Grotto Bay Fined: Illegally Employing Foreigners
Grotto Bay Hotel was fined $8,000 in Magistrates Court this morning [July 5] after pleading guilty to two counts of illegally employing foreign workers.
Crown Prosecutor Cindy Clarke told Senior Magistrate Archie Warner that the Immigration Department had received complaints in April 2013.
She said that Immigration Inspectors responded and saw two US citizens, by the name of Peck and Rosenberg, working within the hotel.
The Court heard that the men were interior decorators who were employed by the hotel.
Senior Magistrate Warner said that Grotto Bay is an organization that hires and employs several foreign workers and should therefore be aware of all Immigration laws and rules.
The Hotel’s manager Johannes Marten pleaded guilty – on behalf of Grotto Bay – to the two charges, and Magistrate Warner fined Grotto Bay $4,000 on each of the two counts. Through its lawyer, Grotto Bay requested one week to pay the fine. The Magistrate granted the request.
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That’s it $4000 fine per person…mercy…no wonder businesses do this and think they can get away with it!!
I disagree. I am sure Grotto Bay’s work permits are now under heightened scrutiny, not to mention the negative publicity garnered from this fine and court appearance can possibly impact their trade, especially from the local community.
i think it is a fair warning shot over all rogue employers bow.
Agree with Anonion – They just paid the cost of a 4 year permit per person for this act so the penalty seems to fit the bill. It will definitely act as a deterrent going forth as it is now publicized in the press.
Not just Grotto Bay….but all employers who have been abusing the system have been put on notice. Big Time. There is a lot of sh!t going on out there.
Think so?? LOL…If immigration were to dig a bit deeper there….nuff said!!
Also, lets not forget, the 2000 Bermudian unemployed aren’t exactly falling over themselves to clean floors, make beds, cook breakfast…..no, no you are better than that, you want 125k working in reinsurance, eh?
I’ve got news for you bie. Lazy.
Agree totally. Lazy Bermudians, won’t do sh!t, Grotto Bay gotta get these guys in, cos you lot can’t be bothered. I don’t blame them at all.
@ Maple spliff & John Holmes can you prove your OPINION to be a fact? Have you taken a poll that shows that this is true or is it your own prejudice view? I believe that it’s the later of the two.
Maple spliff seems to be Canadian where far more than 2000 are on welfare & get loads of hand ups from their government compared to the little help our government gives. No OCAS handouts here mate.
John Holmes seems to be a rich boy or maybe girl who’s mommy & daddy paid their way through private school & uni & got a degree in a less than useless major but because mommy & daddy have rich connects they can still get a job unlike others in a field they have no experience or knowledge of & learn onsite.
They wont because this is just the tip of the iceberg.Not enough manpower to really do their job. Id like to know of the bribes that happen . I know that this happens in this economic climate but we will never know. Money over justice.
This is a joke when they all sleep in the same bed . Immigration officers with hotel big shots with judges, lawyers MPs etc. Wineing and dining together. Sitting in their church on sunday thinking bout who their gonna screw on Monday.
I’m in agreement. Sounds like a bit lenient.
20 years and 5 hotels late!!!! What a joke!!!!
To my knowledge no business has ever been fined for immigration violations EVER!!!! Usually the worker bears the brunt of any punishments meted out. In most cases not even being fined, immigration will usually just rescind their work permit and ask them to leave.
This is why there is so much dishonesty with employers particularly in the service industry flouting the laws. Now lets see if the immigration department goes for all these firms with illegal workers on their books or government looking into the other big crime of not paying your insurance pensions or govt tax that has cost the country millions if not billions in taxes over the past thirty years.
Some employers will pay taxes up to the forty hours with the balance handed over (untaxed) in an envelope with some employees (guest workers on vacation)having no form of taxes being deducted.
Immigration needs to look at one ethnic group who at Christmas seem to all fly home to their country of origin with a similar number flying into Bermuda to cover for their work duties. This practice has been going on for years and still continues to this day.
Govt should revoke Marten’s permit as well. That will teach them a lesson which other busniness will be careful not to duplicate
Agreed, a punishment should be directed to the manager so that an example is made for all other managers who are doing these type of things. $8000 is an easy enough fine for GB to pay & they will make that money back in no time. This is not a deterrent its just a dog and pony show in the hopes of shutting up those who know what’s happening.
Government should be thanked. They said they would crack down – and here is proof!
If I pay for my car to be serviced & the business only checks my oil why should I praise them? This is just a drop in the ocean of what’s going on with permits in Bermuda. When I see at least half of the culprits busted then I will give government props for them doing what the island pays them a massive amount to do.
