H-2B Is a Godsend?
H-2B Is a Godsend?
Date: Monday, May 12, 2003 1:58 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
www.ZaZona.com
This two-part article will seem very familiar to all of you that have
studied the H-1B issue. That's because the same arguments are used to
justify the use of foreign workers. The last line of the series
explains why H-2B is a godsend.
I visited Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia last year and it was a fun
trip through early American history. Unfortunately they brushed off the
subject of slavery even though Virginia embraced the practice. They
also dodged the fact that indentured servitude is still alive and well
in Virginia.
It's educational to watch the Colonial Village craftsmen make shoes,
wagon wheels, and all the other necessities of that era. A store
located right across the street from the mock Witch Burnings had a cute
Colonial doll that was perfect for a gift. I noticed that the price
sticker couldn't be peeled from the bottom of the doll where the
location of manufacture was printed. I asked the store clerk if this
doll was made in Virginia and she said, "No, they are imported from
China". Needless to say, the doll stayed on the shelf.
The doll incident left a slightly unpatriotic taste in my mouth and the
articles below didn't help. That's because the Colonial Village hires
H-2Bs instead of Virginians that need jobs. Of course Maria Candler,
vice president of operations claim that, "Colonial Williamsburg has
gone to extraordinary efforts to recruit in that area, but it cannot
seem to find local workers." Somehow she forgot to mention the fact
that the Colonial Village pays Wal-Mart salaries of $7 an hour.
As we have seen on the H-1B issue, the only ones that admit why they
being hired are the visa holders. Companies tend to exaggerate how
difficult it is to hire Americans. Let's compare two statements, one
from Elizalde-Luna, an H-2B, and Soundarrajan, an H-1B mentioned in the
recent newsletter "Albany Tech Firms Want More H-1Bs".
Elizalde-Luna, an H-2B
Companies here don't want to pay high salaries to
American workers, so they recruit Hispanics who
will work hard for less pay. The wages, though, are still much greater than in Mexico."
Soundarrajan, an H-1B
Soundarrajan is an Indian native and a graduate student
at the University of Akron. He said that American companies
want H-1Bs because, "They want foreign nationals who will
work for a lot less money than an American would."
Mary Bauer, legal director of the Virginia Justice Center for Farm and
Immigrant Workers in Charlottesville, could be talking about either
visa when she said that the H-2B program is "a colossal failure" that
doesn't protect the wages and working conditions of American or
immigrant workers as required by Congress. "It does allow employers to
evade the basic rules of the capitalist market," she said. "Typically,
if you have a hard time finding workers, you have to offer better wages
and working conditions to attract them. Employers in the H-2B program
don't do that."
Some of the companies mentioned in the two articles are in the LCA
database at:
http://www.zazona.com/LCA-Data/
By using the advanced search you will see that Mary Bauer was correct,
the salaries are miserable. Here is a list of companies you can search
on:
James River
Hotel Colonial
Lancrafters
STM Landscape Services, Inc.
I always like to end my newsletters with something funny, so here goes:
Maria P. Candler, vice president for operations of
the Williamsburg Colonial Village said that, "There
are a lot of myths that these guys are replacing
American workers."
The quotes are quite good so they are now online at:
http://www.zazona.com/shameh1b/Quotes.htm
http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/vametro/MGB5GRHYIFD.html
Foreign 'guests' work -- does the program?
STORIES BY PAMELA STALLSMITH PHOTOS BY ALEXA WELCH EDLUND
TIMES-DISPATCH May 10, 2003
You see them trimming trees along Virginia's highways or tending
grounds around Richmond's corporate campuses. They pick crabs in
packinghouses along the Chesapeake Bay. They wait tables and clean
rooms at some of the state's plushest resorts.
They are part of a little-known but controversial federal program that
allows U.S. companies to import foreign workers to fill jobs that
employers contend Americans won't take.
The H-2B program permits American employers to hire foreign workers on
a temporary basis for nonagricultural jobs, such as in landscaping or
ho-tels, if the companies can prove they can't find U.S. laborers.
Employers praise the guest-worker program, contending it allows them to
fill jobs that otherwise would go vacant.
Critics view it as a modern-day form of indentured servitude. Workers
say they're grateful for the chance to come into the United States
legally and make money, though some complain of unfair treatment by
their employers.
Virginia ranks as one of the top states that use H-2B workers, and the
numbers have grown steadily since the program's creation in the 1980s.
