Posted on 06/05/2018 10:22:13 PM PDT by zeestephen
On 25 May 2018, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen increased H-2B work visas (which includes landscapers) by 15,000. That allocation was in addition to the 66,000 H-2B visas already issued this year. On 05 June 2018, ICE raided a landscaping company near Cleveland and arrested 114 illegal employees. Links to both stories in Comment #1.
Extra Visas:
https://www.uscis.gov/news/news-releases/dhs-announces-additional-visas-foreign-workers-assist-american-businesses-risk-failing
ICE Raids Cleveland Landscaper:
http://fox8.com/2018/06/05/immigration-agents-arrest-114-people-at-sandusky-landscaping-company/
Nothing new regarding guest workers...that’s how immigration is SUPPOSED to work.
No, we have more than enough low-skill workers of our own.
No need for more of these low-skill imports.
“we have more than enough low-skill workers of our own.”......
Too bad so many of those low skilled workers have decided it’s easier to sit on their asses and collect welfare than actually working. Many of those are not only immigrants but U.S. natural born citizens. Driving through any town and seeing the “Help Wanted” signs should give you a pretty good idea why those signs are posted. Bringing in more “ass sitters” won’t change a thing once they understand the welfare systems.
The nation has 300+ million and needs to import no more people at all, especially low/no skill workers. The wage suppression forced by globalists through unbridled immigration polices on the US is forcing socialism that we don't want. Get it?
F off Dave. If I want to Liston America bashing I will go the the DU. Let wages rise instead of artificially flooding the labor market. What? globalists don’t believe in free markets?
My son owns a landscaping company.
Minimum wage here is $8.25 per hour. McDonald’s pays $8.47. Box stores and warehouses pay $11 to $13 per hour. He pays $15 per hour.
He cannot find anyone willing to work. All the landscaping companies in this area are having the same problem.
If the choice is between raising wages and importing 3rd worlders then he either does the former or goes out of business. He needs to do something else. I have absolutely no sympathy at all for "small business". Not all but most are greedy a$$holes. I know because I worked for many of them while going to college ages ago.
If your business model relies on illegal or imported h-2b visa then I wish you all the worst life can offer. May your crops rot in the field, your restaurant shutter its doors, and your landscaping company go out of business.
Dude - I didn’t say that I supported the policy, only that I supported that it was being carried out in a LAWFUL way.
You are one sorry individual. You also have absolutely no understanding of economics nor do you think past your pet rant.
“May your crops rot in the field, your restaurant shutter its doors, and your landscaping company go out of business.”
I take it you have no interest in eating, going out to dinner or having your yard taken care of.
My son does not and will not hire illegals. To date he doesn’t even hire green card holders. If you think paying double minimum wage is being a greedy a$$hole, you have a serious disconnect.
The company hourly charge is $35. The employee gets $15 of that. The other $20 pays mortgage, insurance, supplies, maintenance, licenses and salary to the owner. He ends up making less than his employees.
What world do you live in that makes you think unskilled part time labor should be paid more than skilled? You sound like Bernie. Or his last employee, who had flexible hours, scheduled around college classes and child care who decided he was worth $20 per hour. To pull weeds, rake leaves and mow lawns.
Or perhaps like my great nephew. Who after four years of college, lives at his parents house and plays video games because he can’t find a job with no experience at $40,000 a year to start.
Your contempt for your fellow Americans is disgusting—all the while you advocate importing more low-skill immigrants that cost your fellow Americans hundreds of billions of dollars. That cost is so high in part because taxpayers subsidize the below-market wages that illegal and other low-skill immigrants make possible and perpetuate.
Force employers to make jobs more appealing, more tech-leveraged, and more remunerative and you’ll see more and more of the Americans you hold in gross contempt rising to the occasion.
Continue the obscene taxpayer subsidies to employers of illegals and we’ll get more and more of what we’ve got now—along with more and more Latin American-style voters hastening the country’s demise.
