This is an essay on the development of a form of modern slavery
in Anguilla. Up to the date of publication, the Labour Department has not responded to an invitation to
comment. That is not to suggest they
have any obligation to comment, nor that they are in any way complicit in the
evils described in the following pages.
We must not turn our heads away from the benefits of pouring sunlight on our festering wounds. Blocking sunlight prevents one of the surest cures of infection and encourages further festering.
In Antigua and Barbuda, for decades, a minority of politicians, police, and
immigration officers controlled the illegal drugs, brothel-keeping, and gambling
industries of that country. Generations
of police and immigration officers have retired on pensions
having spent their careers doing little more than ferrying trafficked foreign
girls through the airport, and using official vehicles to transport contraband and brown paper bags full of money from place to place. They shut
down and destroyed human rights activist and journalist Tim Hector and his
newspaper, The Outlet, which specialized in revealing public corruption in
Antigua and Barbuda.
In Montserrat, for decades, a minority of locals and corrupt British officers conspired
together to defraud the UK's Department for International Development (DfID) and the
Montserrat people. Millions of dollars,
intended for the aid of the people of this volcano-ravaged island,
were diverted into the pockets of corrupt foreign and local actors, until in
2020 the entire Department had to be closed.
The corruption was covered up and its extent has never been fully
revealed. Montserrat can claim the
unique achievement of having been responsible for the shutting down of
one of the most influential British Government Departments ever to have
existed.
We will not touch on the British Virgin Islands. The state of public corruption in that
Overseas Territory is too raw and embarrassing even for mentioning.
-------------------------------------
Anguilla’s work permit law and practice appear
to be fostering a new form of oppression.
Some Anguillian employers appear to have created new avenues for exploiting
the labour of their foreign workers. They
do this by abusing the work permit regulations.
They do so with impunity.
It is the same in every country. Anguillians generally won’t do the lower paid
jobs in their own community. The demand
for manual labourers, housekeepers, gardeners, security guards, nurses, and
carers for the elderly, far outstrips the domestic supply. Would-be employers must turn overseas to fill
these jobs. Work permits are
required. Their issue is discretionary. The discretions have multiplied. Discretions are open to abuse.
Under the old, now repealed Control of
Employment Act, and the Work Permit Regulations made under it, the
relationship between the foreign worker and the employer at first appeared
clear cut. That Act has now been repealed
and replaced by the new 2018 Labour (Relations) Act. The original Regulations remain unchanged.
Some employers have not been slow to exploit
the opportunities for abuse offered by the law and the system. Some of our more unscrupulous Anguillian
employers exploit their workers in the murky area of work permits.
The provision that the foreign worker is
obliged to stay out of the island until the permit is granted or renewed was originally
stringently observed. The rule was
frequently ignored.
Sometimes an employer illegally encouraged a
foreign worker to enter the island pretending to be a visitor. The employer then illegally put him to work
while the application for a work permit was processed. The worker did not dare complain if he was
treated unfairly.
Sometimes the employer illegally delayed the
application for several months. Meanwhile
he exploited the labour of the foreign worker who was too afraid of the
consequences if he complained.
A work permit is not transferrable. Where a worker is being exploited, he may understandably
want to switch employers. The law
requires him to first leave the island until his new work permit is granted.
The practice has now arisen that the
permission of the first employer and the cooperation of the Labour Department
are required to switch employers. There
are no apparent guidelines or standards establishing the circumstances when a
foreign employee may be allowed to remain while the new permit is being
processed.
This need for the consent of the original
employer to leave his employment provides more opportunities for exploitation
by unscrupulous employers. The rule
about first obtaining the consent of the original employer is sometimes
overlooked. The rule about having to
leave the island for a period is never enforced, out of an alleged feeling of
humanity.
Where a particular employer is not in favour
with the authorities, the system can be made to work against him. The foreign employee then suffers
discrimination due to no fault of his own.
