more H-2B hyperbole
more H-2B hyperbole
Date: Monday, October 08, 2007 10:39 PM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1767 -- 10/08/2007 >>>>>
Media hyperbole is building on the supposed need for more H-2B visas -- a visa
used for a category of workers called "unskilled" because the jobs don't
require special skills or education. Most of these are farm jobs but many of
the visas are used for hotel maids, landscapers, fish cleaners, and every
other menial and low paid job you can think of. Some of them aren't low paid -
- like for instance H-2B is used for foreign ski instructors.
You might be wondering why employers would use H-2B visa holders instead of
just hiring illegal aliens. Perhaps some actually want to do the right thing,
but more than likely a few of them fear getting busted. The DHS must be doing
at least a good enough job to scare employers that are marginally ethical.
Only about 2,400 H2B visas were issued to workers in 1995. But
with the allure of a government sanction, the H2B program
has grown exponentially. In fiscal year 2004, the 66,000 annual
visa allotment was tapped out for the first time.
Of course there is the flip side of this equation. Lou Dobbs is back, and
today he and Bill Tucker talked about the main reason employers would prefer
to hire illegals than H-2B visa holders:
TUCKER: And some farmers say they don't like to use those programs
[H-2B] because they're difficult, bureaucratic and more expensive
compared to just hiring illegal aliens, Lou, who are cheaper and
they don't have to have the same work rules...
DOBBS: We certainly wouldn't want anybody to have to follow rules
and actually have to go through a government approval process...
TUCKER: Right.
The parallels between H-1B and H-2B are sometimes striking. Employers want
more of both of them, and like H-1B the numbers of visas are increasing even
though the yearly cap hasn't been raised. All Congress has to do is to exempt
categories of workers from the limit and presto -- more visas!
Remember in 2004 when 20,000 visas were exempted from the H-1B cap? They play
the same game with H-2B:
For FY 2005 and FY 2006, approximately 35,000 previously approved
H-2B workers qualified as returning workers who were exempt from
those years caps -- opening up an additional 35,000 slots for
other H-2B workers.
As expected both articles contain ample shortage shouting:
"We're in a rural area," he said. "We have a tough time finding
workers out here. It would be pretty near impossible to run this
business" without the H2Bs.
The next quotation says it all. I suspect that Ms. Montero is trying to get an
engineering job in the U.S. by using a TN or H-1B visa, but while she waits
she is more than willing to do grunt work.
Ms. Montero earned a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering
back in Mexico. Here, she makes about $7 an hour, taking home about
$860 a month after taxes. On the job, Ms. Montero spends her days
cutting vegetables, making sandwiches and washing dishes amid the
steel counters, sinks and refrigerators of the camp kitchen.
How many of you would be called "overqualified" if you applied for a $7 an
hour grunt job? If the overqualified thing doesn't get you, most high-tech
firms will refuse to hire you because you haven't had recent engineering
experience -- in other words you are "underqualified". I'll bet Ms. Montero
won't have either problem, especially if she is willing to do engineering for
$7 an hour!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.bctd.org/fieldServices/index.cfm?at=7&aid=138
On the Job
09/26/2007
H2B Visa Abuse on the Rise!
by Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, (BCTD)
A disturbing trend is developing within the U.S. construction industry and all
building trades unions need to take note. This problem is exemplified by a
case in Texas where the U.S. government is investigating a contractor,
Baystone Contractors, LLC, for possible fraudulent abuse of the federal H2B
visa program. The investigation stems from the contractor s applications for
approximately 6,000 welders to be brought into the United Sates. This issue
has resonance for the building trades because immigration reform issues are
again beginning to circulate in the United States Congress -- including the
issue of H2B visa reform.
The H-2B program has a long history of abuse coupled with the attendant
exploitation of temporary workers. The H-2B visa program provides for the
temporary admission of foreign workers to the United States to perform
temporary non-agricultural work, if employed U.S. workers cannot be found.
An approved H-2B visa petition is valid for an initial period of up to one
year. An alien non-immigrant s total period of stay as an H-2B worker may not
exceed three consecutive years.
However, a new provision that was signed into law as part of the FY 2005
Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on
Terror, and Tsunami Relief (P.L. 109-13), provides that returning H-2B workers
counted against the annual cap of 66,000 during any one of the three prior
fiscal years were not to be counted again against the cap. For FY 2005 and FY
2006, approximately 35,000 previously approved H-2B workers qualified as
returning workers who were exempt from those years caps -- opening up an
additional 35,000 slots for other H-2B workers. In the end,
89,135 H-2B visas were issued in FY 2005 and 112, 541 were issued in FY
2006.