Several thousand come to Virginia every year, most from Mexico, with
Jamaica next.
"It's a lot better to come legally," said Jose Luis Ochoa-Felix, a
19-year-old landscape worker from the state of Sinaloa on Mexico's
western coast. "If you come illegally, it's dangerous and expensive."
Ochoa-Felix's story is typical of the thousands of Mexicans who come to
this country each year under the program. Rather than risk his life
illegally crossing "la frontera" - the U.S. border - Ochoa-Felix went
the legal route.
He borrowed $600 - at 20 percent interest - to cover his expenses in
making the arduous four-day bus trip to Portsmouth, where he worked
last year. He said it would take him up to two months to pay back the
money.
"In the end, it's for our families," he said in September from the
Portsmouth warehouse where workers say up to 60 Mexican men lived at
one point last summer. "It's terrible, though, because of the emotional
hardship. You're doing it for them, but being without them is so hard."
But the company Ochoa-Felix worked for, Hoover Inc., is one of four
companies in Virginia facing legal challenges from workers who allege
they were cheated on pay and lived in substandard housing.
Ochoa-Felix is one of 14 Mexican workers who are suing the company and
another firm owned by the same family, Virginia Turf Management
Associates, in federal court.
Mary Bauer, legal director of the Virginia Justice Center for Farm and
Immigrant Workers in Charlottesville, which represents the workers,
called the H-2B program "a colossal failure" that doesn't protect the
wages and working conditions of American or immigrant workers as
required by Congress.
"It does allow employers to evade the basic rules of the capitalist
market," she said. "Typically, if you have a hard time finding workers,
you have to offer better wages and working conditions to attract them.
Employers in the H-2B program don't do that."
The lawyer for Hoover Inc. and Virginia Turf Management called the suit
"a shakedown."
"It is frivolous in many respects and it defames the Hoovers and their
companies in so many ways that we find it offensive, both legally and
factually," said Stephen E. Heretick of Portsmouth.
The H-2B program is one of about a dozen temporary-employment options
available to foreign workers at all levels, from technology to
agriculture. The federal government limits the H-2B program to 66,000
visas a year. It is one of the larger programs, which together admit
more than 1 million such workers a year.
The workers hold visas that allow them to work for one employer for up
to a year, though typically the time is 10 months. After their
contracts end, the workers must return to their home countries. If they
wish to return to the United States, they must go through the process
again. Workers make what's called the "prevailing wage," usually above
minimum wage.
Employers must prove a labor shortage exists and can do so by running
newspaper ads for three days. Federal officials say the entire
application process for employers can take about five months.
The exact number of H-2B workers in this country remains unclear. The
Labor Department reported that 121,665 positions - almost double the
visas allowed - were certified nationally in the fiscal year that ended
in September. In Virginia, that number stood at 5,337.
Often, labor officials acknowledge, employers will ask for more
certifications than needed, as a safeguard to make sure they obtain the
necessary workers.
The Department of Homeland Security, which now handles immigration,
reports it granted 72,387 admissions to H-2B workers during the same
period.
One federal official said it is hard to pinpoint the number who came
into the country because a visa holder can use it multiple times to
enter the United States during its length. Also, sometimes not all the
visas issued are used.
Unlike its better-known counterpart, the H-2A program, which applies to
agricultural workers such as apple pickers in the Shenandoah Valley and
tobacco-field hands in Southside Virginia, the H-2B workers must pay
for their own transportation to the United States and for their
housing, which critics contend is unregulated. An exception is workers
in the logging industry.
During the economic surge of the 1990s, when unemployment rates
plummeted and business boomed, the use of H-2B workers expanded. From
1998 to last year, the number of labor certifications roughly
quadrupled, particularly in the hospitality industry.
Employers and industry officials say the program helps fill the gap
caused by a trend in which, in the increasingly affluent United States,
high school and college students aren't taking those jobs.
"The program is critical to hotels and other tourist businesses in
seasonal resorts, because typically those resorts are in places where
there aren't a lot of people," said John Gay, vice president of
governmental affairs for the American Hotel and Lodging Association.
"In hotels, you would always prefer to have someone who speaks English,
is familiar with the culture of the guest and somebody who wasn't going
to be homesick," he said. "It's not the easier or cheaper option to
start going to Jamaica or Mexico."
