Not surprisingly. as President Obama is trying to create jobs all across America, the government is working just as hard as it can to make it as hard as possible to hire and keep people employed. See, it turns out that there is an amount of work that American’s don’t wanna do. In order to allow business who need that work done, the government has a program, a program called H-2B:
The H-2B non-agricultural temporary worker program allows U.S. employers to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary nonagricultural jobs. A U.S. employer must file a Form I-129, Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker, on a prospective worker’s behalf.
To qualify for H-2B nonimmigrant classification:
- The employer must establish that its need for the prospective worker’s services or labor is temporary, regardless of whether the underlying job can be described as permanent or temporary. The employer’s need is considered temporary if it is a one-time occurrence, a seasonal need, a peak-load need, or an intermittent need
- The employer must demonstrate that there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available to do the temporary work
- The employer must show that the employment of H-2B workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers
- Generally, a single, valid temporary labor certification from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), or, in the case where the workers will be employed on Guam, from the Governor of Guam, must be submitted with the H-2B petition. (Exception: an employer is not required to submit a temporary labor certification with its petition if it is requesting H-2B employment in a position for which the DOL does not require the filing of a temporary labor certification application)
So, how does this impact us today?
After years of complaints from employers that the program was inefficient and cumbersome, the administration of President George W. Bush sought to streamline the application process, putting new regulations into effect in January 2009. Farmworker organizations sued the Labor Department to reverse them.
In August 2010, a federal court in Pennsylvania hearing one of those lawsuits ordered department officials to issue new rules on how employers should determine wages for H-2B workers. The new wage rules were issued in January, but department officials, acting under court order, announced only last month that they would go into effect Sept. 30.
So, a year ago, the courts ordered the administration to issue new rules. Rules that, in essence, will replace the old rules issued under Dubya. Rules that objected to by … Farmworker organizations.
These new rules?
Starting Sept. 30, they would have to pay guest workers at crawfish and shrimp processors wage increases that range from 51 percent to 83 percent of current hourly rates, according to the suit.
And the result?
The employers said these sudden increases would be crippling and would expose them to unwinnable competition from foreign imports and from other businesses that hire illegal immigrants.
Again, no one in the Obama administration seems to have learned Econ 101.
Finally, a lasting testament to the angelic intentions of government that lead us down a road populated with devils, we have this little gem:
Many here cannot afford to lose year-round government benefits if they take seasonal, piece-rate jobs with Mr. Guillory, he and several of his full-time American employees said.
Perfect. The government is providing benefits such that people don’t wanna work for fear that they lose ’em.
Keep on keepin’ on baby.