It’s a start, which is more than we’ve had in the past. Now we wait to see how things progress.
This is true compared to the previous government who caused this problem to begin with. Going to Asia to promote tourism? YEAH RIGHT! My & Bermuda’s backside is what they were doing over there.
@TC not sure I follow but its about time the immigration department took real action against the EMPLOYER instead to picking on the illegals. What happened at Riddles Bay was a travesty. Sending the guest worker home with 24hrs notice because he was ordered to work outside his remit by management. The BIU stood by and did nothing. If I wasn’t ‘conflicted’ I would have been on the shop steward to represent him, or suggested pro bono legal counsel, legal aid, or organized a petition on his behalf. Sickening the way we treat people here jus because. No love lost for the employer that’s for sure
Good Job!! Now lets get some unemployed Bermudians in there to replace those workers.
It’s because of work permit red tape, employers are put off. Doesn’t make it right but you also need real experienced people in positions not ones that say they are. If there were qualified or even interested Bermudians how hard would it have been to drop off a resume or follow up on jobs. There are not that many employers on the Island, easy pickings for locals to be honest (and 6 degrees of separation should make it even easier). Remember you have foreign workers because you need them! There are simply not enough Bermudians to fill positions it’s a numbers game you don’t get a skilled position because you were born there. Lobby gov for better schools (a real university subsidize if you don’t have the enrolment rates) and training programs, stop blaming businesses and foreign workers.
Many of the non IB foreigners learn more than what they knew before when they get here. Many aren’t even asked to prove the credentials they say they have to get their permit. I’ve seen foreign workers hired as drivers sitting in a company vehicle with a big red L stuck on the back. I’ve had to repeat my order more than twice to foreign workers because they can’t understand the QUEENS ENGLISH I was taught in a Bermudian school. As for this case, there are more than 20 interior decorating companies in Bermuda with Bermudians who have graduated from overseas schools in this field. You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
Yours is the first sensible response addressing the issue at hand without the sense of entitlement that still prevails among Bermudians. Thank you!
Sensible in a world where ifs & buts are cherries & nuts. This is the real world where employers & managers chuck Bermudian’s resumes away because they have already decided to hire a foreigner before even placing their legally required ad. As I typed before there are more than 20 interior decorating companies in Bermuda with Bermudians who have graduated from overseas schools in this field. Do you really think a Bermudian needs a university degree to toss salad, drive a vehicle, clean offices, serve costumers in retail or the many other jobs that foreigners are employed in over Bermudians?
I’m not condoning flouting immigration/work permit legislation here, but if hoteliers are not able to hire the level and type of staff that they need to operate at a profit, they will simply by pass Bermuda or stop any further investment. (e.g.) Elbow beach.
I’m sorry but the hotel rates here are astronomical.
Initially I thought it was because many Bermudians were employed and need a fair wage to survive here as it is an expensive place to live. If hotels are getting away with hiring foreigners (I’m technically a foreigner by the way) then why are the rates so high?
Then there is the service charge (some are around $80 per room per day). If all this went to staff then I’m sure more Bermudians would find hospitality a realistic and fairly lucrative profession.
Not sure how long you’ve been here but about 15 years ago the majority of hospitality workers were bermudian. Now the majority of hospitality workers are non Bermudian. The hotel rates have only increased since then but hotel service & entertainment has declined. It’s quite ironic how the Hamilton Princess before would have lived up to the Fairmont name but since it’s became the Fairmont doesn’t. We had amazing hotels manned by majority Bermudians. Bermudians in the hospitality industry with loads of experience have been laid off left, right & center & replaced with cheaper labor despite this being illegal according to the employment act of Bermuda.
Can’t help but reflect on the change you observed in the last 15 years, and who was in power for most of that time.
The answer though is not to blame the expats Tommy. The answer is to get Bermudians applying for those jobs. The ones that irritate you most are in catering and similar. Employers don’t want more expense than necessary, so if well-trained, polite, reliable staff apply, they will (and do) get the job.
There goes another hotel… With all the BS and expense of getting work permits for people who can actually do the job without all the baggage that comes with so many Bermudians, I am pretty sure the owners of marginally profitable outfits like this are asking themselves if it is worth the aggravation.
We are so good at shooting ourselves in the foot with pettiness…Shame on the jerks who caused this fiasco.
And in the meantime the Italian restaurant monopoly seems to have expats doing everything…
It is unbelievable and disgusting that a major hotel such as Grotto Bay would commit such an offense and receive such a petty fine. At this rate, companies should have no fear of consequences when breaking immigration laws. At the bare minimum, the courts should have hit them extremely hard financially, in order to “send a message of intolerance” for immigration violations for both Grotto Bay and other businesses.