Colonial Williamsburg expects to bring 20 Jamaicans to work this summer
on its housekeeping staff. The Jamaicans, who will stay through the
busy Christmas season, make up less than 10 percent of the housekeeping
crew.
"There are a lot of choices for people in the Williamsburg area to work
somewhere else," said Richard Villella, a Colonial Williamsburg
human-resources official.
With an unemployment level exceeding 15 percent, Jamaica provides a
source of willing workers experienced in service jobs.
"Jamaica has got its own tourism and hospitality business, and they
established this program a long time ago where employees who can't find
work there can find work here," Villella said. "It works for us because
if we can't find people locally, it's a good source of people who are
already trained."
Colonial Williamsburg pays for their transportation, the flight to
Miami and a bus ride to Virginia. However, the workers pay for their
own rent at company-arranged housing.
This marks the third year that Colonial Williamsburg has used the H-2B
program, though the numbers are down. The arrangement is subject to
approval by the local union to make sure no American workers are being
displaced.
"As a policy, we try to make sure indigenous workers are employed
first," said John Boardman, secretary-treasurer of Hotel and Restaurant
Employees Local 25, which represents between 650 and 1,000 workers.
"Colonial Williamsburg has gone to extraordinary efforts to recruit in
that area, but it cannot seem to find" local workers.
Companies in other fields say the program allows them to stay in
business and hire legal workers.
"It's a very good program for a steady work force," said Garyn Labenz,
branch manager for STM Landscape Services in Mechanicsville. The
company employs between 15 and 20 Mexican H-2B workers, who stay
between nine and 10 months. "We've tried to hire locally from around
Richmond. It's hard work, and you either want to do it or you don't."
The program has spawned a lucrative industry. Numerous companies that
recruit workers and provide employees for American companies advertise
on Internet sites.
Bob Wingfield, the founder of Amigos Labor Solutions Inc. in Dallas,
began recruiting H-2B workers six years ago and provides American
companies in 34 states, including Virginia, with about 2,000 employees
a year.
"The whole key to what we do is this: The worker gets a good job, the
employer gets a good employee, and we make some money," Wingfield said.
He has partners in Monterrey, Mexico, the location of the U.S.
consulate where the workers pick up their papers, with three local
recruitment offices in northern and central Mexico.
"We use them because we can't find locals, and even if you could, [the
Mexicans] work better than anybody else," Wingfield said. "They have a
work ethic that nobody else has."
American teens "would rather work in a Burger King in air conditioning
than go out and push a lawn mower," he said. "I have a son who's 17,
and he's not going to do this. Most American kids don't want to go out
there and do hard work."
Once in the United States, workers cannot change employers. They in
essence are in contract to work for the company that brought them here.
That doesn't sit well with worker advocates.
"The truth is, it is a form of indentured servitude because the workers
are not free to go work elsewhere," said Bauer of the Virginia justice
center, whose office has handled 15 to 20 major cases involving about
300 workers over the years.
Also, she said, the visa and transportation fees they must pay cut into
their pay and cause them to earn less than minimum wage.
Bauer said she shuns the phrase "guest worker" to describe a program in
which she says the foreigners often are unfamiliar with the country,
don't speak English, live in isolated places, rarely have access to
cars and don't interact with the community.
"I wouldn't treat a guest this way."
Others question the need for a program that imports labor.
"I'm skeptical of it," said David Martin, a professor of immigration
and constitutional law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He
was general counsel for the former Immigration and Naturalization
Service from 1995 to 1998.
"It raises some practical issues and some philosophical issues," he
said. "I'm inclined to think if we need people for labor, we ought to
be willing to offer them full membership in society."
Tomorrow: While most H-2B guest workers seem to enjoy the opportunity
to make good wages in the United States, some have taken legal action
alleging unscrupulous conduct by their American employers.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/vametro/MGBLRHXDKFD.html
May 11, 2003
Firm relies on foreigners for its work force
BY PAMELA STALLSMITH
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
When Pedro Zapuche returns from Virginia to his hometown in Mexico, he
sees the results of his labor.
His mother now owns a telephone. He rebuilt his parents' house. Last
year, he threw them a surprise 50th anniversary party.
Zapuche is one of 99 foreign workers employed this year by James River
Grounds Management Inc., a landscaping company based in Hanover County
that maintains grounds for corporate campuses, hospitals, businesses
and subdivisions across central Virginia.
