PhillyDeals: A bid to boost wages for hard labor

Even as unemployment rose to one in 10 Americans last year (or even higher, if you count the underemployed and those who have given up on finding jobs), landscapers, golf clubs, restaurants, and other employers said they still couldn't find local workers willing to do hard, dirty labor for less than $10 an hour. Or more.

Some of those companies - including hundreds in the Philadelphia area - asked the U.S. Department of Labor for permission to import workers under the H-2B visa program, one of several that allows firms to legally bring in labor from other countries.

In an act likely to reduce the number of landscapers, hotels, country clubs, and other businesses that try to import workers each year, the Labor Department Tuesday published a proposed rule that it says will boost wages under the program by an average of $4.38 an hour.

"This means a citizen or a legal immigrant will be more willing to take these jobs," said Nelson Carrasquillo, president of Comite de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agricolas, a 41-year-old farmworkers' association based in Glassboro that claims 4,000 members in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The proposed wage hikes follow a ruling in August by federal Judge Louis Pollak, sitting in Philadelphia, that overturned the Labor Department's previous standards for paying workers imported with H-2B visas.

The program is designed to protect U.S. jobs by setting wages at levels above what American workers earn, so employers won't be tempted to import foreign workers because they are cheaper.

In a lawsuit against Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, CATA had accused the government of effectively discriminating against U.S.-based farmworkers by allowing foreigners to come here at artificially low wages that didn't really reflect local pay rates, as the law requires.

Friends of Farmworkers, a Philadelphia nonprofit law firm led by veteran labor lawyer Arthur Read, represented the workers. Pollak ruled in their favor in August, forcing the Labor Department to rewrite its pay scale for the program.

The proposal would boost Philadelphia-area pay for foreign dishwashers employed under the program from the $7.90 an hour currently allotted to $9.24; for janitors, from $9.23 to $13.02; for landscapers and groundskeepers, from $9.84 to $13.88; for aerobics teachers, from $9.18 to $14.67; and for roofers, from $14.12 to $21.38, by Read's calculations.

The H-2B program allows just 66,000 six-month visas a year. But that includes up to one in eight U.S. landscaping workers, one in 30 janitors, and one in 100 casino and amusements workers, according to Labor Department data. The increase would cost employers up to $759 million next year if the program is fully enrolled.

More than 200 Philadelphia-area companies applied for temporary workers under the H-2B visa program in fiscal 2009, according to the Labor Department. Examples:

American Athletic Courts Inc., Vincentown, N.J., 60 laborers at $17.01 an hour.

Six Flags Great Adventure, Jackson, N.J., 250 amusement workers at $7.15 an hour.

Realty Landscaping Corp., Newtown, 200 laborers at $8.61 to $9.40 an hour.

Philadelphia Cricket Club, Flourtown, 35 laborers at $9.21 an hour.

Philadelphia Country Club, Gladwyne, 50 laborers at $8.01 to $9.80 an hour.

C.M. Jones Inc., Exton, 100 laborers at $9.40 an hour.

Valleycrest Landscape Maintenance, Norristown, 80 laborers at $9.40 an hour.

DuPont Co., Wilmington, 40 laborers at $9.11 an hour.

"They'll all have to pay more," or hire Americans, if the government adopts its proposal, Carrasquillo told me.

But this isn't the only visa program the government offers. Denise Beckson, director of operations at Morey's Piers in Wildwood, told me her company imported hundreds of foreign college students from Eastern Europe and Asia for its 1,600-member seasonal workforce, and preferred to use the J-1 student exchange visa instead of H-2B.

"It's good for them to see American democracy at work," she told me.