Employers call for amnesty to help get undocumented workers in line

The process of trying to bring their undocumented workers in line with the law is “disheartening” and it often “feels unachievable”, according to a number of employers. Multiple employers who spoke to Times of Malta over the past few weeks have admitted they feel the need to regularise their undocumented workers and say a temporary amnesty would help them do so. The feeling was accentuated after migrant worker Jaiteh Lamin was allegedly abandoned on the road by his boss – instead of being taken to hospital – after being seriously injured on a construction site last month. Lamin did not have a permit to work here. But employers, mainly from the construction industry, say it is proving very difficult to obtain documentation for their own workers who are in a similar situation. This is mainly because there is no regularisation process in place. “We must lie our way through the system, pretending that the workers have just arrived in Malta and have never been employed,” one said. From the day they land in Malta, third country nationals have their passport stamped with a 90-day tourist visa. If they intend to work here, they must apply for a single work permit before that time is up.