Green industry members are calling out to their peers for help in rallying Congress to ensure the H-2B cap extension is passed before the current extension sunsets on Sept 30.
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The organization Save Small Business is distributing a letter announcing a fly-in Sept. 20 at the Capital. The goal of the event is to get more members of Congress to sign on as sponsors and get the Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act of 2006 attached to other pieces of legislation that will make the floor in each house.
House Bill 4740 and Senate Bill 2284 propose to extend the life of the current H-2B bill. While there remains a 66,000-worker cap, the provision enacted in May 2005 splits the 66,000-worker cap in half to 33,000 for each half of the year and says that any employers that have seasonal workers returning for work the next year don’t have to count those workers toward the cap.
“A lot of (legislation) can wait, but we can’t because of the deadlines of the industries,” says Hank Lavery, president Save Small Business. “We cannot survive without H-2B.”
Lavery adds that many members have Congress have expressed the intention of supporting the measure and several others have signed on to co-sponsor the bills.
Sandy Munley of the Ohio Landscape Association will be one of a handful of people from the Cleveland area to attend the fly-in. If the cap extension isn’t approved before Congress’ recess at the end of the month, it would be detrimental to small business owners, and particularly landscape contractors, who make up the majority of the H-2B users, she says.
“People are worried about going out of business because they can’t get labor,” she says.
To read the proposed legislation or for other information, visit www.savesmallbusiness.org. For more information on the fly-in, contact Katie Strumpf at KStrumpf@SaveSmallBusiness.org.