UPDATED: April 9, 2010 – email from Virgin Atlantic confirms no work permit issued for Regional Manager. “Interim solution” worked out with authorities…
To the Moderator/s of The Barbados Free Press
Virgin Atlantic always complies with all employment laws and requirements for all of its employees worldwide. On the rare occasion when work permits cannot be issued immediately for staff, Virgin Atlantic would always work in conjunction with the relevant authorities to work out an acceptable interim solution, as has been done on this occasion.
We hope our position is clearer and will make no further comment on the issue here.
Barbados Free Press responds to Virgin Atlantic Airways
Dear Virgin Atlantic,
Thanks for getting back to us with a straight answer to a straight question. It’s so rare these days to find large corporations willing to talk with citizens and customers in a forthright manner. The way Virgin addressed our concerns certainly enhanced our already high perceptions about your company’s operations. (It would make my father cringe if he were still around, but I vastly prefer Virgin over BA or “BOAC” as Dad would still call it for a decade after the BEA/BOAC merger!)
We didn’t think that Virgin would be ignoring the laws of Barbados, but judging by your information it is the same old story that our civil service wouldn’t be able to do anything in a timely fashion if their lives depended on it.
But that’s our problem, not Virgin’s.
The larger concern for Barbados is whether or not the inefficiencies and shenanigans of our civil service is impacting the willingness of investors and employers to work with Barbados.
Once again, thanks for getting back to us.
Robert for Barbados Free Press
UPDATED: April 8, 2010 – Email received from Virgin Atlantic re this article
To the Moderator/s of Barbados Free Press
We have recently become aware of comments on your blog related to Virgin Atlantic Airways. While we fully respect peoples right to their own opinion we are deeply concerned that unsubstantiated comments and unfounded allegations have been targeted at the Regional Manager, we believe that public personal attacks of this nature by anonymous people are highly unfair to the targeted individual/s concerned. Virgin Atlantic would take very seriously any allegations of this nature. As moderators of this site we would appreciate it if you could review all the comments and specifically give consideration to deleting elements of individual comments (some of which had previously been deleted by BFP Editors on the original post) as appropriate.
Thank you for your consideration in this matter.
Barbados Free Press responds to Virgin Atlantic Airways
Dear Virgin Atlantic,
Thanks for your email. We hadn’t noticed but you were correct – one of our readers re-posted the entire letter in the comments section, including the three paragraphs that we had deleted for our article. It seems that the author of the original letter sent it to a number of blogs so it’s still floating around out there on the Internet.
We’ve taken down that reader comment as we originally removed the three paragraphs because as far as we’re concerned they crossed the line.
We hope that addresses your concern.
Now… while we’ve got you here, please tell us: Does your Barbados regional manager have a work permit or not?
Thanks!
Marcus, Barbados Free Press
Original story…
From an anonymous reader (so let’s see what other information we can develop to confirm or refute this story)
How is it that certain companies and certain ethnicities can behave how they want in Barbados and get away from it?
Virgin Atlantic, a company with a traditionally healthy respect for the ways of the Caribbean, has chosen to send down a new Regional Manager without a work permit first being issued!
What makes it worse is that this new regional manager…
(Three sentences removed by BFP editors)
Can we get the Immigration Department to correct this bad situation? I doubt it.
Barbados Free Press 
Whenever I read or hear of this kind of thing, I turn it around and ask the reverse question… can any of us – regardless of colour – simply travel to UK, US or Canada – or almost anywhere else, for that matter – and just start working?
I don’t think so… in fact, if you wanted to travel to the USA, unless you have stood in the sun so the US Embassy can examine your most private circumstances and such things and letters from employers you can’t even make it to the departure lounge.
If this report is indeed true, then the government and people of Barbados need to be making some noise…
It may be that the work permit has been applied for and the bureaucracy is taking its usual sweet time in processing the application which is not good for business.
Virgin needs its own manager on the ground.
How many people are employed by Virgin? anyone know?
We need more information before we start the crucifixion, no pun intended?
The Law of Barbados is just that…. The Law!!!!
Regardless, turn it around again… if a Bajan company started a branch in the UK, do you seriously think they could send a Bajan to the UK and epect him/her to work for almost a year without status because the paperwork was “in process”.
