Employers who make Bermudians redundant need to make sure no one else is hired to do their jobs, union boss Chris Furbert warned yesterday.The Bermuda Industrial Union president called a press conference to announce that the three Bermudians who lost their jobs at The Reefs last month would not be getting them back.“As of last week, the decision is that the three workers are going to remain redundant,” he said. “That means that three more Bermudians are out of work.“It’s extremely concerning that the management has told the [Economy, Trade and Industry] Minister that the category [of] general maintenance person is no longer required at The Reefs. I’m not sure who is going to do that general maintenance work.”He warned employers that if a position was made redundant it could not be filled again.Mr Furbert said the three redundant workers, whose departure from The Reefs sparked a one-day strike at the Southampton hotel, were all capable of doing their jobs and one had a “very high skill set”.“It’s a sad day in labour relations,” he added. “It should be concerning for the country. It’s very concerning for the union. We are not very pleased with the outcome of this situation.”Mr Furbert said he was told the hotel was overstaffed in the maintenance department, having 11 staff, but a budget for only eight. Of the eight workers left, he said two were Bermudians: one a painter and one an air conditioning technician.A hotel spokeswoman said last night there were three locals in the department.The BIU boss said the latest labour market indicator figures from the Department of Statistics painted a bleak picture for Bermudians in the job market.Quoting the official statistics, he said the number of locals in the workforce dropped by 3.75 percent from 27,272 in 2007 to 26,247 in 2010.Over the same period, the non-Bermudian spouse workforce rose by 1.9 percent from 1,942 to 1,979 and the permanent resident workforce went up almost 35 percent from 600 to 806.Mr Furbert said the latter category was “faring extremely well” while Bermudians were suffering rising unemployment.He claimed some employers were failing to follow the law and were employing foreigners in jobs that Bermudians could do.“It looks like probably 15 to 20 percent of the employers in this country are not doing the correct things because they try to fly beneath the radar.”He cited two recent examples of illegal labour being used in St George’s and Hamilton and said the companies involved should have had their operations shut down, rather than just being fined.“I’m asking for everybody to be much more tougher,” he said.Mr Furbert said the union wanted to see all work permits put on hold while unemployment continued to rise.Asked to expand on that, he said migrant workers were needed because there were not enough locals to do all the jobs but “there should be a justification” for every permit issued to a foreigner.The BIU chief said that should be the case in all sectors, adding: “The BIU would like to see a moratorium on work permits.”Useful website: www.biu.bm.