Even as Connecticut companies cite difficulties finding workers despite a high unemployment rate here, the federal government is forcing some businesses that use foreign workers to boost their wages.
Beginning Oct. 1, Connecticut businesses voluntarily registered with the U.S. Department of Labor to employ immigrant seasonal laborers via the H-2B visa program must increase the minimum wage for those workers by up to 50 percent.
Lower Fairfield County municipalities were hit with the biggest increases ”“ Stamford and Norwalk businesses were ordered to pay more than $15.75 per hour, with Connecticut”™s state minimum wage set at $8.25.
The Professional Landscape Network, or Planet, estimates the new law will add $3.60 in hourly wages on average nationally for each foreign worker employed under H-2B. The trade group recently hired Greenberg Traurig L.L.P. to explore a lawsuit against the DOL.
Count Eastern Land Management among the companies that say the ruling will have a devastating blow to its business, as well as select other companies and industries that toe the letter of the law when it comes to employing foreign workers. Stamford-based Eastern Land says the new rule could cut its earnings by 30 percent.
“We”™ve seen it coming for a year or so now,” said Bruce Moore Sr., owner of Eastern Land Management. “On one side of their mouth they are talking about small business, on the other side they are putting in this huge increase.”
In a poll of businesses statewide released last week, the Connecticut Business & Industry Association said 37 percent of respondents reported having a difficult time finding qualified workers in Connecticut. In previous studies, the Bridgeport workforce investment board Workplace Inc. has cited access to foreign workers as a critical component to helping Fairfield County companies stay competitive.
Under the H2-B program, employers can fill temporary jobs with foreign workers if they can demonstrate that there are not sufficient local workers who are willing, qualified and available to take the job. Employers must show that the employment of H-2B workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers, and they must pay the round-trip airfare for workers they bring in.
The DOL readily bars companies if they are found to be in willful violation of the H-2B program; several New Jersey and New York companies are currently under debarment, but none in Connecticut.
Moore said some 500 employers in Connecticut use the H2-B program, including restaurants, hotels, law firms, golf clubs and summer camps. Local establishments that have been certified to use the program include Bartlett Tree Experts Inc. in Stamford, the Stanwich Club in Greenwich, Luigi”™s Restaurant in Fairfield and Burr Associates, a Darien company that operates the Redgate Farm equestrian training stable in Newtown.
Despite the drag on the economy, Moore says, Eastern Land has still been unable to find qualified workers for its varied landscaping duties, despite posting job ads in newspapers and on its trucks.
“You are working in 80-to-90 degree heat, you”™re mowing grass ”“ in Fairfield County, not a lot of people want to do that,” Moore said. “You used to be able to get college students and high school students. They don”™t need the work I guess.”
This under-the-radar move by the DOL will cause much hardship among businesses that depend on seasonal laborers. I would be very interested in finding out the reasoning behind this ruling.