Court Decides H-2B Visas Should Be Protected by Prevailing Wages to Avoid Hurting American Workers

[Omaha Steve]

http://wepartypatriots.com/wp/2014/02/06/court-decides-h-2b-visas-should-be-protected-by-prevailing-wages-to-avoid-hurting-american-workers/

The Third District Court of Appeals handed American workers a victory with their ruling in the case of Louisiana Forestry Association v. Secretary, U.S. Department of Labor. The court found that the Department of Labor’s wage regulation methodology is valid pertaining to H-2b visas, meaning the Department of Homeland Security must rely on the Labor Department’s decisions about the number of American workers available for a job.

As we have reported in the past, the system of H-2b visas, which are supposed to go to foreign workers if and only if their is a shortage of American workers in a given area/industry, has been rife with corruption and abuse. In many industries, such as Information Technology, American workers are left out to dry while their jobs go to foreign workers for pennies on the dollar. But the Third District decision would allow the Labor Department to set prevailing wages for the jobs in question and ensure there were not Americans who could fill the jobs before H-2b visas were issued. This disincentivizes outsourcing as the employer can not save money by hiring foreign workers.

The people who oppose a prevailing wage for H-2B visas are doing so in order to blatantly cut labor costs and exploit foreign labor at the expense of the American worker.

Economic Policy Institute writer Ross Eisenbrey explains the situation:

FULL story at link.

About the Author: Chaz Bolte

Chaz Bolte is a native of Pittsburgh, PA where he attended Slippery Rock University. He currently contributes to WePartyPatriots, Addicting Info, Secret Party Room, and Football Nation. You can follow him on Twitter @ChazBolte

[dickthegrouch]

1. They'll still save money by hiring less qualified workers

I've never voluntarily quit from a company. I've always been laid off when my salary gets "too expensive" for "prevailing business conditions".

[okaawhatever]

2. This is awesome. Good news for American workers. nt

[cascadiance]

3. And they still get away with hiring senior foreign workers to "junior" positions paying less...

and flood the market with positions asking for a lot from junior level employees (probably more of an issue for H-1B than H-2B jobs though).

This:
1) keeps the amount of senior job openings being officially offered lower than the market really should be asking for.
2) has more American college graduates kept out of American jobs even if it looks like there are more available to them. Our college graduates are then said to be "not qualified enough" which is just BS!
3) companies can *claim* that they are hiring prevailing wages when most of these "prevailing wages" are for positions that are advertised as junior but are really in effect wanting senior level employees.

[pampango]

4. The EPI explanation is below.

I am not making this up. The Louisiana Forestry Association, the Crawfish Processors Alliance, and the American Hotel and Lodging Association actually argued that the required wages should not be set high enough to attract U.S. workers and that the Labor Department is not allowed to protect U.S. workers’ rights to a decent wage. Fortunately, the three-judge panel unanimously rejected this cynical argument and found that setting wages below the local prevailing wage does “adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed United States workers”:

We likewise reject Appellants’ argument that the DOL improperly established wage rates in order to attract U.S. workers—a factor Appellants claim the DOL was prohibited from considering in promulgating the 2011 Wage Rule. According to Appellants, in the NPRM and notice accompanying the final rule, the DOL “discussed the effect of higher wage rates on employers’ ability to attract U.S. workers,” a “factor that Congress and the [DHS] precluded from consideration…” We cannot agree. The INA and DHS regulatory provisions governing the DOL’s issuance of labor certifications require the DOL to consider, in issuing a temporary labor certification, whether H-2B alien workers’ employment “will adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed United States workers,” 8 C.F.R. 214.2(h)(6)(iii), a requirement that derives from the DHS’s charge from Congress to consider whether H-2B workers will have an “adverse effect” on U.S. workers.

.

This is great news - for now. If the Department of Labor falls into republican hands in 2017, somehow I doubt it will be very aggressive in protecting "U.S. workers' right to a decent wage."

But that is a future battle. For now this ruling is great news. Thanks for posting it, Omaha Steve.