Small Businesses Argue for Federal Guest-Worker Program

By Keridwen Cornelius
June 4, 2007 9:25 AM

It's Saturday morning, and a handful of Landscape Professionals' maintenance crew are working overtime. Manuel weaves his way between lantana plants, blasting debris with a power blower. Poncho and Alejandro heave bundled tarps into one of the firm's white pickup trucks. Owner Tom Williams pulls up in his own white pickup and chats with the men in Spanish, a language he learned from audio tapes during countless sun-up drives to work.

The crew is very tight-knit and mostly Mexican. All are documented, as far as Williams can determine. "We follow the law, but I'm not checking for forgeries," he said. "It's not my job."

When Williams needs another worker, he simply tells one of his workers to bring someone by. The word-of-mouth hiring system works well for him.

But it will be upturned if the government passes a federal guest worker program supported by President George W. Bush.

Bush triggered a fierce debate last year when he renewed his commitment to passing a temporary guest-worker program. At the time, he said the program "would create a legal path for foreign workers to enter our country in an orderly way, for a limited period of time."

Enter the STRIVE Act 2007, one of several competing versions of federal guest workers programs Congress is considering. In March, U.S. Representatives Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) released their much-anticipated immigration reform bill. If passed -- and it currently has bipartisan support -- it would establish a guest worker program with a visa valid for three years and renewable for an additional three years.

The visa cap would be 400,000, a quota that would fluctuate with labor demands.

Applicants would be required to provide evidence of a job offer and undergo extensive background checks. Once approved, guest workers would be afforded wage guarantees, whistleblower protection and the flexibility to change employers. After living five years in the U.S., temporary workers could apply for citizenship, but their name would go to the end of an 11-year-long queue of previous applicants.

Although versions differ, one provision still requires employers to advertise to demonstrate that no Americans are willing or qualified to perform the job. In all versions, businesses that knowingly hire undocumented workers would be severely penalized.

"The key is strong workplace enforcement," Flake said at a March conference on immigration legislation. "We have new provisions in terms of secure documentation and making sure that employers finally have the resources at their disposal to determine the legality of those who are showing up to work in their place."

For some business owners, the prospect of hiring workers that have already been authorized to work here would be a relief. But they wonder about the extra cost and time required of them to participate in the program.

Williams says his informal hiring system has worked well for him. In fact, he's never had to advertise for workers. He simply tells one of his workers he needs more people.

But if new legislation forces him to foot the costs of advertising and background checks, he's not sure what he'll do.

"Well, it's going to cost everybody the same amount, so the playing field gets leveled," he said. "Where it hurts the small business guy is that $1,000 out of my pocket is different than $1,000 out of some giant (business)."

Nursery owners have also steeled themselves for future changes, said Cheryl Goar, director of the Arizona Nursery Association. "It's going to be more bureaucratic, [but] we would like it to be as streamlined and workable as possible," she said.

The fact that the STRIVE Act is the length of Tolstoy's War and Peace is cause for skepticism. If the government doesn't learn from the mistakes of past and current guest worker programs, a new one could fall into the same traps, said Dawn McLaren, a research economist with the JP Morgan Chase Economic Outlook Center at Arizona State University.

The debate often overlooks the fact that "we already have a guest worker program," she added.

Many large companies currently import unskilled laborers for work lasting less than one year using H-2A (agricultural) and H-2B (non-agricultural) visas. Neither offers a path to citizenship. Under the H-2A visa, employers provide foreign farmworkers with housing and reimburse their transportation costs to the U.S. These employees receive workers' compensation benefits and are guaranteed at least the prevailing wage.

The H-2B visa offers none of these provisions, save for the wage rate minimum. Both visas allow the guest worker to work only for the employer who filed for their Labor Certification. This means that if the employment situation is misleading, exploitative or even abusive, the temporary employee has no recourse but to return home, jeopardizing future employment.

Even for the most well-intentioned employers, the H-2A/H-2B program is tangled with red tape and impracticalities. "It's onerous, tedious and very expensive," Goar said. "There are too many hoops to jump through."

More problematic is that the H-2B's quota of 66,000 annual temporary workers virtually evaporates the first day of the fiscal year. Employers must advertise and then interview all eligible applicants to prove there are no Americans able or willing to take the jobs; they must file a Labor Certification application; and they must wait for potential employees' visas to be processed. As of January 2005, the regional office in Dallas was just turning its attention to Labor Certification petitions received in March 2000.

Many small business employers like Williams have little use for a seasonal worker visa since they need year-round workers.

He hires his workers not simply for financial reasons -- his workers are paid according to experience, not ethnicity -- but because of the quality of their work. Almost without exception, his Mexican-born employees have been seasoned and dependable, with a strong work ethic. All have lived and worked in the U.S. several years, even if they have wives and children elsewhere. "The nice thing about it is that when they come in, they've been landscapers, almost invariably," he said.

Williams likes the way the system functions now. "As I see the world, the world is working fine for me," he said. He points the finger at the inconsistency of the federal government in controlling the border, which seems to fence the front yard while laying a welcome mat on the back porch.

"For me, any improvement to this system is going to be for the worse," he said. "Now, I could take a more global look at it and say, 'Gee, we have enormous problems from this illegal immigration.' But I'd be hard pressed to see how it affects me negatively."

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism