The Grand Bahama Human Rights Association has received numerous reports about a morally reprehensible, despicable, and possibly fraudulent, practice which has developed amongst a number of small and large companies in the Bahamas.
Many employers which have provided employer/employee contributory pension schemes for their employees have begun the practice of depriving their employees of their entitlement to the employer contribution to the pension fund.
The employers have been doing this by terminating the services of the employees just before their pension rights vest. In this way, the employer claims that it only has to pay to the employee the contribution made by the employee over, for example, a 5, 7 or 10 year period. In this way, many employers have been retaining their half of the pension monies to which the employee would otherwise have been entitled.
This is unfair, unjust and downright dishonest towards the employees and the Grand Bahama Human Rights Association calls upon the employers to stop this abusive practice.
Another abuse visited upon employees, after the pension may have vested, is to terminate the employee but tell them that they cannot access their pension funds until after they ļ¾ reach the age of 60 or 65 years. By that time, the Company might be out of business and the employees will have been deprived for many years of their funds and, in the meantime, the employer would have continued to add value to the pension fund for the employer.
The Grand Bahama Human Rights Association calls upon the Government to pass legislation to stop this criminal abuse of employees in the Bahamas.
Frederick R. M. Smith President
Grand Bahama Human Rights Association
