Billy Doyle, the branch secretary of Amicus and a member of the Employment Forum, said that EU nationals should be subject to the same rigorous controls as non-EU staff.
Kenyans working in the hospitality industry, for example, are allowed to stay for set periods, after which they must leave the Island, but Europeans can stay indefinitely.
Mr Doyle was reacting to JEP articles last week which revealed that locally based building sub-contractors were losing out to cheaper foreign labour because they could not compete with the lower rates they were prepared to work for.
‘Something has to be done, and it seems to me to be that the easiest way is to put people on fixed terms so that if they come to do a building job, they have to leave at the end of it,’ said Mr Doyle.
He has written to all 53 States Members saying that the last set of Jersey labour market statistics showed an increase in the number of people working in the construction industry and that just 11% were not residentially qualified.
