Haitian Labour is Bad for The Bahamas

by Andrew Allen

It is interesting to note how, whenever a Minister of Immigration decides to do the job he’s being paid for and start making life hard for those illegally in the country, Bahamians all suddenly remember how vital Haitian labour is to our economy and society. The only problem with that argument (aside, of course, from its suspicious timing) is that it is totally wrong.

In fact, far from helping our economy, Haitian labour actually retards our workforce and economy in a number of ways, none of which are good for the long-term development of The Bahamas..

Granted, the effects of this retardation may be muted by the general success of the Bahamian economy over the last 75 years, but they are nonetheless very tangible.

As a society develops economically, labour, which is one of the factors of production, undergoes a transformation. Low skilled, labour intensive work is replaced by more capital intensive, high skilled forms of employment. This tends to be accompanied by advances in educational attainment, compensation and benefits.

The point at which a society undergoes genuine embourgeoisement (its labouring class, through movement up the skills/income ladder, is transformed into a recognizable middle class) is generally reckoned to be when its per capita income reaches $10,000.00 – a point which the Bahamas, with a PPP per capita income of $23,000.00 today, passed in about 1983.

In an ordinary setting, given the increased spending power of Bahamian businesses and homeowners, as well as the increased opportunity for small business development, the use of unskilled Haitian peasant labour for landscaping, for instance, would long ago have been replaced by the more widespread use of landscaping companies.

For not only can a landscape company (which benefits from economies of scale) compete well in price terms with a full time Haitian gardener who needs to be compensated, fed lunch and have his work permit paid for, but it can be held to a more consistent standard of service by the pressure of maintaining business goodwill.

Yet as a matter more of culture than anything else, many Bahamian employers continue to opt for a form of labour that resembles slavery in every respect except cost-competitiveness. The supine Creole-speaking labourer being ordered about one’s lawn simply seems more in tune with the Bahamian idea of labour than the educated landscape specialist making his rounds.

This image, in turn, supports and underpins the extreme prejudice against non-white collar work that keeps young Bahamians not only away from professional landscaping, but also away from such other highly lucrative professions as surveying and even engineering.

In an economy like ours, where construction and development are the principal factors of growth, we still find ourselves bringing in Australians, Canadians and Englishmen by the barrelful to augment the sparse, but highly paid ranks of quantity surveyors, for instance, while young Bahamians rush headlong into law and accounting.

GIBSON IS RIGHT TO KEEP UP THE PRESSURE

While irrational business practices and backward images of labour feed the migration problem we face, it is the atmosphere of license and impunity toward the law that sustains it. To his credit, Mr. Gibson seems to understand that. If he brings to his new ministry anything like the energy that he brought to his last, we just may finally begin to see results of the kind that Bahamians have been demanding (though fitfully perhaps) for a generation or so.

Of course, thinking Bahamians do not want to see either pogroms in our country or the unjust harassment of foreigners among us. But we do want to see a consistent and fairly relentless drive to bring the number of undocumented migrants to practically (if not theoretically) acceptable levels.

And in this regard, two new policies that have been announced by the new minister promise to have a more significant long-term impact than the high profile family island sweeps that have aroused such passions.

Firstly, the promise to finally begin holding Bahamians to account (i.e. fining them) for the part they play in the migrant problem seems, for once, to be a solid statement of intent, rather than mere political bluster. I am told that this policy has already been implemented to the financial detriment of several Bahamian employers.

Given the simple (if misguided) cash calculus that constitutes the incentive to hire illegals, this policy is bound to have positive results if it continues.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, we were told that, effective upon Mr. Gibson’s arrival, his ministry immediately ceased considering work permit applications from new immigrants already inside the country.

This will presumably mean that the age-old assurance of every Haitian migrant that he need only get from Yamacraw Beach to Hawkins Hill (by way of a convenient intended employer in the suburbs) will now be at an end. An employer wishing to employ someone with the much-sought-after skills of a Haitian country peasant will now presumably have to locate and interview his man in Cap Haitien or St. Louis du Nord prior to his embarking for The Bahamas (?).

While Mr. Gibson’s announcement of these policies would seem to be a move in the right direction, in both cases it is scarcely believable that they were not being enforced all along.

In fact, for sheer ridiculousness, this omission ranks alongside that other great anomaly of Bahamian immigration practice: the ability of obviously poor (and generally female) Jamaican “tourists” to come to The Bahamas for implausibly long ‘holiday’ breaks, which they then proceed to extend, open-endedly, through visits to Hawkins Hill.

That some of these women may be engaging in gainful employment never seems to occur to staff at the department of immigration, though many later (entirely by accident, of course) come to the notice of a potential employer keen to hire and ‘regularise’ them.

Comments

[Enrico Emile]

I am haitian but Iam living in Dominican Republic.I have three boys kids,I already sent a letter to Bahamas in Labour of department so the can help me to get a work because the life is very hard for me in Dominican Republic.It has been some months since that I do not work so my childreen can not go to school,I can not pay the house(1big room).Please I have written you so you can help me because now the Dominican Responsable do not give work to the haitian people because a conflict last year between haitian people with dominican people.
I hope you help me to get a work because any work you give me,I will do it.or help me to get a visa so I can come to teach french and spanish in Bahamas.