Unconstrained administrative discretion is the enemy of policy and
principle.
Before a permit can be issued by the
Minister, the Labour Department is required to certify that there is no
Anguillian willing to do the job. Some
Commissioners were of the highest integrity, some were not.
The law requires that the employer show that
the post was been advertised before he can apply for a work permit. There is a discretion to ignore the failure
to advertise the position. Innumerable and
ingenious reasons are now offered to the Labour Department for the omission.
The employer was originally responsible for
the cost of the work permit. He could
not deduct those costs from the employee’s wages. This rule is now sometimes ignored. The law is vague on who must pay. I am told that an informal “rule” has now
arisen that the employer can deduct one half of the cost of the permit from
wages. The worker is in too vulnerable a
position to make a complaint to the Commissioner.
Originally, only in rare cases was a foreign
worker permitted to bring in a spouse or other family member. Certainly, children were rarely allowed as
they were an unnecessary burden on the social services. This has changed now. It is said the old system was inhumane. But the result is that a heavy burden is
being placed on our education, welfare, and health systems.
Sexual favours were sometimes asked for and
granted if you wanted to keep your job or to get your work permit - or your
husband’s or your brother’s work permit.
The feudal droit du seigneur seems to have returned to
Anguilla. Complaints to the Minister or
the Labour Department fall on deaf ears.
Previously, once a work permit expired, the
employee was obliged immediately to leave the island. If the employer showed that the job was
advertised, and there were still no Anguillians qualified and willing to fill
the position, the work permit might be renewed, and the worker would be allowed
back onto the island. The system was
inconvenient, but it reminded the worker that he was here temporarily to
work. It was not intended to be a back
door to permit economic immigration.
The employer was and is not permitted to
hold the employee hostage by detaining the employee’s passport during the term
of the employment. This rule is now occasionally
breached by the more abusive employers. Passports
are now occasionally held by some employers and, contrary to law, not returned
to the holder after the permit has been issued.
The worker is kept in a form of servitude.
The applicant for a work permit is supposed to
deposit a sum of money to cover the return fare at the end of the employment. This requirement is now discretionary, with
all the evils this entails. I have known
cases where unscrupulous employers bring in foreign workers on a promise that
they will be covered by a work permit which is then never applied for. As a result, no security deposit is asked for
or paid. The illegality works relatively
smoothly so long as relations are happy.
It is only when the foreign worker, often illiterate and speaking only
Spanish, falls out with the employer and is fired that problems arise. Having no money, he must then depend on a
kindly local person to give him housing and food until some charity can come up
with the air fare to get him back home. He
can be marooned in Anguilla for months while barred from working. The fraudulent employer is never prosecuted
so far as I know.
Many of these unfortunate foreign workers
whose work permits expire without renewal, stay on illegally in Anguilla. Due to their illegal status, they are
deprived of most of the social, medical, and educational services available to
those legally on the island. They are
too terrified of being penalised by the authorities to complain, or to take
advantage of the amnesties government offers from time to time.
The Minister has a discretion whether to
allow the work permit or not. There were
and are no firm rules or guidelines published governing how the Minister must
decide whether to grant the permit.
Sometimes it was granted, and sometimes it was not. Some ministers were honourable, some were
not. There is no point complaining, especially
if you are not an Anguillian. The system
is stacked against you.
Where there is an unregulated discretion
granted to a government official, abuse is often not far behind. As there were and are no published rules or
guidelines for the granting of a work permit, suspicions soon grew that the
system was tainted.
In Anguilla it sometimes seems that all
public standards tend to deteriorate over time.
A social version of the Second Law of Thermodynamics seems to apply. As every schoolchild knows, this Law says
that any closed system will always move away from order towards disorder. The result is that the entropy of Anguillian
society continually increases.
My fear is that if work permit standards are
not properly established and published, Anguilla may become another Antigua or Montserrat,
governed by tribal systems and rotten to the core.
