Changes to H-2B Visa Program Delayed
U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.
A new federal visa and wage requirement rule for certain documented foreign workers was delayed until Dec. 1 after an amendment to eliminate funding for the U.S. Department of Labor program was adopted in committee.
The amendment was offered by U.S. Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
It halted a Sept. 30 implementation of a wage rule which would have set new and higher wages for workers under the H-2B program, which according to the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board and other affected employer groups, would practically destroy them.
Now the issue before U.S. District Judge Dee Drell, before whom a Friday hearing in Alexandria, La., was postponed at Labor Department request, will be whether to go forward with a temporary restraining order or injunction, to dismiss the Louisiana lawsuit altogether or transfer it back to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
It was a U.S. District judge in Pennsylvania who set in motion the new wage rules. Objection to so quick an implementation was the initial focus of the Alexandria lawsuit. A 60-day delay was seen as a victory for the plaintiffs.
Landrieu and Mikulski offered an amendment to the overall funding bill to, in Landrieu’s words, “prevent the unintended consequences of these rules, as currently written, could have on America’s entrepreneurs. Small businesses are struggling to stay afloat and changes to the H-2B program should be carefully crafted to recognize the impact they could have on small businesses.”
The H-2B program allowed U.S. businesses to legally hire foreign workers where no American workers will take the jobs. Those include workers in the seafood processing, forestry, sugar cane and outdoor amusement industries.
The new wage rules were to take effect Jan. 1, 2012. Then the Labor Department moved the date up to Sept. 30, which the plaintiffs in the Louisiana lawsuit said was an arbitrary decision not based completely on the true picture.
They said businesses already contracted under current rule would be forced out of business. The amendment delays the rule for one year.
Mikulski said a “one-size-fits-all approach on new regulations won’t work. Until this issue is resolved, I am going to keep attaching this amendment to any bill that has a shot at becoming law,” she said.
A teleconference among the lawyers in the lawsuit is scheduled for Monday to determine how to go forward.
Category: News
Fight for H-2B program – read here: h2bjobcontractor.com