WORC levied over $350k in fines last year
(CNS): Workforce Opportunities and Residency Cayman (WORC) levied administrative fines on individuals and companies amounting to CI$351,660 for 153 breaches of immigration laws in 2022. During the last three months of the year, there were 48 infractions and CI$82,690 worth of fines were doled out to rogue employers and workers.
So far, WORC has collected $320,210 of the money that it levied throughout the year. It expects to get another $30,400, while just $7,250 is deemed uncollectable.
WORC said the top offences were employing workers without a permit, working outside the terms and conditions of a work permit and making a false representation. Other offences included providing incomplete details, unlawful payment of a work permit, the obstruction of officers, a failure to answer truthfully, failure to notify the board and a failure to disclose a Caymanian applicant.
WORC Director Jeremy Scott said, “We acknowledge a delay in processing. However, employers who become impatient and allow their workers to work without permits or to work outside of their permit terms may open themselves up to greater scrutiny and may be flagged as high risk, potentially perpetuating delays in future processing of applications.”
WORC will continue to investigate reports made to them, and individuals who want to make a complaint or provide information about illegal working activities or other breaches of the Immigration Act may do so anonymously by completing the online form here or by reporting the complaint to worccomplaints@gov.ky.
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Category: Crime, Immigration
Good job with the collections. Someone should get a pat on the back.
The turnover of bartenders is obvious to those who frequent those places. One ponders the extended duties of some of the bartenders, and also ponders what protections are available to women who are recruited from Honduras to work for minimum wage at at bar or club.
WORC online complaint form has anonymous section but still requires mailing address, email and phone number. How is that anonymous? With corruption still ongoing in WORC no one will complain.
And I have a lot to complain about!
Just get another gmail account.
how could this happen in the private sector. thankfully we have an excellent civil service.
well done WORC. just another glorious day in the civil service and a shameful day for the private setor. come on get your act together.
I’d never pat myself on the back for only $350,000 and fines on this island. but again civil servants always find a way to try to s*** on the public.
Maybe WORC could get to work and process the lawfully submitted applications.
Name and shame!
And revoke business licenses! WTF – you commit fraud and lie about a Caymanian applicant and fine is the extent of your exposure?
Jeremy please ensure that the ‘sub groups’ of Caymanians, that are growing in numbers I might add, don’t influence any of your final decisions or dictate to you/rally their influencers to do so or do so by any other means.
Remember all of these decisions that the government are making OR do not make will hurt generational Caymanians the most in years to come.
Hindsight is 20/20 and legacies are going to continue to build the Cayman Islands or be their down fall.
It’s not “sub-groups” of Caymanians aka status holders, that influence WORC. It’s the government: Jeremy can only apply the law. If you want to change the immigration regime you need to get government to change it.
By not doing anything and just letting the population grow unchecked the government is hurting all Caymanians, new ones and genreratiional ones alike.
WORC is a joke and have no appreciation for the time and money that is lost by small businesses due to their delays. I once submitted an application for painter with minimum 5 years experience the person they had apply was a cleaner/janitor. The government need to ask themselves, why would local businesses choose to spend money on work permits as well as deal with the huge headache that is WORC and Cayman Immigration, if they could find suitable and reliable Caymanian candidates? The responsibility lies with government for the lack of education, lack of access for kids to learn a trade locally along with the entitlement of a majority (not all) of today’s youth all who dont want to start from the bottom and work hard. As usually, small businesses pay for the mistakes of the leaders of the country.
I agree with your assessment of WORC being a joke. Obviously, the fines they levy are far too small, hence the reason businesses will continue to break the law. Now let’s speak to you personally:
Anyone who can’t paint properly after working as a painter every day for six months is NOT going to be of any use as a painter after doing it for 5 years. The 5 years experience in your job advert was the qualifications of the person you wanted to bring in long before you advertised the job. The same applies for many other jobs advertised by small businesses.
I will continue using ‘painter’ as an example, but the same applies to many other professions which are filled by low-pay expat labour today.
Here is one way to get the best Caymanian painter to work for your small business. Offer a salary of $200,000 per year plus 4 weeks paid vacation, pension and healthcare benefits.
With the above offer, lawyers, doctors, accountants, and many other professions would consider switching to become painters. Quite obviously you’re not going to get many painting jobs if you expect to make a profit on each job and still pay your painters $200K.
So what is the solution? Well, you have to pay a salary somewhere between $5 per hour and $200 per hour. Understandably, $5 per hour looks best for your business, and there are probably Jamaican and Filipino, as well as nationals from other countries who are willing to work for that amount because it is more than they are currently making and they will still be able to send some money home to their families even on that meagre wage.
Having someone on a work permit gives you the added advantage of knowing your painter isn’t going to get up tomorrow morning and go work for someone else. You might even be willing to pay for his permit yourself and not deduct it from his wages each week. Hell, you might even be willing to up his wages to $6.50 per hour if you don’t get complaints from your customers about the painters leave paint all over the window panes when they painted the window frame.
Can you honestly say that you are willing to offer between $15 and $20 per hour for a painter and no Caymanians are willing to take the job? That’s probably a different ‘honestly’ that the one used when you tell WORC that your employee who is paid $5 per hour has suitable accommodation to live in while he/she works for you.
You really don’t have a grasp of basic economics.
Oh I do understand basic economics quite well, and small business in Cayman in particular.
When I was building my house a Jamaican mason came by and asked for work. I told him that I couldn’t hire him without a work permit. He then produced a work permit showing that he was employed by a small contractor in West Bay whose last name was B******.
I then asked why he wasn’t working for Mr. B****** and his reply was he had agreed to work for Mr. B****** every Saturday for free, take him the money to pay for his work permit, and the rest of the week he was responsible for finding his own work.
He was not the first or last permit holder brought to Cayman under the same conditions. An honest small contractor in Cayman has a tough row to hoe.
The amount these painting companies charge, I would expect painters to be making $15 – $20 per hour. Same goes for restaurants and hotels charging $1000 per night.