H-2B Users Anxiously Await Bill Approval

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Not quite two weeks ago, H-2B users around the country in dozens of hardworking industries celebrated a legislative victory as the Save our Small & Seasonal Businesses Act of 2005 was passed by an overwhelming majority vote in the U.S. Senate. On the Senate sid, the “Mikulski Amendment,” referring to Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski’s authoring of the bill, was passed as part of an emergency supplemental focusing on spending for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the House of Represenatives did not include the Mikulski Amendment in their version of the supplemental bill, though it did include some immigration related provisions.

Now, H-2B users are watching closely as the House and Senate meet in conference to combine their two versions of the spending bill into a final version that will be submitted to the President for his signature. With hope, the Mikulski Amendment will make it through conference unscathed, giving a large number of H-2B companies who did not get their workers this year – or came close – a better opportunity to fill their labor needs through the program next year.

“This was a very significant event – another hurdle we’ve jumped,” says John Meredith, director of legislative relations for the American Nursery & Landscape Association. “The effort the industry needs to make now is to reach out and contact members of the House to ensure that they abide by the will of the senate and allow this provision to remain the the copy that gets sent to President Bush. Communicating that fact is vital for our people this year.”

One green industry company told Lawn & Landscape about their experience in working to push the H-2B bill this far in the hopes for more labor solutions from the program next year and in the future. “We followed the Senate vote very closely – to the point that we had people going home to watch the Senate proceedings on C-Span and listening to it at the office,” says Heidi Cardenas, senior human resources administrator for Acres Group, Wauconda, Ill. “The bill probably won’t come in time to help many companies this year, but it’s great news next year.”

Cardenas says Acres Group, a $34 million lawn and landscape firm, ended up with 150 hourly field positions to fill this spring when their H-2B application for 149 H-2B laborers didn’t come through. “We had a lot of good employees coming back who had been with us before and were trained,” she says. Instead, the company had to get creative with its spring recruiting.

“In order to fill our workforce, we held our first ever Acres Group job fair,” Cardenas explains. “In a period of about three weeks, we sent out a 2,800-piece postcard mailing and also advertised in three Hispanic newspapers in the area to generate a response. It was  the first time we had done it, so we didn’t really have previous experience to fall back on, but it came together well and we’re still getting responses from it.”

According to Cardenas, Acres group did a good deal of self-educating on the issue of H-2B and the legislative process when the company realized its workforce would be highly impacted by the loss of the program. This year’s 66,000-visa cap was reached on January 3.

“We had to come up to speed really fast on who our congressmen were, who were the people working on these issues in the congressional offices and how we were supposed to communicate with them” she says. “It took some time and organization – and some really good communication and research to really understand the ins and outs of the issues, but we felt like it was really effective to be able to participate on the legislative level and actually work to make a difference. This is democracy in action and it’s a very interesting process. Until now I certainly wasn’t as aware of what goes on to make these types of policy changes, but as a businessperson, it’s important to know how it all works.”

Cardenas and her colleagues were able to put together figures on state small business and H-2B use for their Illinois Senators, Dick Durbin and Barak Obama, both democrats. In the Senate vote on April 19, both Durbin and Obama offered “Yea” votes – an important local victory for Acres Group and part of a national victory for H-2B users. The final vote was 94 to 6 in favor or passing the supplemental bill including the Mikulski Amendment.

With the amendment now part of a conference between both houses of government, proponents of the legislation are asked to maintain a positive outlook and continue to contact their Members of Congress to ask for support.

“The silence coming out of the conference committee is deafening,” noted a memo to H-2B users from www.savesmallbusiness.org. The Web site was formed in 2004 to keep interested industries updated on H-2B happenings. The memo explained that Congress adjourned on April 29 without voting on the emergency supplemental bill and that while the House of Represenatives returns to work this week, the Senate will not return until May 9.

“Despite the silence, we have been given no indication that we should be worried or alarmed at this point,” notes H-2B proponent Hank Lavery as the memo’s author. “We understand that there are other issues in the separate versions of the Emergency Supplemental passed by the House and Senate that are the subject of prolonged negations.” Lavery adds that individuals registered with www.savesmallbusiness.org will be notified of any official news – positive or negative – regarding the Save Our Small & Seasonal Businesses Act. In the meantime, it says, “stay alert – if an issue does arise this week, we may need you to quickly reach out again to your Senators and House members.”

Lavery notes that President Bush needs to sign the bill by May 10 to assure funding for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Depending on the conference committee’s progress this past weekend, the House could vote on the compromise bill early this week. The senate would vote sa soon as it returns to work.

Does your company have an H-2B story you’d like to share? E-mail Web Editor Lauren Spiers at lspiers@gie.net to share your views on H-2B and where you think the current vote is headed.