Guest Column
I run the largest H-2B temporary foreign visa employers' agency in the US.
- I run the largest H-2B temporary foreign visa employers' agency in the US.
- By Libby Whitley, President
- Mid-Atlantic Solutions (MASLabor, Inc.)
April 17, 2007
A colleague of mine forwarded your April 10 (The Mexican Initiative: A Workable Guest Worker Program By Sal Osio http://www.hispanicvista.com/HVC/Columnist/sosio/041007sosio.htm - editorial regarding guest worker programs. It's the first expression of commonsense I've seen in print on the subject.
I run the largest H-2B temporary foreign visa employers' agency in the US. Your editorial perfectly sums up what I've said to anyone I could pin down long enough to listen: a 'permanent resident alien' / green card/ amnesty program is not the answer to US/Mexican immigration woes. Repetitive such 'fixes' (end of the Braceo program, the 1986 IRCA) only prove that about every twenty years the US electorate gets energized about the "masses of illegal aliens crowding our schools, abusing our social services programs and taking advantage of having anchor babies to stay in the US" and Congress enacts another wholesale amnesty 'comprehensive immigration reform' dressed up as a solution to US labor needs and the illegal resident problem.
Repetitive amnesties have demonstrated that don't solve either problem. They do not provide a reliable, long-term supply of legal labor or a permanent bar to illegal immigration. In fact, they have proved the opposite: without enforceable employer sanctions all they lead to is more illegal immigration -- the "magnet of employment opportunity" as Senator Alan Simpson used to term it.
Amnesties are "pigs wearing lipstick."
Further, the combination of an aging population and a younger generation which has been encouraged to seek other than manual labor career paths (understandably) has resulted in a distinct shortage of manual labor. This is especially true for seasonal industries which rely on relatively large numbers of workers for certain periods of the year.
The answer to seasonal employment labor needs is not as simple as "increase wages and benefits and the US workers will come." Much of this employment need is in rural areas where there simply are not enough able bodied workers willing to work at wage rates that are economically viable for the employers/industries.
Many of the industries (ex. agriculture) are not price-setters, they are price-takers, in that they cannot set the cost of their goods, particularly for industries heavily impacted by foreign imports.
Others, such as landscaping and construction, can pass prices along -- but only so far. If an employer has to pay $25/hour to laborers to cut grass, will there be sufficient homeowners willing to pay $300/week to have their grass cut?
The other intractable issue for seasonal employment is that it is extremely hard to lure workers away from full-time jobs, homes and families to move away to take seasonal jobs regardless of hourly wage rates.
Your suggestions are home truths. If the US had had a well-run, reliable, workable foreign guest worker program enacted in the 1960's, or 1980's, we would not have 15 million illegal aliens domiciled in the US today .
The guest worker program you outline would meet the labor needs of employers, while at the same time benefiting the Mexican economy, ensuring family unity and improving lives in the rural parts of Mexico from which most of these workers come by permitting investment and improvement in village infrastructure and educational benefits for children.
What's not to understand? A structured guest worker program seems to me to be such a simple solution.
My company arranges employment for around 7,000 workers each year on H-2A and H-2B visas for 600 employers in different industries (primarily landscape, construction and agriculture). I estimate that over 90% of workers we arrange return home each year at the end of their visas (some of the balance leave earlier, and some go AWOL). Properly run, the H-2 programs permit US employers to secure a reliable seasonal workforce which do not become public charges.
By the way, I really take issue with temporary guest worker program opponents who call these workers "cheap, easily intimidated indentured servants" who have no option but to stay no matter how abusive the employment situation. Nonsense. Even under the present H-2 program structure the worker has virtually the same options open to him that any US worker has. He can quit and go home. While he cannot walk across the road and work for competition, he can be transferred to another employer. He can join a union if he wishes.
- Keep up the good work,
- _______________________________________________
- Libby Whitley, President, Mid-Atlantic Solutions (MASLabor, Inc.) can be contacted at: lwhitley@maslabor.com
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed by HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com) without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)