Equally problematic are the recent changes to the "prevailing wage"
provision relating to H-2B workers. Since the inception of the program in
1965, and until March 2005, the "prevailing wage rate" could not be less than
the wage rate applicable to the H-2B employer s incumbent employees in the
same or similar job classification set forth in a collective bargaining
agreement between the H-2B employer and a union. If there was no collective
bargaining agreement in place, then the "prevailing wage rate"
could not be less than the wage rate applicable to the occupation listed in a
wage determination in the area of intended employment under the Davis-Bacon
Act or the Service Contract Act. In the absence of a Davis-Bacon or Service
Contract Act wage rate, the U.S. Department of Labor
(DOL) required H-2B employers to offer a "prevailing wage rate" not less than
the weighted average rate of wages paid to workers in similar classifications
in a given area.
Unfortunately for the H-2B workers and for U.S. workers, DOL adopted new
regulations in March 2005 for determining the "prevailing wage." Pursuant to
these new regulations, H-2B employers are no longer required to offer the
Davis-Bacon or Service Contract prevailing wage rate. Instead, H-2B employers
must simply offer one of four levels of wages derived from the DOL
Occupational Employment Statistics, which are based on the H-2B employer s
assessment of the experience, education, and level of supervision required by
the job. These changes have substantially reduced the wage rates that H-2B
employers are required to offer to U.S. workers during the 10-day recruitment
period and thereby reducing the likelihood that "able, willing and qualified"
U.S. workers will be interested in accepting such jobs.
The BCTD will soon be conducting training programs at the state and local
level to prepare our local councils for how to deal with this growing problem.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-GuestWorker_30bus.ART0.State.Edition1.35aafb0.html
A guest worker program is shrinking despite high demand in Texas
A program that lets foreigners take jobs legally is shrinking despite high
demand from Texas companies
08:27 AM CDT on Monday, October 1, 2007
By KAREN ROBINSON-JACOBS and BRENDAN M. CASE / The Dallas Morning News
krobinson@dallasnews.com bcase@dallasnews.com
When the time came last year for Elizabeth Montero to make the trek from the
Mexican coast to the rich Texas job market, she didn't have to sneak across
the border or dodge immigration officers.
CHRIS CARSON/Special Contributor
From left: Karime Martinez Prado, Monica Ceron Marquez and Elizabeth Montero
prepare sandwiches at the Balcones Springs retreat near Marble Falls, Texas.
The Mexican women are employed legally through a guest worker program that
lets them be in the U.S. for up to 10 months. Instead, packing a temporary
work visa, she arrived for her job as a kitchen worker at an idyllic retreat
in the Texas Hill Country. She left after just a few months, returning this
year for another government-backed, temporary stint, this one lasting 10
months.
As the controversy rages over illegal immigrants holding U.S. jobs, thousands
of employers are quietly turning to a legal source of foreign workers once
used almost exclusively by builders and landscapers.
Now, however, the broader debate over revamping immigration policy threatens
to shrink this program at exactly the time it is most in demand.
An exemption to federal law that has allowed the number of workers in the H2B
guest worker program to swell is expiring today. That snaps the national cap
back to the statutory limit of 66,000 workers each year, compared with the
nearly 72,000 who came here in 2006.
Texas, the single largest user of H2B labor in the United States, will be
especially affected.
"It's terrible timing," said Austin attorney Robert Kershaw, whose firm, Reina
& Kershaw, has been processing H2B visa applications since 1999.
"If they fail to [keep the expanded number], it will mean more than a
hardship. Many of these businesses will not be able to stay in business. I
think you'll have a lot of outrage from business owners."
Under the H2B program, foreign nonagricultural workers like Ms. Montero each
year are granted visas allowing them to temporarily hold a variety of U.S.
jobs, from auto body mechanic to dining room attendant.
The U.S. government began handing out the visas in 1990 in a modest bid to
help U.S. employers with seasonal, peak load, intermittent or one-time needs.
H2B is similar to programs that bring in highly skilled foreign workers
(H1B) and agricultural workers (H2A).
Demand for these workers is booming. The number of H2B workers sought by U.S.
employers jumped from about 100,000 in fiscal year 2000 to nearly 250,000 in
2006.
Those numbers are still small compared with the inflow of immigrants seeking
work on U.S. turf.
