Eight firms that refused to come to terms with Bermuda's work place racial reporting requirement could soon find themselves in court.

Development and Opportunity Minister Terry Lister said that those companies which did not submit CURE forms on the racial composition and salary levels of their employees are to be prosecuted.

He told The Royal Gazette that eight companies had not complied with the regulations -- and that their names had been submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

"It's name and shame time now,'' Mr. Lister said following the release of the first CURE Review of the Workforce Survey on Friday.

"But that is not for me to do, that is for the Director of Public Prosecutions.'' Under the CURE legislation, companies which did not register with CURE faced $1,000 fines and those that did not submit the required information can be fined up to $5,000.

The regulations -- which were unveiled amid much controversy in January 2000 -- called for all work places with ten or more employees to submit forms to the Government specifying the race, employment level, salary and benefits of each employee.

When originally announced, many companies railed against the regulations saying they were unfair and would create needless paperwork.

One businessman went so far as to say he would pay the fines of other businesses who refused to submit the information. William Williams, pulled his multi-billion dollar company, STW Fixed Income Management Ltd., out of the Island claiming the move was partially due to work permit hassles and the required racial reporting.

Mr. Williams relocated his company to California and said he would pay fines for predominantly Bermudian-owned companies who refused to comply with CURE if they let him know the fines were a financial hardship.

On Friday, Mr. Lister categorised the eight rogue firms as "mid-sized'' businesses and said he had a difficult time understanding why they would chose to flout the law.

"If it was a large number of companies that refused to comply, at least they would have strength in numbers,'' he said. "But as the great majority responded, they don't even have that.'' Despite the eight non-compliant firms, Mr. Lister told The Royal Gazette that he was "very pleased'' with the overall response to the new regulations from the private sector.

Most of the 426 work places that submitted forms did so by the CURE deadline of end of October 2000 while a few trickled in through November and December, he said.

It's time to name and shame -- Lister Given that the number that did not submit forms was so small, Mr. Lister said that the survey's results would not be skewed.

Similarly, he said, although some of the 26,441 individuals who were required to designate themselves as "black'', "white'', "Asian'', "black and white'', "black and other'', "white and other'' or "other'' may have taken the exercise lightheartedly and submitted false information, those numbers too would be insignificant.

With a survey of this size, Mr. Lister said, a six to seven percent discrepancy rate would be expected in the numbers.

According to the survey review released on Friday, the "overwhelming majority of businesses employ both black and white workers''.

Six firms were found to have only black employees and two have only white employees.

Among the more significant findings of the first survey were that whites hold 68 percent of executive management positions compared to 20 percent held by blacks and less than one percent of blacks earn more than $100,000 a year versus more than 12 percent of whites.

Mr. Lister said that the survey -- which will now be completed annually to monitor change and progress -- represented the first phase of CURE's efforts to address employment discrepancies and gaps based on race.

Now the commission will focus on working with companies that were shown to have performed well in terms of racial equity to find the secrets of their success.

And CURE will work with firms that performed badly to try and improve their record on race equity.

"The hard part for the office of gathering the information is behind us now,'' said Mr. Lister. "The hard part from here will be moving forward and seeing improvements on a year to year basis. We intend to be patient and we ask the people of Bermuda to be patient.'' But he said the commission expected to see improvements in the top two categories -- executive and senior management positions -- which continue to be dominated by whites to an extent disproportionate with the composition of Bermudian society.

Terry Lister