AT ALL… UK Immigration would play the heavy hand, and next thing you know ALL Bajans require a visa to visit the Muddah Country.
As I keep saying, we should stop making the excuses- as we have done for the last fifty years – keep turning the existing situations around, and deal with them appropriately.
The average Joe Poop in Barbados can’t do it in the UK, US or Canada… who should we allow one of them to keep coming and do it to us?
I also know that if the Virgin manager is in fact in Bim illegally they are not the first, either…
Mr. Brownlow: The law assumes that your wife acts under your direction.
Mr. Bumble: If the law supposes that, then the law is a ass, a idiot! If that’s the eye of the law, then the law is a bachelor. And the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience.
Wuh loss, da is wha mek me stop troubling de Guyanese, I no some white people come hay ,in weeks dem friends get dem to own a plantation,since den mo cum ,but I watchin and wondering, How come,if it is money or de law.
I think the 3 missing sentences provide the whole context for this concern…
“How is it that certain companies and certain ethnicities can behave how they want in Barbados and get away from it?”
This happens when the law or enforcement is discriminatory. The immigration issue needs a proper fix but the PM took the easiest and popular route and where the money trail led to and decide that Caricom illegals were the popular targets. Bajans suck it up , and decided the Euros were “our people” and we could get money from in this crisis. so don’t get all too upset bout dis.
I laugh at this. This is not the first and last time. This happens all the time an nothing is ever done. There are a number of companies in bim who have people from the U.S and Europe working without work permits. further more there are a number of Europeans who come and never leave without even bothering to regularise their status, some are smart about it and simply spend 6 months here 2 months back home then they back here again.
Barbados does not have the brain power, experience, talent pool, nor moral compass to run its own affairs. How can you laugh at the supervisor of insurance CV and then expect a Bajan to run an international airline operation that we DESPERATELY need to run efficiently in order to fleece the tourists with our NISEness for the foreign exchange ? BWIA, LIAT, AIR JAMAICA ? 3 winners there, boy, run by West Indian with government oversight. Once Bajans can get this colonial chip off their shoulders, we’ll be a lot better off by moving forward toward instead of playing the blame game. Why not turn this “passion” for WE country toward the BIM passport holding robber barons in our midst?
Jingoism, your post holds a lot of truth, truth that many do not wish to accept.
Jimgoism your post is sadly very funny and sadly very true.
This kind of non locals working apparently willy nilly, without work permits is not just prevalent to upper status jobs,,,, but from the lowly oldest profession to the bar tender,hostess, real estate property manager, activities guide, etc., etc.,,,,,,,,, and especially in the tourism sector,,,,,but hey,,, if no one fills the post LOCALLY,,,,””””” then you have no choice but to import your predetermined person or persons after “”EXHAUSTIVE ATTEMPTS'” have failed even after posting advertisments in the local media.
There are three issues here.
Th first, whether the job could have been filled locally. That is something that I cannot answer, without knowing the facts.
The second, whether the person has a work permit, to be working here.
That is also a quesiton of fact. If yes, then there is no issue. If no, then he should be deported forthwith.
Reason? Barbados is asked to follow international conventions at every turn.
In any other country, it is a requirement and certainly in the US and UK, to have a permit to work.
Our law also requires this.
In the US, if caught, one would be deported forthwith, so too the UK.
Hence, the like treatment.
The third issue, is the behaviour of an individual. I am not making accusations, but speaking generally as to requirements of maintaining a work permit.
It is just that, a permit that may be revoked at any time.
If a person behaves well under a permit, accepting of a country’s norms, they will maintain such permit.
If they flout rules and norms, e.g. a good example being rules in the Middle East, the permit will be revoked.
It is not rocket science, fairly simple really.
Jingoism,
Absolute rubbish in your first sentence, many Caribbean leaders have been educated at the finest institutions worldwide, with top grades and even average managers are very well educated.
As for your logic ‘BWIA, LIAT, AIR JAMAICA ? 3 winners there, boy, run by West Indian with government oversight’, fair enough.
Then, taking your simpleton logic, given British Airways’s colossal failure, who should run Britain?
Airlines are a special breed of business and naturally require much injection, amazing that the Caribbean Government’s have actually managed it, when airlines in major countries are failing daily.
As for managerial capacity, there are many excellent managers here locally.
