WORC to further scrutinise applications to determine legitimacy.
“The WORC department and the compliance team remains committed to detecting and investigating such persons and bringing them to justice… [T]o take the chance to not be in compliance with the Immigration Act at the end of the day is just not really worth it,” he said.
Three-tier traffic light approach
The register, which has been likened to a traffic light system, will see applications vetted in a way that good employers who have not breached the law are rewarded with a green light on their permits, while applications that have a yellow light are subject to additional scrutiny.
Those employers and employees who hit a red light will face more stringent actions, including outright refusal.
The new system includes a sliding scale of penalties with businesses not being able to get new permits if they repeatedly run afoul of the law.
“We’re also trying to [move] into an exercise now outside of administrative fines. We’re gonna start considering sending matters to the [WORC] director. Once we fine you, we also send your file to the director for a review, and then he may also end up revoking your facility that you currently have,” Manderson said, adding that the result may be that foreign nationals on work permits will have to leave Cayman and not be able to return “for some time”.
The risk-assessment register follows on from months of cracking down on work-permit-related offences by the WORC Compliance Unit, the most recent of which occurred at the end of June.
That crackdown resulted in five people being arrested for breaches of the Immigration (Transition) Act. Both the employer and the employees remain under investigation.
Chamber of Commerce president Nelson Dilbert said his members have welcomed the changes, adding, “I think that’s a fair system for everybody”.
“The Chamber’s current board is in total support of it. We believe that it’s going to help companies that are in good standing to fast track their work permits and allow for faster movement of people coming into the country, such as hospitality [workers] or accountants or lawyers… and… that’ll also penalise the companies that are not doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” Dilbert added.
The concept was put to the Chamber, which set up focus groups, he said, adding that feedback was supportive of the move.
“[A] simple sort of analogy of this system is you do well, you’ll get praised for it. Do something wrong, you’ll get punished. I can’t imagine anybody not liking this system,” Dilbert added.
He said he does not foresee any challenges with the system, adding that members see this as an opportunity to help speed up the process.
Other breaches to be linked to system
Manderson said over the course of the Compliance Unit’s series of crackdowns, personnel have found that not only are offenders not taking the law seriously, they are also “very intentional” in breaching the law.
“They know the consequences, but they’re willing to take the opportunity,” he said, adding that they are often found breaking labour and pension laws.
He said the intention is to add these offending employers to the risk register as well so they can be flagged.
Manderson said in the execution of WORC investigations, officers have found employers charging employees fees to obtain or submit permits for them and, in some cases, even making the staff pay for the permit itself.
“This is illegal,” he said, adding that such offences should be reported.
The compliance team only has six investigators at present, but Manderson said there are plans to increase that number as they have anywhere between 600 to 800 incidents per year to investigate.
He also urged the community to continue to report breaches.
“We are looking into any information that’s submitted. We analyse it, we action it. I can promise them that. So this can be done through the WORC website where you can remain anonymous, if that’s a concern,” he said.
Manderson also appealed to the “ethical responsibility” of employers, urging them to follow the law.
“A lot of these employers are Caymanians themselves so what they end up doing when they are breaching [the law is] they’re disenfranchising opportunities for their fellow Caymanians, which just doesn’t make sense. Outside of not being worth it… just do the right thing,” Manderson added.
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