Saba News News and Information from Saba Island, Dutch Caribbean
The Labour Inspectorate has carried out various inspections at companies on Saba during the past three weeks. In a total of twenty inspections, three cases were found of foreign workers for whom no work permit had been issued. One construction site was shut down due to an unsafe work situation.
Thirteen re-inspections were conducted in the retail and hospitality sectors. It regarded companies that had previously received a warning. Most companies had now taken the appropriate measures to eliminate these violations. Seven checks were carried out at construction sites. KPCN and the KMar provided support for two of these inspections.
Employers who allowed employees from abroad to work without a work permit will receive a police report for violating the Wet Arbeid Vreemdelingen BES (BES Employment of Foreigners Act). This legislation protects the local labour market and fights unfair competition.
In addition to carrying out checks in the field of fair, safe and healthy work, the Labour Inspectorate is investigating a number of cases on Saba in which there may be fraud with the corona support.
RCN
Your paragraph states: “Employers who allowed employees from abroad to work without a work permit will receive a police report for violating the Wet Arbeid Vreemdelingen BES (BES Employment of Foreigners Act). This legislation protects the local labour market and fights unfair competition.”
Which local labour market is this legislation protecting?? Everybody who wants to work in construction on Saba has a full-time job!! This is just harassment.
Construction companies on Saba get no cooperation at all from Government with regards to work permits etc. I’m told I can bring people from the USA to work but not St.Maarten. Where is the logic in this? Of course in the Netherlands, if you can’t find someone in Amsterdam you can try the other thousand cities with millions of workers. On Saba, if you can’t find someone in the Windwarside believe me you won’t find him in any other village. If local companies go bankrupt there are several other large Dutch companies that can come in and take over tomorrow like the one building government housing in The Bottom for the last years now. But who cares!
Agreed! We (SBA) and I personally have asked this question to IND: Saba is located in the Caribbean, however, there is so much red tape to employ someone from the Caribbean and non whatsoever in employing someone from The Netherlands and the U.S. Mind you, we surely don’t want red tape for them either, but logic is far to be found in this IND policy that was most likely copied and pasted from the Dutch regulation.
Why make it so so hard to hire someone who is from the Caribbean? These policies need to be revised!