Senator M. Michael Rounds was thrilled to announce that South Dakota is not full and needs more foreign workers to fill out construction and tourism jobs:
The H-2B visa program is an essential tool for South Dakota businesses seeking to fill open seasonal jobs, especially in the tourism and construction industries. While we hope today’s announcement will help, the lack of adequate help has already had an adverse impact on these small business owners’ livelihoods, as well as the entire economy of our state.
It is clear that we need a permanent solution that raises the cap of H-2B visas available to employers each year based on need rather than an arbitrary number. I am committed to working with my colleagues in Congress, as well as the administration, to find a permanent solution to this issue so our local businesses can thrive [Senator Mike Rounds, press release, quoted on South Dakota Tourism website, 2019.03.29].
Given that the Trump Administration announced the extra 30,000 H-2B visas at the end of March, and given that the feds say it takes at least 60 days to process H-2B applications, South Dakota tourism impresarios may not be able to press their cheap, captive foreign laborers into service in time for the Memorial Day crowds. And the potholes those tourists will encounter (and with this weather, there is much much more such topographical relief on our roads) may go unfilled until later in the season.
Which is it? You want cheap brown labor or not? They’re rapists and drug smugglers or not.
These republicans are something else.
Here’s an idea for the Senator – propose legislation to fast track H2-B Visas at the border for any asylum seekers who desire to work. Incentivize the application process by adding a promise of a path to citizenship for successful workers (which may well keep new workers in the state, thereby helping resolve the labor shortage on a more permanent basis, while increasing the state’s annual sales tax revenue).
This solves two pressing problems in one fell swoop – bring in more H-2B workers to SD businesses and diminish Trump’s “emergency” at the border by immediately reducing congestion (perhaps eliminating Trump’s urgent need to repurpose allocated tax dollars so these funds could used as initially directed for the military, perhaps benefiting even our own Ellsworth AFB).
It has the added benefit of offering somewhat humane relief to immigrants seeking safety, freedom and economic opportunity – oh wait, dang, that might be a deal breaker under current republican thinking.
Every time someone says there aren’t enough workers, what they really mean is there aren’t enough cheap workers—i.e., people willing to exchange their time, skill, and effort for poverty-level wages.
According to the law of supply and demand, offering higher wages should attract more workers. It’s weird that the Invisible Hand of the Market works its magic in everything except the labor market, where we pull out all the stops to keep wages artificially low.
Also, H-2B visa workers are part of the problem. I worked for a software company that was constantly hiring H2-B workers from China and India because, gosh darn it, they just couldn’t find anybody here in the US of A who had the skills they needed . . . while at the same time they were laying off their most experienced employees who knew the software backwards and forwards. See, employees with 10, 15, or 20+ years of experience were making too much money, and gosh, the shareholders don’t like that. So lay off those people and hire H2-B workers and green college grads to take their place. And then when there were problems with communication, declining quality, and a complete loss of institutional knowledge, just ignore it until the quarterly earnings reports finally reflect how hollowed-out the company is. (At that point, if you’re a venture capital group, you strip the company for parts, throw everybody out of work, and move on to your next “opportunity.”)
Chris, from what I have read about the H2-B program, visas would not be available to businesses that laid off experienced workers with the goal of finding cheaper labor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-2B_visa
If this is an accurate description, then the practices you have identified would be unlawful.
Follow the money, why hire local kids when you can get them cheaper overseas.
Chris is right and bearcreekbat is right about unlawful. Show me a republican or chamber of commerce person who cares. They hire H-2B workers at low wages and the slowly rob them by collecting room and board expenses, training expenses, travel expenses and etc.It is slave labor with minimal benefits. When their time is up, some board a bus to another place and disappear, others return home and due to their experience here , never return.
This article includes some really excellent information on the current immigration stream. It’s not behind a paywall in Vox– https://short1.link/aEb5Fd
Immigration is up and the article is clear about what Frantic Flaccid Fool is doing to worsen the problem, plus what can be done to help. Plenty of unskilled laborers are available, but the WH is deliberately slowing processing to a trickle and trying to force Mexico to pick up the slack.
PS. I’m with Chris S. on the “cheap labor” issue. Pay labor better. It’s not necessary to raise prices as a result. Pay upper level executives much, much less.
bcb-Current Sec of Labor is Mitchie McCTurtle’s old lady and I don’t think either of them give a rat’s ass about asylum seekers or other immigrants.
and of course, it wouldn’t be a Drumpf cabinet post without major criminal stuff. McCTurtle and his wife have more offshore tax havens for their shipping business than they ever admitted.
The brown skins are all sure votes for Dems, everyone knows that. That is the unspoken deal breaker.
If wingnuts could force them to sign loyalty oaths they wouldn’t need to be given asylum or jobs. Just vote for wingnuts.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/12/politics/donald-trump-sanctuary-cities/index.html
Drumpf planned to dump hundreds of immigrants in sanctuary cities to cause problems for Dem pols. Drumpf will do anything to anyone to score political points. He has no humanity and should have been impeached already.
