Pension’s office still operational says ministry
(CNS): Although the minister with responsibility for labour has announced plans for a major change to the department of employment relations and the National Pensions Office, officials have said that the changes are not yet in place. The ministry said yesterday that both the DER and NPO are still functioning under the current relevant laws. The realignment planned announced by Rolston Anglin will not take effect until discussions with various stakeholders regarding its implementation are finished and the necessary legislation is amended. Last week, Anglin said he planned to separate the job placement functions at the DER from its enforcement role which would merge with the NPO.
Speaking in the Legisaltive Assembly last week, Anglin described the DER as “dysfunctional” and said there were plans to begin a realignment of the department to completely separate the two functions of assisting people into work and enforcing the labour laws.
He explained that the pensions’ law would have to be revised and then the intention would be to create a one stop shop with regards employment enforcement and where premises inspections would cover all aspects of the laws relating to employment and labour issues.
The Human capital development agency would then focus on getting the growing numbers of unemployed people into work through training to pudate skils as well as liaising with the work-permit board and better communication with the local business community, the minister stated.
Category: Local News
I disagree with the 21:21 poster 110%. As a large employer on this island with 64% Caymanians employed- the labour office are un-biased and enforce the Law to the best of their ability. The Labour Law is antiquated and in much need of amendments to give the officers more power; and for this reason it may give the false impression of bias. I am aware that one officer in particular has within the last year (I was in Court answering to a traffic charge), prosecuted a pre-mix company and a janitorial company for failing to pay overtime- yet NO media covered this. So work is being done.
What the majority of person on this island fail to realise is that IMMIGRATION and NOT Labour control employment issues in this country>
Like every office/department/company- of course there is room for improvements and this should be done- but not at the expense of the majority of the good officers/workers employed in the said department.
Good start to a much overdue job Mr. Minister.
I agree that the DER is dysfunctional on the best of days. I attempted to get placement through the department several years ago and after compiling all of the relevant documents I went in and was asked what kind of position I would like to apply for. This might not sound so difficult but the catch was that the "position" had to be entered into a search engine of sorts in order for a list of potential employers to be generated. The problem was that the program was designed to give responses to specific word matches. After several tries the "engine" came up empty. We soon found out that just about every position would appear if we entered "administrative assistant". My point is that there were so many positions that the employment coordinator had no way of matching people with positions unless they relied on the search engine, and that was like navigating through a maze in the dark. I hope that something can be done to aid the match up of employees and employers otherwise I suggest opening a large internet cafe and give free access to users to match themselves up with the jobs available. This would save some serious dollars in big time salaries.
On another not I am totally confused as to what the pensions office has to do with job placement. Enforcement of the labor law has nothing to do with enforcement of the pensions law. If the government can save money by consolidating these departments then by all means go for it but please dont spend money to try and make 1 + 1 = 3!!!
What ever you do please get to work fast and find a solution for the unemployed people out there and please also find a way to put the squeeze on the criminal employers who are using their employees pensions to pay their operating expenses.
The sooner we get rid of these 2 useless departments the better for the country. I really hope that the Minister has the common sense not to just close the departments but get rid of the persons employed. He would just be calling the kettle black if he was to just simply close these departments and then put the same staff that is causing these problems over to the new department that will replace these 2. It needs a new start. These inspectors are bias and they all need to go.
Yeah, good plan. Fire the people who are supposed to be protecting the labourers without going through the process to prove they ned to be fired. – This is why we need the Department of Labour in the first place.
Minister- make this change sooner rather than later. It is much needed and kudos are in order for taking this bold and advantagous step in the right direction.
Thank you for your vote in favour of a enlarged civil service. If we want more services we have to expand our work force.