Amendment Could Alleviate Visa Shortage for Temporary Foreign Workers (MA)
WASHINGTON, April 26 – For the first time ever, when Michelle Langlois applied for H2B visas this year so that she could hire temporary foreign workers for her Nantucket bed and breakfast, her application was denied.
“I’ve been at the Brass Lantern for five years, so it’s the same that we’ve done every year and it’s the same that the people we bought it from did,” said Langlois, the owner of the inn and the president of the Nantucket Lodging Association.
Fortunately, through other resources, Langlois found enough workers to staff the Brass Lantern Inn from early-April to early-December, its usual season, she said. However, other companies haven’t been so lucky.
Small and seasonal businesses throughout New England have increasingly been running into problems with the H2B program for seasonal foreign workers due to a nationwide shortage of the visas. In 1990, the federal government set an annual cap of 66,000 H2B visas. For the past two years it has been more actively enforcing the limit, according to Art Canter, president and CEO of the Massachusetts Lodging Association, and the cap has been reached less than six months into the start of the fiscal year, which begins on October 1. That means businesses which want to hire summer workers are especially hard hit since all of the visas are given out by mid-winter.
The shortage is keeping businesses from bringing in foreign workers to do the jobs that Americans don’t seem to be taking. As a result, many companies are facing a labor crisis that could force them to shorten their seasons or even shut their doors.
But a measure passed last week by the Senate could end their worries – at least temporarily.
If the House of Representatives agrees to enact the Senate measure, which would be in effect only for the next two years, temporary foreign workers who have been employed in the country under the H2B visa program at least once in the past three years would be exempt from the national cap. Businesses that have been denied visas for this year might then still be able to bring in workers who followed the rules and returned home when they were supposed to.
“For several years in a row, the cap has created a crisis for the tourism industry in Massachusetts and nationwide. Countless small, family-run businesses depend on the ability to hire more workers for the summer season, and they can’t possibly find enough U.S. workers to fill the need,” Sen. Edward Kennedy said during an April 13 debate on the Senate floor. “Without this amendment, many of these firms can’t survive because seasonal business is the heart of their operation.”
The amendment passed overwhelmingly in the Senate, with 94 senators voting in favor including John Kerry and Kennedy (D-Mass.). Senator Barbara Mikulski, who introduced the amendment, previously introduced an identical bill in February which Kerry and Kennedy both co-sponsored. She decided to attach the measure to an emergency supplemental spending bill a couple of weeks ago so that the visa changes could be approved and take effect more quickly.
Before businesses can be approved for the visas, they must show that that they have made a rigorous effort to advertise jobs locally. For example, before Dan’s Floor Store in New Hampshire applied for H2B visas two years ago, the company put out “help wanted” ads for floor layers locally as well as in the Boston Globe and the New York Times. “They’re quite strict, which is good. Then again, it wasn’t too helpful for us because we’re in Londonderry,” said Andrew Ferrier, the store’s sales manager.
But in many summer tourism areas throughout Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the population isn’t large enough to supply the labor that lodging and restaurant businesses need during their busiest months. Businesses in Cape Cod, the islands, and the Berkshires are being hurt the most by the shortage of visas, according to Canter.
The Cape Cod tourism industry used to rely heavily on college students, according to Canter. “Way back when, the Cape would be rocking and rolling with college students who would be working summer jobs,” he said. But now that many businesses have expanded their seasons into the spring and summer months, college students can no longer supply the help that they need.
Summer tourism businesses are also at a disadvantage because they can only apply for the visas 120 days before they will be used. Winter industries like ski resorts need workers at the beginning of the year and are then able to apply for the visas earlier, leaving few visas for summer industries.
This year, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it hit the cap in January, only three months after the start of the fiscal year. If approved, Mikulski’s amendment would address this problem by reserving half of the 66,000 visas for companies sending in applications during the last six months of the fiscal year.
“The time for application comes at the time of the year when great numbers are taken up for the winter tourism, which has happened historically, and what we are trying to do with the Senator’s amendment is to treat the summer tourism and the summer needs on an even playing field,” Kennedy said during a debate on the amendment.
Langlois, who turned in the paperwork for her visas last December, received notice that her application was denied soon after. She found two workers already in the United States who extended their visas so that they could work for her, and one of her friends gave her an “open” H2B visa that had already been approved.
But if she hadn’t secured these workers, she would have been forced to make some choices. “What I probably would have looked at was shortening my season.,” she said. “We can’t change the level of service that our guests are used to expecting so we just have to do whatever is necessary to deliver that.”
People from Massachusetts and the rest of the region who visit Cape Cod and the islands every year might find some changes this summer, according to David Noble, director of external affairs at the Massachusetts Lodging Association.
“In certain situations or cases, they will not be able to visit or stay at some of the properties that they otherwise have done in the past,” he said. “And as a result, with fewer options for places to stay, they will either be forced to go to another place where there may be wait lists or maybe where the rates will be higher, or they will be forced to go somewhere else out of state.”
Paul Hartgen, president of the New Hampshire Lodging and Restaurant Association, said many of the businesses in jeopardy will simply adapt and find alternative labor sources if the amendment doesn’t pass. For example, some businesses may be able to hire foreign students through the J1 work-travel program, which allows foreign students to work in the country, usually during the summer. But such alternatives aren’t always ideal.
“You get people to do the work, but they may not either know the work, they may not be trained in that particular specialty or they may have to be trained to a different standard,” Langlois said.
A conference committee this week, in which the Senate and the House will discuss the legislation, will determine if Mikulski’s amendment goes though. Currently, more than 80 House members have cosponsored a bill identical to Mikulski’s amendment, which Hartgen calls, “a pretty good signal.”
If the amendment is passed quickly, businesses might be able to secure the help they need for this summer or bring in some of the trained foreign workers whom they have employed in the past.
“If it gets passed by mid-May, we could still have people here in July,” Langlois said of Nantucket restaurant and lodging businesses. “July and August are our busiest months. So that would help.”
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