The workers - most of them Mexican, though some are from South Africa -
come to the United States under the federal H-2B guest-worker program.
This marks Zapuche's fourth year in the program.
"If I come, it's because I'm glad to work here," Zapuche said in a
recent interview at the company's headquarters on U.S. 1. "Otherwise, I
wouldn't come. A lot of guys come back here."
Zapuche is fluent in English, a language he studied in high school.
He puts his skill to use at work. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he helps
teach an English class. He translates for Spanish-speaking workers.
"The reason I am trying to learn many things is I just want to be
prepared someday if we don't have the opportunity to come here," he
said. "At least I'll be able to survive in my country teaching English
or working in Cancun."
James River relies on its foreign workers for a steady work force.
"There are a lot of myths that these guys are replacing American
workers," said Maria P. Candler, vice president for operations, but
it's difficult to recruit local workers. "People should appreciate the
fact that these guys have made the sacrifices that they have."
The company is sponsoring Zapuche for permanent labor certification,
which could lead to citizenship.
Zapuche, 31, followed a long path across the border.
He grew up the seventh of nine children in Ciudad Valles in the state
of San Luis Potosi, about 250 miles northeast of Mexico City.
After graduating from high school, Zapuche followed opportunity to
Matamoros, the bustling border town south of Brownsville, Texas, where
he got a job in one of the thousands of U.S.-owned factories that
operate on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande.
For six years, he worked near the border, assembling light strips. Then
a friend told him about the H-2B program and how he could work legally
in the United States.
At home in San Luis Potosi, he could make about $10 a day. At the
border, he brought home about $20 a day. In this country, he makes $9
an hour, or close to a day's wages in his hometown.
Coming through a government-sponsored program is more cost-effective.
If people cross the border illegally to seek work in this country,
Zapuche explained, they have to stay at least three years to make it
profitable.
Coyotes - the human smugglers who breach the border - charge up to
$2,000, money the would-be workers often borrow at high interest rates.
It's also extremely dangerous, with untold numbers dying each year in
their attempts to cross, according to federal officials. For those
coming from even farther south, such as El Salvador or Guatemela, the
cost can approach $6,000.
Coming north to work through the program "is a good opportunity,"
Zapuche said. "At least we have the right Social Security number, we
have checking accounts with banks, we can get driver's licenses if we
want."
. . .
A few miles up U.S. 1, the Mexicans working for LanCrafters Inc. spend
their free time relaxing in their company housing, watching television
or playing soccer.
"Going out means spending money," said Lorenzo Baez-Vazquez of Tlaxcala
in central Mexico. "Why we came here is to earn money."
That's the bottom line for the 12 men who came this year from Mexico
under the H-2B program to work for LanCrafters, another landscape
contractor in Hanover.
Most of the men are from the neighboring Mexican states of Puebla and
Tlaxcala, about two hours east of Mexico City. Nearly all are related,
either brothers, cousins or in-laws.
During a recent interview after a day's work, crew members said their
American earnings go a long way back home.
Venancio Elizalde-Luna of Tlaxcala, a construction worker in Mexico,
said he likes the program because if the company needs more workers, he
can recommend his friends or relatives.
"The program has provided an opportunity for people who didn't study or
go to school to excel at something and that way feed their families,"
he said.
Companies here don't want to pay high salaries to American workers,
Elizalde-Luna said, so they recruit Hispanics who will work hard for
less pay. The wages, though, are still much greater than in Mexico.
But it comes at the expense of their loved ones, whom they must leave
behind for 10 months.
Some of the workers traveled up to 2,500 miles for the chance to work
legally in Virginia, where they want to clock as many hours as
possible. Most are married with children. Sometimes momentous events
occur while they're gone, such as the birth of a child.
"We want a lot more time to work for the sacrifice that we make for our
families, because that's why we come here, to help our families," said
Jose Curpentino Luna-Vazquez of Tlaxcala. "The worst part is when there
is a problem back home, and you're up here."
LanCrafters began hiring workers through the H-2B program three years
ago, with little turnover among the workers.
"This program has been a godsend for us," said Debbie Tatum,
LanCrafters' landscape division manager. "The only bad part is the guys
have to go home for two months."
Contact Pamela Stallsmith at (804) 649-6746 or
pstallsmith@timesdispatch.com
Times-Dispatch staff writer Juan Antonio Lizama provided translation
for this report.
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