An estimated 515,000 illegal immigrants arrived in the United States each year
between 2000 and 2006, according to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security
study released in August. Texas alone saw an average annual increase of 91,667
in its unauthorized immigrant population during that period -- more than any
other state, the study said.
Only about 2,400 H2B visas were issued to workers in 1995. But with the allure
of a government sanction, the H2B program has grown exponentially.
At the limit
In fiscal year 2004, the 66,000 annual visa allotment was tapped out for the
first time.
That left employers scrambling to find legal workers to shuck shellfish on the
Texas coast or fix tacos in San Marcos.
The lid on the number of H2B visas was eased in May 2005 via the Save Our
Small and Seasonal Businesses Act, authored by Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md.
The measure included, among other things, a provision for seasonal workers who
were returning to the U.S. after the mandated two-month break at home. Under
the act, such "returnees" weren't counted against the cap of 66,000. Hence the
growth to 72,000 workers last fiscal year.
No hearing is scheduled on a new bill that would continue the expanded
headcount until 2012. Attempts to address the issue through amendments to
other bills have failed.
Meanwhile, a threatened employer crackdown by the U.S. Bureau of Immigration
and Customs Enforcement has some bosses running scared. Many are looking to
replace workers who may not have authentic paperwork with those like Ms.
Montero, whose arrival was blessed by at least four government agencies.
It was that fear that pushed San Antonio restaurateur Salvador Garcia, founder
of Los Valles Produce, to the H2B program in 2006.
With 40 workers at his two outlets, he suspects some lack legitimate
documentation.
"I'm scared of losing everything," Mr. Garcia said in Spanish. "I'm going to
use the program if God lets me live another year. I don't want problems with
the government."
He will have lots of company from other entrepreneurs in the Lone Star State.
H2B visas are issued from a pool of applications approved, or "certified,"
by the U.S. Department of Labor. For the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30,
2006, DOL certified requests from Texas employers for more than 26,000 jobs,
more than any other state.
Total requests from Texas employers -- certified and denied -- jumped from
476 in the 2000 fiscal year to 1,291 in 2006, according to an analysis of DOL
data by The Dallas Morning News. (One request often asks for numerous
workers.)
Employers' perspective
"We don't know what we would do without this program," said Leslie Moore,
general manager of the Balcones Springs Executive Retreat & Conference Center
near Marble Falls, Texas, which uses seven H2B workers, including Ms. Montero.
"We're in a rural area," he said. "We have a tough time finding workers out
here. It would be pretty near impossible to run this business" without the
H2Bs.
In the Dallas area, such well-known places as The Mansion on Turtle Creek and
Fairmont Hotel were certified by the Labor Department to use H2B workers in
2006.(Executives at those companies declined to talk about the
program.)
Employers willing to talk to The News seem to delight in the program's ability
to provide eager, legal workers.
Among the fastest-growing segments seeking to tap into the program is food
service. Nationwide, requests from food-related employers nearly doubled
between 2000 and 2006 -- from 968 to 1,853.
Mike Shutley, director of legislative affairs for the National Restaurant
Association, said that the industry's traditional labor pool -- teens and
people in their early 20s -- is not expected to grow much in the U.S. over the
next 10 years.
"This 16- to 24-year-old demographic is half our workforce," said Mr.
Shutley. "The only other legal way to get seasonal workers is to turn to the
H2B visa."
For workers who come to the U.S. to wash dishes or mow lawns, the program adds
a sense of security.
'Your job is safe'
"One of the advantages is that you can walk down the street without worrying,"
the 25-year-old Ms. Montero said in Spanish, comparing her immigration status
to that of the estimated millions of undocumented workers from south of the
border. "You can go out, and the migra [immigration authorities] can't grab
you. You know your job is safe."
Ms. Montero's mother, Josefina Toral, 45, has used an H2B visa to work at the
Balcones Springs retreat for the last half-dozen years, leaving her mother and
son, now 13, behind in Veracruz, Mexico.
Last year, when Ms. Montero made the journey from the family home in Veracruz,
she joined nearly 43,270 other H2B workers coming from our southern neighbor,
the largest source of H2B labor.
A day in the life
On the job, Ms. Montero spends her days cutting vegetables, making sandwiches
and washing dishes amid the steel counters, sinks and refrigerators of the
camp kitchen. Balcones Springs handles everything from summer camps for kids
to corporate retreats.
In the evenings, the young woman shares a room with her mother in a narrow
three-bedroom home on the campgrounds.
