THE LATEST threat to the programme of overseas employment of Jamaican workers in North America has surfaced from links to criminal activity, a study by the Canadian authorities has revealed.
As happened before in 2004 with drug trafficking arrests among workers in the United States, there are again calls for tighter screening of recruits for employment.
Recruitment for overseas employment started in 1943 with workers sent to the sugar belt mainly in the southern States. It expanded to Canada in 1966 and involved recruitment of workers for both farms and factories. In 1968 another category was added: hotel workers, including females.
The overall programme has expanded to the stage of establishing, through the machinery of the Ministry of Labour, liaison services to monitor the welfare of the workers. Liaison services also fostered relationships with the employers through such agencies as the Regional Labour Board and other bureaucratic structures which have kept the programme alive and expanding.
Indeed, then Minister of Labour Portia Simpson Miller, in 2000 was able to report that the various segments of the programme had become a valuable source of foreign exchange with over 12,000 Jamaicans being recruited annually for both farms and factories.
Hiccups in this rosy picture were caused by the fall-out of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, affecting tourism and employment prospects in at least six states; and there have been drug trafficking arrests prompting appropriate responses from the liaison agencies.
Despite these setbacks, by 2004 the programme had reached recruitment of some 15,000 workers annually. Even tighter screening is now to be imposed as a Canadian study shows that a majority of persons deported from that country went there originally under the farm work programme.
Minister Horace Dalley, in announcing that more stringent measures will now be imposed, aims to get assurances that workers will not abscond from the programmes as so many have done in the past. In targeting the selection process, however, much more than spoken assurances may be required. It should be obvious to local selectors that many of the applicants are not really agricultural workers.
In imposing tighter screening, the recruitment machinery of the Ministry of Labour should be mindful of other potential hurdles. These have to do with literacy and technical standards that may be required as advanced technology is applied even to agricultural processes.
In March last year, we reported a Canadian study which disclosed that six out of 10 applicants could not read the words 'cucumber', 'cabbage', and 'tomato'. They need much more than a Spelling Bee.
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