Visa changes cause labor shortage for Louisiana seafood industry

[Omaha Steve]

Source: KNOE 8

BATON ROUGE, La (KNOE 8) - Most commercial crawfish peeling operations in Louisiana are winding down, but a labor shortage they faced this season is likely to affect other seafood processors that aren’t in full swing yet.

Demand for migrant labor has risen to the point that a federally mandated cap was reached earlier than ever this year — in January. The cap usually is not met until May or June.

“It caught seafood processors off guard,” said LSU AgCenter and Sea Grant economist Rex Caffey. “Many of them didn’t even have their requests for H-2B workers in yet.”

Louisiana seafood processing facilities annually rely on more than 2,000 workers with H-2B visas to peel crawfish and shrimp, shuck oysters and filet fish. They typically hire workers for a few months of the year, and most work 60-hour weeks.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://www.knoe.com/home/headlines/Visa-changes-cause-labor-shortage-for-Louisiana-seafood-industry-306046301.html

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This is the first year the wage is mandated at $10-$14 per hour. Raise the wage and let workers in the US do this. So simple.

[uppityperson]

1. Raise the wage and let workers in the US do this. So simple.

[groundloop]

3. ABSOLUTELY - so many of our 'labor shortages' could be solved by decent wages

Whether it's food processing or engineering, it seems that wealthy corporations always whine about labor shortages when the only shortage is that of people willing to work for peanuts. Their answer is to always beg the government to let them bring in workers from a depressed area of the world so they can keep American wages low.

[TexasBushwhacker]

8. There's a lot of abuse in the landscaping industry too

I worked for a commercial landscaping company. During the growing season, which was 8 or 9 months, we were always hiring because guys were always quitting to take a 25 or 50 cent more an hour for another company. The bosses complained about turnover and not being able to have enough workers, but they only paid $9 to $10 an hour. There was a lot of overtime too. Some weeks the crews worked 50 to 60 hours. And when it's 98° and 80% humidity, it's really really hard work. Most of the guys are Hispanic, with green cards and many don't speak English. Could the bosses pay everyone 50 cents more an hour and keep turnover down? They could, but they won't. If they raise the limits for H1B visas, it just make things harder for the workers who are already here. Yes. the employers have to pay the prevailing wahe set by the feds, but the workers are hostages when they're here. They can only work for the company that sponsered their visa. I used to call it Slavery 2.0.

I do think that there are some situations that legitimately need a large number of workers for a short period of time. Ski resorts would have a hard time getting enough ski instructors if they didn't bring some in from Europe for a few months.

[hollysmom]

2. don't bother for me, I don't want to eat anything from the gulf anyway.

[mountain grammy]

4. These workers endure lousy working conditions for low pay

and no job security.. Anyone who's ever read Molly Ivin's book, Bushwhacked, got a look into this world and how the spawn of Scalia made the workers' lives a whole lot more miserable.

[cascadiance]

5. Bernie Sanders has spoken out against H2B and H1B visa programs...

... as noted here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/25/this-is-a-massive-effort-to-attract-cheap-labor-why-sen-bernie-sanders-is-skeptical-of-guest-workers/

...
The bottom line is that I feel, very much, that a lot of the initiative behind these guest workers programs, a very large expansion of guest worker programs — H2B visas would go up to as many as 195,000, H1B to as many as 205,000 a year — is coming from large corporations who want cheap labor from abroad. Absolutely, there is a need for foreign labor. I recognize that in agriculture and certain areas in the high tech industry, you need foreign labor. But this is a massive effort to attract cheap labor, a great disservice to American workers.

And if you look at the history of how H2B visas have been abused, especially after Hurricane Katrina, you can see the need to get rid of this exploitation program as well.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/198665/these-workers-came-overseas-help-rebuild-after-hurricane-katrina-and-were-treated-prison

[on point]

6. Supply and demand, you know markets. Pay more and there will be local workers!

[ToxMarz]

7. "While that policy has been in place for years, employers have been hitting the limit earlier and.."

While that policy has been in place for years (number of visas), employers have been hitting the limit earlier and earlier, Caffey said. In the past, the Department of Labor has granted extensions on the cap, but that has not happened yet this year.

No visa changes, but they haven't given the cap extension "yet".

The Govt doesn't need to increase wages. Leave the policy as it has been, don't give cap extensions, and the free market will freely result in higher wages if they want to staff their operations.