Ms Sancha Magat:

As members may be aware, the employment permit is issued to the employee for two years and is tied to one employer. There are many factors that prevent the employee from changing employer, such as the fear factor, especially in the first year. Even if an employee is experiencing exploitation, he or she is afraid to raise the issue with the employer because of the fear of not getting a new employment permit. As I said, the factors are language and fear. It is not easy to change employers and most employees do not know how to do it. There is a lot of information. Some employees are also afraid to take cases to the Workplace Relations Commission. That is the main issue for the work permit holder.

When comparing mobility between permit types, we have a general work permit and a critical skills work permit. For the latter, an employee will be granted stamps after two years and he or she will have the capability to change employer without applying for a work permit whereas an employee needs to have worked for five years in order to change a general permit. We are asking the Government to introduce the same entitlements for the general work permit as for the critical skills work permit. There should not be a barrier to an employee changing a work permit because to get that general permit, an employee who applies for another job needs to have an employer who will support his or her application. In addition, that employee will have to go through the different criteria stipulated in the general work permit, including that the job is advertised, has a salary and so on.

There is also so much bureaucracy involved in the processing time. It takes three months to process a new permit. That is the current situation. In order to prevent exploitation, the Government needs to introduce a mechanism in this upcoming legislation whereby there will be the same mobility after two years for general permit holders as for critical skills permit holders, an immediate right to family reunification and a right for employees' spouses to work.