Cover Story: What now?
1 Jan, 2008 By: Charles Simon Landscape ManagementSMART STRATEGIES TO SURVIVE AND PERHAPS EVEN PROSPER IN SPITE OF THE DELAY OR LOSS OF H-2B WORKERS
THE SAVE SMALL BUSINESS ACT is tangled in the complicated and politically contentious immigration issue. Chances for its passage by Congress and an expansion to the H-2B seasonal guest worker program, one of its main features, look dim. This is bad news for hundreds of landscape company owners. It means that they will start this season with more jobs to do than with employees to do them.
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"Everybody is still hoping that something can be passed and, as it has been done in the past, can become retroactive so that owners can start working on their applications and getting their workers," says Thomas Delaney, director of government relations for the Professional Landcare Network.
"The reality is that nothing has changed. The only thing that has changed is that the second half cap (33,000 H-2B visas) has been reached. That has put more owners in pain mode," he says.
H-2B worker availability
To be clear, there are still H-2B workers available in 2008. In fact, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced Jan. 2 that it had received a sufficient number of petitions to reach the congressionally mandated cap (33,000) for second half of Fiscal Year 2008.
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According to the USCIS Web site (www.uscis.gov) the agency will continue to process petitions filed to:
- Extend the stay of a current H-2B worker in the United States;
- Change the terms of employment for current H-2B workers and extend their stay; or
- Allow current H-2B workers to change or add employers and extend their stay.
Because of the failure of Congress to renew the Save Small Businesses bill none of the "returning" workers, those not counted against the cap, will be allowed to work in the United States. This, in effect, means that there stands to be approximately 55,000 fewer H-2B workers in 2008. Last year there were about 123,000 workers allowed in on H-2B visas.
What it means to you
Understandibly many contractors are not happy.
"The Congress of the United States has failed to do their job in supporting a very large segment of the small business core of this country," says Fred Haskett, managing partner of U.S. Lawns, West St. Louis, MO. "They're interested in their jobs. They're not interested in my people's jobs or my vendor's jobs."
Still, Haskett considers himself lucky.
"We just were told, a couple days before Christmas, that our second two visa applications had been processed and had been approved, prior to the cap being reached," he says. Even though he has H-2B workers coming, they're not expected until April, which presents significant challenges.
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