Stacked in their kitchen are crates of green and dark red fruit from the
prickly pear cactus, offering a taste of home.
Will Ms. Montero apply to come back next year? Probably.
Yes, she misses her friends and relatives. But she finds the green in her
wallet as attractive as the verdant rolling hills surrounding her workplace.
Ms. Montero earned a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering back in
Mexico. Here, she makes about $7 an hour, taking home about $860 a month after
taxes. The camp pays for food, lodging and utilities.
Ms. Montero and her mother typically send at least $1,000 a month to Ms.
Montero's grandmother and younger brother back in Veracruz.
At a nearby restaurant, Christian Van Der Walt, 24, is on his second H2B
stint, working as a server at the Horseshoe Bay Resort.
He is a native of South Africa, the third-largest supplier of H2B labor.
The job means months of separation from his mother and stepfather, two sisters
and his younger brother. Although he may be missing family dinners
-- and possibly his sister's wedding in December -- he's not aching to leave.
Instead, he hopes to extend his visa and possibly convert it to a student
visa, which would let him stay while going to school here.
As with Ms. Montero, money is the main draw. "I make more money here as a
server than I would back home as an IT manager," he said. "Way more here."
He calls it a privilege to work here.
The critics
Critics argue that the very presence of Mr. Van Der Walt and the other H2Bs
undermine the U.S. economy by keeping wages artificially low for U.S.
workers and stifling the drive to find less labor-intensive solutions using
technology.
"The idea that there are not enough people [here] for businesses to hire is
absurd," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based
Center for Immigration Studies, a research group that supports tighter
controls on immigration.
"The basic premise -- that Americans won't do this work -- is economic
gibberish," he said. "What they mean is: Americans won't work for what they're
willing to pay."
Mary Bauer of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit agency based in
Montgomery, Ala., compares the guest worker program to modern-day slavery in a
report she wrote in March.
Open to abuses
A key concern is an H2B provision that requires the laborers to work for the
employer who sought their visa -- or go home. That, she said, makes them
vulnerable to abuse.
"Those workers tend to pay a lot of money to come to the U.S.," Ms. Bauer
said, referring to fees paid for visas and sometimes to recruiters. "They come
to the job very dramatically in debt."
They often can't afford to complain, she said, because losing their job would
mean returning home in debt.
Companies that hire these workers face their own risks.
Jacob Monty, a Houston immigration attorney, said desperate employers are
"listening to quacks" who convince them that undocumented workers now in the
U.S. illegally can be converted into legal H2Bs.
"I've seen a lot of [processors] sell employers down the river," said Mr.
Monty. "People at the U.S. consulate in Monterrey [Mexico] are cracking down
on fraud."
Mr. Monty said he is not a fan of the program because of the restrictions and
mountainous paperwork involved and because the "temporary work"
stipulation means many employers won't qualify without stretching the truth
about the nature of the job.
Despite its drawbacks, Mr. Monty is not surprised by the attention being paid
to this once tiny program.
There were threats earlier this year from Immigration and Customs Enforcement
to fine employers up to $10,000 for each worker whose numbers didn't match
data on file with the Social Security Administration.
That was put on hold in August by U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney in San
Francisco. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, also in San Francisco, is
expected to review the case Monday.
"Of course, there are increased inquiries [for H2B employees], with ICE
raining down on employers," said Mr. Monty. "It sounds like a panacea for all
of our labor and immigration ills."
Several employers agreed the program has shortcomings. But, they said, in the
absence of a viable alternative, a cumbersome fix beats a costly fine.
The logistics and the legalities
Obtaining hired hands through the H2B guest worker program is a time-
consuming, complex process, and most business owners need professional help to
complete it. Here are the basic steps:
Step 1
Karen's Bistro wants to boost its staff for the summer months by using H2B
workers. To qualify, the bistro must have a full-time need (generally 40
hours per week) that is temporary and seasonal, peak-load, one time
(prompted by a one-time contract) or intermittent. Generally, for seasonal
or peak-load jobs, workers are limited to 10-month stints. They must then
go home but are eligible to return after two months.
Employers can apply for the foreign workers no closer than 120 days before
the date the workers would start. Karen's Bistro expects to need extra help
in May, so it plans to apply for the workers in January.
Step 2
The owner of Karen's Bistro contacts an application processor, often an
attorney, to handle the paperwork and place a want ad in the local
newspaper for at least three days, using wording approved by the Texas
Workforce Commission. This addresses the issue of whether H2B workers take
jobs from U.S. citizens.