What the heck are you even doing posting here at “Free Republic”?
Like I said, greedy bastards.
He ends up making less than his employees.
Yeah right. I know the game here. The owner is so altruistic he draws a pittance of a salary while behind the scenes his corporation is bankin/investing cash hand over fist. Then 10 years late he sells the company an is an instant millionare all the while playing poor pitiful me. Yes, we are not stupid out here.
I imagine your son wants his employees to walk around with those ear-numbing gas leaf blowers all day. That’s as bad as riding around on the back of a garbage truck and, short of illegals who are heavily subsidized by American taxpayers, would be what they’d earn.
Which just might inspire landscapers to switch to electric, despite some inconveniences—which would be much better on all the ears in your son’s customers’ neighborhoods.
Nothing more obnoxious than the modern “landscaping” business—and cheap-labor illegals have driven the business down to that.
LOL, my son’s employee walks around with earbuds listening to music and they don’t start until people are up and off to work.
Believe me, landscaping companies will switch to electric as soon as technology supports it. It is lighter, easier to use, easier to service and a great advertising plus.
Currently battery operated equipment including Stihl will last less than one hour on a battery. (I have that at home) The equipment also is not built commercial as yet. Landscape companies equipment use in one week is more than your use in over one year.
Non commercial equipment cannot stand up to that, commercial equipment, even with weekly servicing, rarely lasts through a season unless used by experienced people who do not abuse it.
Yes, there are some landscaping companies here who hire illegals. They pay $10 per hour. The city pays $8.41 including benefits per hour starting wage for parks maintenance.
How high should wages be? Lawns are mowed at average $25 per yard.
I and my son are totally against hiring illegals, as I said, he won’t even hire green card holders.
I live in a different area than he does. I see constant posts on FB of people desperate for work, will pull weeds. When I call them out, they give me an estimate of $400 for four hours of work. That is not reasonable. The one I did hire did a poor job and quit half way through because it was “so hard”.
You in no way win this one. Earbuds with music for guys strapped to leafblowers is blowing out their ears in record time. And they are illegals who are never going jome so we will pay for the disabilities that your son’s company has caused. Many, many jobs could be covered with corded electric—and then batteries or, God forbid!, rakes to finish off the rest. It is not viable now, supposedly, because so much cheap labor is imported. But shut that source off and you will see landscaping jobs and pay start to improve overnight. And landscapers shouldn’t be permitted to blast their sound pollution across neighborhoods anyway.
You have a reading comprehension problem.
My son does not and never has hired illegals. Nor do his friends.
You cannot plug into clients electricity to do a job. In addition, electric equipment is built for home use, not commercial. As is battery operated at this point.
$15 per hour is a very generous wage for “unskilled” labor.
Would you like CC&R’s so that your neighbor can’t mow his lawn personally? Is your yard zero scape? Perhaps all of your yard equipment is electric or battery operated?
If so, more power to you. Or are you exempt from noise pollution?
You are the one with the reading comprehension problem. The pay is so low because of all the illegals. No question about that. And your son has to compete in that environment. That is the issue for him.
And I don’t give a flip if a landscaper has to go through three rounds of electric equipment a season—he shouldn’t be allowed to blast the ears of everyone in the neighborhood. The right of your fist ends where my nose begins and ear-damaging blowing rights end when the sound is too loud for the neighbors to have the peaceful enjoyment of their homes.
I live in an area where such ordinances are regularly considered—but still more often get voted down than approved. In fact, many of the blower hives violate existing noise pollution laws—that should be enforced.
And if there is a demand for it, there will be commercial-grade electric blowers made.
Most blowing is simply a weekly exercise in one homeowner’s hired landscapers blowing a few leaves and sticks onto the surrounding homeowners’ land.
I am not responsible for a lawn presently, but when I was, yes, I had an electric blower—and a rake.
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