I guess I don’t know if my former employer used the H-2B visa program or not, but I know that periodically dozens of people were laid off and were replaced by people from China and India, which led to communication problems (they spoke English much better than I speak Mandarin or Hindi, but that’s still not optimal). Or, if hiring locally, it was all fresh college grads with no experience. Meanwhile, we’d receive enthusiastic corporate emails about the new hires, but not a peep about all the experienced (read: better-paid) workers who were laid off to make room for them.
Connecting asylum seekers with work—on face, BCB, that sounds like an interesting offer to make to those eager and willing entrants at our border. Practically, I’m sure it would anger lots of people in other countries who’ve been waiting out the normal application process… but I wonder, from an employer’s perspective, doesn’t walking across Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico demonstrate the kind of work ethic one would want on one’s shop floor?
Cory, I simply can’t imagine better evidence of a desire to work for any potential employee than leaving everything behind to cross a continent with the goal of providing loved ones with safety and economic security through the most difficult of circumstances – talk about motivation and a desire to work demonstrated by extraordinary efforts! It would take an exceptional person willing to go to such extremes.
Rounds, like his buddy Owens, is acting like a fool. Pay folks and they will come to the jobs.
The H-2B scam is a leading cause of unlawful immigration. Folks arrive here under a permit, the disappear near the expiration of the permit. Then businesses rinse and repeat.
There’s 2 ways to stop this nonsense. 1) pay workers what they’re worth. Pay a living wage. 2) Force employers to post a million dollar cash bond for each H-2B worker, forfeited 96-hours after the employee is not accounted for. Problem solved.
John apparently has been mislead and repeats a myth (likely designed by whoever originated the myth to inculcate irrational hostility toward foreign workers).
http://bipac.net/h2b/Myths_Fact_2016.pdf
Actually the H2a cost us more last year than local
, however couldn’t find any locals that wanted the jobs
I believe h2B is the same on housing and meals and wages
So it isn’t exactly cheap labor
It’s jobs nobody wants to do anymore
Pay veterans a reasonable wage. Pay a reasonable wage to eligible citizens. South Dakota may not have very many current residents, but wages are why we all left.
John
Not true we pay $20 an hour
Place to live and meals
No one wants the long hours in ag industry
Want weekends off and have to go to school events we can’t work around that when the weather is good we work
The h2 programs guarantee workers
As employers u buy the plane tickets round trip there is no way anyone can stay
Like BCB says if they want to come back
What jobs in SD pay $20/ hr, T? If that was true, SOuth Dakotans would would be lining up for them.
Republicans just can’t admit That for the last 40 years the cost of living has not kept up with wages.
You never ever ever hear a Republican national or local talk about the cost of living and wages. They just don’t Care so they will lie and claim it’s because people are lazy. Then they expect that workers will get all excited when health insurance is taken way or skyrockets and other benefits disappear. Yes right, this is such a decent Country based on Good Christian values.
At least In Minnesota, people aren’t as ignorant about Unions. Unions built the middle class and there are good ones here that its workers are proud to be members of.
The statistics are there, right to work state have a higher percentage in poverty, A higher percentage of people struggling to get by.
(Now I will get a lot of slush about how evil Unions are from dumb South Dakotans.)
Jenny
We pay 20 an hour plus
No they are not lining up
Ag work is long days and hard work
Cdl and hauls average more but
Your gone sometimes for weeks
With the tariff wars and prices we are doing a lot ourselves this year
Only ones that want to come back are the foreign workers
Usa needs the foreign workers for ag industry and harvesting otherwise the vegetables wouldn’t get picked or harvesting of crops done
My opinion it’s not about competitive wages it’s about finding someone to do the work
Or actually wants to do the work
Last time I was west river, couple weeks ago the tourist businesses I talked with couldn’t find people just to sit at the cash registers
So they need the h2B to even get people to show up. Competing wages? You should get paid what your worth. As long as we have
The seasonal business and trade we do in this state we will remain desolate in the wage career markets
For perspective: $20 per hour for 40 hours per week for 50 weeks a year (factoring in 2 weeks vacation or time off work) equals an annual salary of $40,000. Of course, if it’s seasonal work you won’t make anywhere near that $40,000. Also, that wage presumably doesn’t include any benefits, so the worker will have to pay for health and disability insurance out-of-pocket. Also, presumably there’s no pension or retirement plan. Suddenly it’s not so surprising that few people are eager to take that job paying $20 per hour for hard work with demanding hours and an irregular schedule.