Step 3
After demonstrating a good-faith effort to find U.S. workers, if no one
competent applies, the Texas Workforce Commission processes the request,
sending it along to one of the U.S. Labor Department's National Processing
Centers.
Step 4
The Labor Department either denies the request or certifies to the Homeland
Security and State departments that there are no available U.S. workers to
fill the positions and that bringing in foreign workers wouldn't adversely
affect U.S. workers.
Step 5
Karen's Bistro uses its certification to petition the U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services for visas, which are given on a first-come,
first-served basis. Homeland Security does background checks on all workers
and companies applying.
Step 6
Foreign workers -- often ones Karen's Bistro has used before or relatives
of former workers -- apply for visas at the U.S. Consulate in their home
country. Workers may also be signed up by recruiters in the foreign country
who work with Karen's Bistro's local application processor. Workers can
come from anywhere in the world that is in good diplomatic standing with
the U.S.
Step 7
Once workers and employers are paired, those workers are required to work
only for the employer that sought their visas. Benefits and working
conditions vary. In some cases, workers reimburse the employer for room and
board; in others, it's part of their compensation.
Step 8
When the workers' visas expire (typically after 10 months) or they quit,
they are required to return to their home country.
SOURCE: Dallas Morning News research
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0710/08/ldt.01.html
LOU DOBBS TONIGHT
Aired October 8, 2007
DOBBS: Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, is urging Americans to his in
his words stop fighting the inevitable. Calderon says the flow of illegal
aliens from his nation across our southern border simply can't be stopped.
That's why, President Calderon says, Americans should simply acquiesce,
build bridges, as he put it, not fences along our border.
And, as Bill Tucker reports now, that's exactly what the Bush
administration is doing, making it easier by the day for illegal aliens to
both cross our border and to work here.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There is no point in trying to
stop illegal immigration, it can't be stopped, says Mexico's president,
Felipe Calderon. The president made his comments to ABC News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, ABC NEWS)
FELIPE CALDERON, MEXICAN PRESIDENT: Capital and labor are like right shoe
and left shoe, and one needs the other. I think it's impossible to stop
that. It's natural. It's an economic phenomenon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER: Two weeks ago, he made the same comments at a meeting of Mexican
and American border governors. Calderon is not talking about the fact that
he has a vested interest in illegal immigration continuing. In the first
six months of this year alone, Mexicans living legally and illegally in
America sent back to Mexico nearly $11.5 billion.
It does appear Calderon shouldn't lose any sleep worrying about the
president of the United States doing anything to stem the flow of
immigration. The White House has acknowledged that the Departments of
Homeland Security, State and Labor are looking to rewrite regulations to
revamp agriculture visas, H2-As and H2-Bs, to redefine terms, such as
temporary, and expand the types of work those workers are allowed to do.
The change is being considered in response to demand from farmers, who say
they're short workers. The administration not sharing any details of the
proposals and they don't necessarily need congressional approval. Critics
of the administration's immigration policy says this approach is a big
mistake.
CAROL SWAIN, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: Every time they tinker with
immigration, just fiddling around with little bits of it, they make the
situation worse. It cannot and should not be done piecemeal.
TUCKER: The program the administration is making changes to are used by
less than 2 percent of American farms to bring in foreign workers.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TUCKER: And some farmers say they don't like to use those programs because
they're difficult, bureaucratic and more expensive compared to just hiring
illegal aliens, Lou, who are cheaper and they don't have to have the same
work rules...
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: We certainly wouldn't want anybody to have to follow rules and
actually have to go through a government approval process...
TUCKER: Right.
DOBBS: ... actually protect and provide for the workers that they would
have... (CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: And, of course, we certainly wouldn't want them to pay, say, double
the wages, and raise the price of lettuce, for example, 10 cents for the
American consumer.
There are so many lies. And this administration is a bunch of scurrilous
cowards. They haven't got the guts or the intelligence or the capacity to
do this right. And that is recognize what the American people want done
here, which is to secure those borders.
And, if we need more, more workers in this country from abroad, then let's
demonstrate it economically and explain why the major industries where
illegal aliens are working -- that is, construction, hospitality, leisure,
and, of course, construction principally -- are going down, rather than
wages rising.
This is disgusting. This administration should be held accountable. And
these idiots, like Senator Dick Durbin and these people trying to push
through this push-up, this escalation in visas, I mean, these people need
to get real, because they are really offending the American people. They
are offending our traditions and our laws. It's disgusting.
Bill Tucker, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
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