Generally, the one ‘out’ that foreign entities use in seeking a work permit, is including a requirement that the individual must have a detailed knowledge of the company itself.
This is an out and results sometimes in fairly useless people coming here to work, ostensibly as company ‘experts’.
As for moral compass, maybe you would prefer Madoff to run affairs here, expecially as the ‘experienced and ta;ented’ regulator in the US failed to identify Madoff’s ‘excellence for so long.
JINGOISM….
You very right! Crusoe has NOT a clue! Just because you spend money to go to school overseas, DOES NOT mean that you are any more intelligent for it!
Oh wait, Crusoe…did any of these Caribbean politicians go to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford or MIT? Or even Oxford, for that matter? If so, for how long? Going to these universities are “considered” going to the best institutions…personally, I think if you went to the “School Of Hard Knocks,” aka LIFE, you’d learn a LOT more!
If we REALLY had the talent, intelligence and experience…we would pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and PROTECT OURSELVES! But no…we allow everyone else in and we can’t say boo. Why? Because we have no way of generating our own cash flow, so we have to beg wealthy folk to come in and shortchange us for our land…while we have nowhere to live!
Not all of us are loafers…some of us are hard-working, civilised people. But for our labour, we are given nothing! All this, while the Caribbean politicians are feteing with the blood money gotten by selling our land. You think that is right?
Boy, we stupid in truth…
I would want to know who spilled the beans about this issue!!!! It is not that I am condoing the issue. However this could only have been done by a disgruntled employee?
Why all the HOOPLA. We all know what type of ethics are practice in Barbados. And we also know that the laws in Barbados are convenient and flexible for particular groups of people. What more needs to be said. The crappy systems that exist in Barbados exist because Barbadians are known for doing nothing and with that fact, the Government run scams can continue unchecked and unchallenged.
I lived in Antigua for 16 years, and they don’t allow people to flood in and stay – not like in Barbados. A few “yachties” lived there under the guise of being employed on transient boats – and they hopped from transient boat to transient boat – but that was about it.
Antigua also makes sure that locals get the jobs first… and that non-Antiguans have a hard time getting both work permits and Antigua passports unless there is substantial and visible major investment in the country. Antiguans report foreigners – including West Indians – if it is believed they are are working illegally, and so they protect their own people and jobs.
In 2001 I started a job in the Turks and Caicos – I thought legally – and I was challenged by Immigration about a week after I arrived… my “employer” had not yet bothered to do the necessary to get me a work permit.
But when I have been back home to Barbados on vacation over the years, I have seen all kinds of nationalities working there – as beach bums and barkeeps to managers and higher, and I wondered how such a thing could continue to happen.
Then I came across a “colony” of about 10 German people who openly boasted that they had arrived as visitors, had rented a house, and planned to stay, work, live. Nothing happened to them, nobody reported them, and they were still there working and living a year afterwards when I paid another visit.
The authorities are obviously doing nothing, but neither are the locals. I brought the subject up with my fellow Bajans while I was there and the general response was that foreigners brought up the standards in Barbados and they contributed to the economy – in other words, foreigners were good for business and the economy. So the people I spoke to did not care about such niceties ad the Law or that fellow-Bajans were out of work.
So while standards actually FALL (because foreigners still want to laze around in the sun and drink), locals go without work and support.
Until and unless all ranks of Bajans start reporting those who are in Barbados illegally – and following those reports up publicly to make sure they are being investigated – foreigners will continue to arrive and stay as long as they like. As long as Bajans continue to employ and pay foreigners without ensuring they have work permits of passports, our own people will continue to be unemployed.
So – whether we like it or not – we are our own worst enemies.
The fact of the matter is after 11 years in Bim, Virgin could be managed locally – and the fact the job was not advertised means none were ever given the chance.
The immigration department needs to get their thumb out and start making getting a work permit a yes or no thing in a few weeks. This crap about waiting six months is for the birds. Three years ago, everybody in the offshore financial sector was summoned to a great big hoopla event to announce the fast track process and blah blah blah……not a thing was done about making it a quicker process. The immigration department thinks they are gods unto themselves and the reason it takes longer than most countries is that they wait around for people to grease the wheels. Customs and immigration are the most corrupt ministries in the island and everyone knows it so stop playing like it is certain companies and ethnicities, it is strictly the color green that makes them move.