We always hear how we need foreign workers to do the jobs Americans won’t do — things like backbreaking labor picking strawberries and vegetables while getting sprayed with agricultural chemicals. Once again, this is just saying there isn’t enough cheap labor, so we need to import people who are desperate enough to do it. That’s exploitation. I’m sympathetic to the argument that farmers don’t make enough off their product to pay their hired workers better wages, but the solution isn’t to find desperate people willing to work cheaply (hey, that whole slavery thing sure solved the problem of paying for labor, didn’t it?). The solution is to get the farmers a fair price for their product so they can pay their labor properly.
Chris
I agree and disagree with your statements
20 an hour 8 months out of year
$55,000 -60,000
Harvest and haul, factor in meals and place to live
Makes for a competive wage regardless of benefits
{From actual payroll records}
No local takers because of time away from home. Out of state interest? comes down to no interest in moving here
No youth interest because of weekends and time away from home. Other young people are on their own family farm. There are some sweet ag competive offers out there because of expensive equipment, cdl and mechanic knowledge but there isn’t he interest, desire or work force that qualify hence the h2a visas.
Who is we, T? Do you offer health insurance? What skills are needed and what business is it?
So no benefits whatsoever, T? Who Wants to work in a dangerous job without health insurance And it’s not easy to go out and just buy it when it cost an arm and a neck.
I thought Ts numbers sounded off, Chris.
It’s about low wages, not competitive wages, T. South Dakota’s wages have never been competitive. You need to bump it up to 25 and offer health insurance, some kind of retirement benefit and then you will get the phone ringing more. Also a pay raise of the guy does good work.
No one has yet mentioned the elephant in the room, which is that the state’s reservations are suffering 80 percent or more unemployment. I live on one of those reservations (though I’m not a tribal member) and there are many hard-working tribal members who are desperate for decent work. The problem is that when they go off the reservation, they experience and encounter open, blatant racism and racist, bigoted presumptions (notice I used presumptions instead of the softer assumptions, because it fits) that they are all lazy drunks.
That ridiculous narrative, of course, serves their purpose of justifying their denials of employment and opportunity to the native community. We frequently have people coming to our house asking for any work we might have, and they always do an excellent job.
But the state and its employers, and certainly not Rounds or his compatriots, is not interested in utilizing this available and eager pool of workers and would rather claim a shortage of workers. This is in addition to ignoring the state’s insultingly low wages, even including for most professional jobs.
The H2A program you can be fined thousand of dollars
If you could have hired a citizen and didn’t
You Must advertise in local and MANY papers before you can hire a H2A I assume the h2B has similar requirements
I agree with many of you, but there isn’t the work force out there like one would think for many of these jobs
MONEY can switch republican policy faster than anything else.
There’s a combo punch here. South Dakota business for a long time has tried to get by paying lower wages. That’s led many workers to choose, quite rationally, to move elsewhere. But now to what extent does that long tradition of low wages and the resulting exodus mean that even businesses who decide to raise their wages are going to struggle to find enough warm bodies to put behind the cash register?
Laurisa makes a stunningly important point: we have an idle workforce available right within our borders, folks who would do the work and then spend their entire paychecks right here, on families and homes right here. All we have to do is hire them… and not act like racist jerks.
Laurisa, is there any accurate count of how many unemployed people are on the reservations?
CH like an actual job service set up
For employers to call or set up how many people needed , what type of work,
Etc. I stopped at gas station in eagle butte once and got help for a day for west of eagle butte. But going thru a contact would have been easier than friends and family calling friends and family and so on, took about 1.5 hours but it worked out okay
Cory, I’m not sure if there is exact information about that, because the state doesn’t include reservation unemployment in its unemployment percentage calculations. Reservations aren’t required to report many of their statistics to the state, but to the federal government (for instance, suicides and suicide attempts don’t have to be reported to the state, and often aren’t, but are reported to the federal government). I’m sure there’s federal information in that regard, I could probably try to find out.
I do know that the West River reservations (Pine Ridge, Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, Rosebud, etc.) are worse off in terms of unemployment than the East River reservations. Having lived on both East and West River reservations (currently living on Cheyenne River reservation), my own sense is that there are two primary reasons for that. One is that there’s simply more population and more economic opportunity in East River, and the other is that ,while there’s certainly still far too much racism in East River, it’s to a lesser degree, and less aggressive, than in West River.
Show up on time, work hard, stay all day, and raises will follow. Summer is coming, and the employment opportunities abound.
It’s true employers want cheap labor, but you can’t have it both ways. Liberals want open borders too what does that do to protect the labor rate? You can’t dictate minimum wage Walmart is about to implement robots, but oh that liberal mind. Irrational in almost every way.
“Liberals want open borders”
Didn’t your momma teach you not to lie, HC? Or have you been listening to too much Rusty Limpballs?
Liberals do not want open borders. The only people who talk about “open borders” are conservatives are want to distract voters from the good policies Liberals actually advocate.
Here it’s Republican Senator Mike Rounds who wants to open the border wider by offering more H-2B visas.