Officers

(1) The Labour Commissioner and such other officers as the Minister may appoint shall act for the purposes of this Part. 18 (2) Every officer acting for the purposes of this Part shall be furnished by the Public Services Commission with a certificate of his appointment or authority so to act, and when acting under this Part shall, if so required by any person affected, produce the certificate to him. (3) An officer acting for the purposes of this Part shall have power for the performance of his duties, (a) to require the production of wages sheets or other records of wages kept by an employer, and records of payments made to outworkers by persons giving out work, and any other such records as are required by this Part to be kept by employers, and to inspect and examine those sheets or records and copy any material part thereof; (b) to require any person giving out work and any outworker to give any information which it is in his power to give with respect to the names and addresses of the persons to whom the work is given out or from whom the work is received, as the case may be, and with respect to the payments to be made for the work; (c) at all reasonable times to enter any premises at which any employer to whom a wages regulation order applies carries on his business (including any place used in connection with that business for giving out work to outworkers and any premises which the officer has reasonable cause to believe to be used by or by arrangement with the employer to provide living accommodation for workers); 19 (d) to inspect and copy any material part of any list of outworkers kept by an employer or person giving out work to outworkers; (e) to examine, either alone or in the presence of any other person, as he thinks fit, with respect to any matters under this Part, any person whom he has reasonable cause to believe to be or to have been a worker to whom a wages regulation order applies or applied or the employer of any such person or a servant or agent of the employer employed in the employer’s business and to require every such person to be so examined and to sign a declaration of the truth of the matters in respect of which he is so examined, Provided that no person shall be required under paragraph (e) of this subsection to give any information tending to criminate himself. (4) An officer acting for the purposes of this Part may institute proceedings for any offence under this Part and may, although not an attorney-at-law, conduct any such proceedings. (5) An officer acting for the purposes of this Part who is authorised in that behalf by general or special directions of the Minister or the Public Services Commission may, if it appears to him that a sum is due from an employer to a worker on account of the payment to him of remuneration less than the statutory minimum remuneration, institute on behalf of and in the name of that worker civil proceedings for the recovery of that sum and in any such proceedings the court may make an order for the payment of costs by the officer as if he were a party to the proceedings. The power given by this subsection for the recovery of sums due from an employer to a worker shall not be in derogation of 20 any right of the worker to recover such sums by civil proceedings. (6) Any person who obstructs an officer acting for the purposes of this Part in the exercise of any power conferred by this section, or refuses to comply with any requirement of such an officer made in the exercise of any such power commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding two hundred dollars.