@marvinbareback
So illegality is fine if immigration doesn’t work fast enough?
That insults the many legal immigrants in Barbados…or are you saying that we all bribed someone in immigration?
Bare foolishness….try that in England and see how you get on!
What about his bullying and superiority over his local employees?
I suppose that is immigration fault too?
It seems that the new regional manager isn’t the only one from Virgin Atlantic here illegally. The last regional manager Colin Symes is still floating around. Now, his work permit should have been revoked when he was booted from Virgin Atlantic!!
Judith Wilcox has been in and out of the island telling anyone who would listen, that’s she’s looking for a job!! BTW, I’ve heard on the grapevine that she’s assisting in the setting up of a new airline…
Dem Virgin people real love we country!!
@Tallulah
Don’t be a Virgin Hater.Cudear. Both Judith and Colin I know bought properties in Barbados because they loved it so much. On these properties they both paid huge sums in foreign currency to the treasury in taxes.
Judith until recently I believe had a job in Antigua so I fully expect both of them to be coming and going as any other expat property owner is entitled to.
As neither of them has a job in Barbados, and are not therefore denying a Bajan one, they obviously do not need work permits. So no real issue there!
Lol. Still no reply from Virgin BFP.
I bet ya that they burning up Richard Sealey’s phone trying to get dis fix fast fast!!!
The man still sound like an exploiter tho!
Did the CLICO articles get pulled?
love
it look so a wunder why
Whenever I go to the immigration dept, the first thing I notice when I get there is that all the employees walk around like they are in “slow motion”. No one is in much of a hurry to do anything resembling work.
Something that should take 15 minutes usually takes about three hours. If they were working for me they would all been fired a long time ago.
A perfect example of this is that I’ve been waiting nearly two months just for my passport to be stamped!
Need I say more?
hi Laughing
No, all our Clico articles are still there. You can see every one of them listed by typing “Clico” in the search box at the top. Once in a while we grab an old article and put it at the top for a few days. That’s why you are missing it. To find it do a search for Clico. There are dozens of articles. Have fun!
There was an article on CLICO there yesterday…at the top…unless I am really losing it the name isnt showing up in the search. I think it related to the retirement of CLICO’s chairman
JULY 14, 2009…3:41 PM
How CLICO Barbados Supported Trinidad Politicians With Your Barbados Tax Dollars & Insurance Premiums
Go to the archives and select July 2009. You’ll find the story you want there.
That was the one that was at the top for a couple of days.
Thank You…Hi Laughing…Appreciate it!
We brag about Barbados having a 98% literacy rate, and that we have some of the most educated citizens in the Caribbean, yet, when it comes to certain jobs, we cannot find a Barbadian to fill those positions. We had to bring a man from Trinidad to manage the QEH; a foreigner to manage CBC. Additionally, if anyone has not noticed, Sandy Lane Hotel advertise vacancies for jobs which require all sorts of unrelated qualifications, and after a few weeks, there is a notice in the paper informing us that they received no suitable applicants for these positions, and will require a work permit to bring in a non-national.
This sort of thing happens in Barbados daily. Last year Sandy Lane Hotel brought in a man of Hispanic origin to work at the hotel as an engineer. A few weeks after the hotel had a vacancy advertisement for an engineer, in both papers, and one of the qualifications was that prospective candidate must be fluent in Spanish. After a few weeks the usual immigration notice was in the paper. The man was already here working.
Recently, the same hotel had vacancies for a LAUNDRY MANAGER who must have a bachelor’s degree in Hotel and Tourism management; they also advertised for a Sous Chef, Assistant Laundry Manager, and a Housekeeper. As recent as Friday April 9, 2010; page 46 – Weekend Nation – a Workshop Manager who must have a degree in golf management, as well as “good computer skills and experience using computer-based equipment management software programmes such as Trimms, TurfCentric and MyTurf”.
Virgin “We hope our position is clearer and will make no further comment on the issue here”
Haha……as we always knew…no work permit……illegal…..what exactly is an “Interim solution”?
Watch and see how fast it get issued now…..rules for some…not others.
@Josquin Desprez you are so right… when i look in the paper and see jobs advertise… i automatically say” dem done got somebody already”…….