Posted on 05/14/2018 7:45:13 AM PDT by GIdget2004
Eddie Devine voted for President Donald Trump because he thought he would be good for American business. Now, he says, the Trump administration’s restrictions on seasonal foreign labor may put him out of business.
“I feel like I’ve been tricked by the devil,” said Devine, owner of Harrodsburg-based Devine Creations Landscaping. “I feel so stupid.”
Devine says it has been years since he could find enough dependable, drug-free American workers for his $12-an-hour jobs mowing and tending landscapes for cemeteries, shopping centers and apartment complexes across Central Kentucky.
So for years he has hired 20 seasonal workers, mostly from Guatemala, through the U.S. Labor Department’s H2-B “guest worker” program. Importing these workers for a few months cost him an additional $18,000 in fees and expenses beyond their wages, which must be the same as he pays American workers. But that’s the only way he could serve his customers.
Restrictions on guest-worker visas, which began during President Barack Obama’s second term as immigration became a hot issue for conservatives, have gotten worse under Trump. And it’s even more of a problem now that the unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in years.
Devine says he lost a $100,000 account because he didn’t have enough men to do the job. He’s worried he may be out of business next year if things don’t improve.
He isn’t alone. Cuts in H-2B visas are hurting small businesses across the country that can’t find Americans willing to do hard, manual labor: Maryland crab processors, Texas shrimp fishermen, and Kentucky landscapers and construction companies.
“We live and die by these visas,” said Ken Monin, owner of Monin Construction, which specializes in home additions, roofs, decks and garages.
(Excerpt) Read more at kentucky.com ...
Raise your wages, that’s how it works. I don’t get to steak a car because it costs too much.
These POS “businessmen” can either learn the hard way to hire American workers or go out of business.
Article is pure BS. Cheap labor express at the expense of working Americans.
Employers who must import workers are not paying enough.
Increase the wage offered and you will have plenty.
Allowing them cheap labor that costs US our country is not a good deal.
Also from the article:
“But what makes him most angry is that Trump’s properties in Florida and New York have used 144 H-2B workers since 2016. ‘I want to know why it’s OK for him to get his workers, but supporters like me don’t get theirs,’ Devine said.”
Because Trump never told anybody he’d be cracking down on the importing of cheap foreign labor. Who knew?!
Agreed! I am in the wine business and there is no shortage of workers in Virginia. Although we are trying to get Puerto Ricans to come up and work so they can use the money to rebuild that island!
You misunderstand.
Raising wages and hiring druggies and those who forget to get up and come to work is money down a rat hole.
If your business model is predicated on paying your help less than the prevailing wage, then it’s the model that’s at fault, not Donald Trump.
“Seasonal foreign labor”.... that word, foreign... doesnt bother him at all.. tsk tsk.. he didnt hear Trumps plans for a wall?...what is the pay rate for illegals.
You must not have been paying attention, dude. Trump said all of long he was going to restrict the flow of cheap foreign labor.
>>Devine says it has been years since he could find enough dependable, drug-free American workers for his $12-an-hour jobs mowing and tending landscapes for cemeteries, shopping centers and apartment complexes across Central Kentucky. <<
Robotic John Deere Fairwaymower 8900 A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWThi82f_C0
“Devine says it has been years since he could find enough dependable, drug-free American workers for his $12-an-hour jobs mowing and tending landscapes for cemeteries, shopping centers and apartment complexes across Central Kentucky.”
I see the problem.
L
If you want good people working for you, you have to be willing to pay them properly.
Like I said...... given the dregs that are now unemployed, you advocate throwing money down a rat hole
What a stupid article...
No, I said if you want good people, you have to pay them more.
Hire some high school kids for $12/hr instead of importing indentured servants that the U.S. doesn’t have the stomach to deport.
Are you advocating cheap labor importation?
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