Lack Of Healthcare Cover For Seasonal Staff 'Immoral'

Not giving seasonal workers health cover for their first six months in the island has been called 'immoral' by a director of the Jersey Royal Company.

Everyone moving to the island, unless they're licenced, has to pay for healthcare for half a year.

Seasonal workers are only allowed to live here for nine months at a time.  A three-month break is needed before they can return.

Business Director Mike Renouard says the government should be paying for health treatment when the workers and the JRC pay social security.

"They're all paying social security for health cover. You're only allowed to be here for nine months. You pay your first six months, nothing happens, you come back the next year and you start all over again and you get no health cover.

It's immoral.

We've had people who have broken a limb and gone back on the boat the next day to have treatment back home and that is just not right.

They just don't want to pay for it when they get the bill.

We pay people's hospital bills because they've had an accident or fallen off their bike at the weekend or whatever and can't afford to pay their hospital bill, so we stump up for it."

Anyone who isn't British or Irish needs a permit to work in Jersey.

The Jersey Royal Company said a 12-month permit would help to source skilled workers.

The Economic and International Affairs scrutiny panel is looking at whether the nine-month allowance is fit for purpose and whether it's possible to extend it, following concerns raised by the Jersey Farmers Union.

However, the Home Affairs Minister says human rights have to be taken to account.

Deputy Gregory Guida told the scrutiny panel that allowing workers into the island for longer than nine months would cause issues from a family point of view.

"If we said it's two years, then you absolutely have to go back, we would be taking them from their home for two years without letting them establish here.

So this is actually very marginal in terms of human rights. Your wife and your kids may be in a different country and certainly, they don't have the money to go back and see them at the weekends.

Deputy Gregory Guida (left) in a Scrutiny hearing alongside Deputy Lindsay Ash

In the UK, you have to understand that there's only a skilled path and that they have one exception for fruit pickers which is a six-month temporary visa.

So we've already stretched the UK system to allow for nine months because we have (a) different need.

But to extend it makes it more and more difficult for those people to actually go back home."

Assistant Minister Deputy Lindsay Ash says there is also a financial cost to take into account.

"If they bring their wife and two children over here, we've got to educate the two children... I don't know what is, £15,000 a year, that's £30,000."

Other issues raised by the agriculture industry include:

• Workers being incorrectly subjected to a 20% tax rate
• Workers being charged £115 for a new work permit each time they return, even if they've only left for three months

"We thank the Minister and Officers, Jersey Farmers’ Union and the Jersey Royal Company for sharing their views on the current rules of employment and how these affect seasonal agricultural workers living in, and travelling to and from, Jersey.

Now that the Panel has met with key stakeholders, we can begin assessing the key issues that have arisen to determine whether there is scope for an adjustment of the current rules which apply to seasonal workers in the industry." - Deputy David Johnson, Chair of the Economic and International Affairs Panel.

Findings and recommendations from the review are due to be published before the end of March.