As a matter of fact, government needs to publish positions that hare being held by foreign workers, with the minimum required qualifications. This would allow us to see who is being fairly hired for positions of which there are no Bermudians qualified for.
Now that’s transparency!!!
Now that’s driving away investment forever.
Well why leave it there? Let’s have every government job advertised every year. And if I can do that job, and I’m willing to do it better or for less pay than the current employee, I should have that job. Now THAT’S transparency.
Yawwwwwwwwwwwn
seems far too low a fine to me!
It is sad to read all these issues…after all the hotel did the best to bring more tourist to the Island.
“after all the hotel did the best to bring more tourist to the Island.” By charging an arm & leg for a Holiday Inn florida experience? Maybe they should put we have no gators or pythons in their ads & then more tourist would bite.
)
Wow,this never happened under the PLP regime,the new govt is looking out for us!
Good job OBA!
Victor seems you have a real issue with Bermudians filling hospitality positions. I have spent 14years of my life in working in restaurants and hotels and another 17 yrs in an industry that supports the hospitality industry. There is no real quality in the workers that are being hired today. Most if them come here with fictious resumes much to the frustration of those going through the immigration process. They are scouted IN SOME CASES by individuals (on work permits) who make money bringing them in or have some relation with the intended permit holder.
These individuals can’t cook or serve but remain here because now the employer can pay them even less than what the job description requires. The guest worker doesn’t care because they still feel they have hit the jackpot.
But in your opinion a person who cannot cook or cannot serve and in some case be understood when serving a customer, is still far better than a Bermudian (and all the baggage that comes with so many of them).
How true. But no Gov in Bermudas existence will Ever do anything because of personal involvement to ensure that these businesses survive at any cost in order to make us believe that the system that we have is profitable for themselves and us.
Guys….it was just a mistake….they bought some artificial plants for lots of money and that company came to put this things together coz u cant ship a big plastic tree.. everything came apart…they were just puttin this plants in a pots and then just spray them green or yellow….and that is it….the pay was in the plants….manpower came free…but the law is the law and cant go around it….but this is what happend…gb should know better anyway…
Under the P.L.P., how many companies were caught deliberately hiring foreigners without work permits….according to the Kool-Aid drinkers, hundreds actually were getting it away with it every month. BUT NONE WERE ACTUALLY CAUGHT..RED-HANDED. IT TOOK THE O.B.A. Government to put the REAL LINE IN THE SAND and PROSECUTE an offender….NOT THE CLAPTRAP FROM THE “PEOPLE’S GOVERNMENT”, you know, the ones who signed more work permits than the SO-CALLED PRO-Foreigner U.B.P. EVER DID.
Perhaps Mr. Famous can go On-Air the Propaganda Network and site the official lie that the P.L.P. insist on trotting out when he party that HATED FOREIGNORS were at the helm when the largest group were imported into the Island.
O.B.A /UBP is allowing European foreigners in the island to fill the many job positions within their business institutions.They followed up on this complaint to try and appear transparent,but when you look under the hood you will find that they import /export Europeans daily.
European foreigners? LMAO!!! Even the European owners of Bermudian business hire more foreign workers from a country more east than Europe. If you have lived here pre plp you will remember when the Italian restaurants here actually had Italian workers.
He’s using the words ‘European foreigners’ to describe white people. He hates white people, not Europeans. Many Europeans are white, of course, but he’s too stuck up his own racist a** to realise it.
‘SENCE OF ENTITLEMENT’ that’s right the same entitlement expected by Americans; British; Canadians in thier own country. The same entitlement
I expect as a Bermudian in my own country when it comes to employment rights in Bermuda. This is my country or do I have to go to war to reinforce this.
The time is long gone when Bermudians should have demanded this and said it in a ‘ LOUD VOICE’.
If these workers were interior decorators, I for one, am sad that they got caught. I was recently at Grotto Bay and they had the same room decor from when I stayed there almost twenty years ago. The sheets were threadbare, there was no Internet and the rate was over $300 per night.
They probably cannot afford the cost of Bermudian decorators and they were probably trying to get the rooms revived before the season began. Why couldn’t Immigration have issued the workers a permit along with the fine?? GB probably would still have come out cheaper than with a Bermudian company that will take until next year to do the job just due to sheer volume.
@ Let them Decorate, Are you serious or delirious? Crazy words on your part. AND, internet is not a Grotto Bay problem. It’s a Bermuda internet problem.