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Solis Investigating Guest Worker Visas on Florida Hotel Project |
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In one of her first official acts as labor secretary, Hilda Solis has asked for a review of how Mexican sheet metal workers were given visas to work on the St. Regis Hotel project in Bal Harbour, Fla., when more than 1,000 members of the Sheet Metal Workers union (SMWIA) are out of work in the same area.
The company hired to install the heating and air conditioning ducts, CYVSA International, received approval from the state of Florida and the Bush Labor Department for visas to bring in foreign workers for seasonal work. But the visas are supposed to be granted only if there are no Americans available to do the job.
Florida ranked second in the number of jobs certified for foreign workers under one of the visa programs known as H-2B. In 2008, a total of 22,195 jobs in the state were approved for H-2B foreign workers, including 1,145 construction workers, 119 roofers, 10 electricians and six bricklayers.
Many employers want to bring in more guest workers to keep wages low, experts say. Many companies pay less than a living wage, and some force the foreign workers to live in horrid conditions and work long hours.
Solis wants to know how CYVSA could hire foreign workers when there are sheet metal workers out of work in South Florida. At a town hall meeting earlier this week, as part of the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting in Miami, Solis said:
We are going to have to take a look at it and, hopefully, work closely with [Homeland Security Secretary Janet] Napolitano to see how we better focus so that these things don’t happen and that we avoid them [in the future]. There were before I came into my position visas that were permitted under the Bush administration that we will take a very, very close look at and [with] a very keen eye go through. But, rest assured, we will take a strong view on that.
Jim DeFede, an investigative reporter for Miami’s CBS4.com, describes how CYVSA, one of the largest construction companies in Mexico, manipulated the rules to ensure it could hire foreign workers. CYVSA’s action also show how the current immigration visa system favors employers, the SMWIA says.
DeFede reports that CYVSA applied to Florida for permission to use foreign labor on Sept. 30, 2008. The next day, Oct. 1 at 9:05 a.m., the state agency, following federal rules, opened a 10-day recruitment period to find U.S. workers. During those 10 days, CYVSA was required to contact the local union and place ads in the Miami Herald.
But CYVSA did not place the ads or call the union until it was near the end of the 10-day period and never said there was a deadline to apply.
The union sent resumes of unemployed sheet metal workers to the state by certified mail Oct. 10. But by the time they were mailed, the state had officially closed the recruitment period at 9:16 a.m. on Oct. 10. The state then notified the federal government that no American citizens applied for the jobs and the Department of Labor subsequently certified CYVSA’s request for foreign workers.
Larry Stewart, business manager for SMWIA Local 32, told DeFede this is not a union or nonunion issue. This is an issue that affects all workers, he said. And it is outrageous that the U.S. government and the state of Florida allowed the employer to profit by importing foreign workers when so many U.S. workers are out of work.
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I agree that qualified American Workers should always be the first choice! However, some of the statements in the article are incorrect. H2B is a good program that really does work when the laws are followed. In this situation, the state agency in Florida that “certifies” the employer did not do its job. They are supposed to approve the language in the employment ad, where and when it runs, and monitor the recruiting process. They obviously failed to do so, allowing an unscrupulous employer to “cheat” the system. And as for cheap labor…the government sets the wages, to prevent issues with low wages. The program is sound. There are many regulations in place to protect American jobs and the foreign workers too. Let’s be sure the government agencies are following the guidelines and not punish thousands of employers who use the program for the right reasons. H2B is a last resort to fill seasonal manual labor jobs so that American supervisors and support staff will be able to keep their jobs!
There is some funny stuff going on here!
The US is bringing in construction workers from Mexico when unemployed workers in Michigan and Ohio need construction jobs and would probably love to leave the cold & snow for a few months work in Bal Harbor, Florida.
This is more likely the case:
Employers want to bring in more guest workers to keep wages low. Companies pay less than a living wage, and some force the foreign workers to live in horrid conditions and work long hours. No matter what it says on paper, when you come from a foreign country and don’t know the way things work you can easily be taken advantage of. (ie.Iraq)
Just another example of using a program with good intentions and twisting it for one mans greed.
Landscape Ohio are you really that big of a fool?The Visa program has been abused for years by nearly every business that has screamed they can’t find enough qualified American Citizens to do the work they want done.You can’t find them if you never look.What a load of crap.
As union painter I have seen too much of this sort of thing and Florida is well: its Florida. Its a right to work for less state and it has no love for the Building Trades.
For protecting the poor bosses: give anyone of them the chance and when you are not looking you are in for a back case of hemmorhoids. sorry if the language is offensive, but I have to speak the truth.
I am glad to see that we have someone doing the right thing on be-half of working people and for the issue regarding guest workers: you me and we are all sons and daughters and grand and great great grandkids of an immigrant: Me I am the great great grand of Native Americans and Europeans. but we have to look at this realistically and when you allow a guest to move into your house and raid your refridgerator long enough you find you no longer will have a bed to sleep in!
Now on the other hand we are trained, we have been certified, met all OSHA requirements etc. That is what gives us the right to declare the market share of the Construction work and that is what gauls me: Guest workers do tinknocking! guest workers will be hanging the wallcovering, doing the taping, the glazing andyou name it what IUPAT member will be working there on that hotel?
Bravo Secretary of Labor Solis! Bravo to the Sheet Metal Workers Union: remember we are American by birth and Union by Choice!