Posted on 03/10/2005 12:51:55 PM PST by madfly
Finishing lunch at Kuyaba, a restaurant on the beach in Negril, Jamaica, 2,000 miles away from the reality of work, freezing temperatures and a fresh snowfall, a waiter extended a pen to sign the bill.
Reality crept in: the insignia on the pen advertised The Chatham Wayside Inn, Main Street. Wondering if the pen was left from the previous day’s dinner, the question of its origin is posed to the waiter.
“No mon, that’s my pen,” responded Hopeton Lee.
For the past two summer seasons Lee has worked the bar and restaurant at the centerpiece Main Street inn, gaining access to the job through an H-2B visa he has enjoyed for the past five years. But Lee’s smile saddens as he relates a phone call from Shane Coughlin, manager of the inn, earlier in the month, explaining the visas have dried up.
There is no room at the inn for Hopeton Lee. Lee and many of his fellow Jamaicans who have worked in Chatham, Harwich and throughout the Cape will not return this year.
Wayside Inn owner David Oppenheim, who also owns Chris tian’s and the Bradford Inn in Chatham , will feel the pinch absent these workers. Oppenheim was on vacation and could not be reached for comment on the impact of the visa cap. Inn manager Shane Coughlin did not return several calls from The Chronicle this week.
But it was clear the early cutoff of foreign workers who have reaped benefits of seasonal employment on Cape Cod in recent years will have a major impact on local businesses.
The 66,000 H-2B visas-- seasonal permits for unskilled foreign workers-- annual quota was reached as of Jan. 3, more than two months earlier than the March 9 date in 2004. The U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Service is now rejecting all applications. Those businesses requiring help, but which had not filed by that date, will not have access to the seasonal foreign workforce.
Lee is not the only one who will suffer the loss of a good job and earning potential. Two weeks ago, Horace Dalley, Jamaican Minister of Labour and Social Security, held a press conference in the capital of Kingston , explaining if the H-2B visa cap does not change, 4,000 Jamaican jobs in the United States could disappear, resulting in a $46 million loss to the economy of his country.
After working for five years on an H-2B visa –two years in Newport , R.I. , one in North Conway , N.H. , and the last two in Chatham – Lee sees no hope of returning this year.
What it means is a loss of 70 percent of Lee’s annual income. And with a wife and four children living in the mountain town of Dias , above Lucea , Hanover Parish, that has major ramifications.
“It’s disappointing; we’re all looking to go back. It’s a great opportunity,” Lee said. “These years have made a great improvement in my family’s standard of living.”
There are certainly sacrifices made, Lee admitted of leaving the island for six months and not seeing his family during that period. But the financial benefits are worth it, he said.
“It’s tough, understandably, but it’s a sacrifice a lot of us have to make,” he said.
The waiter will continue to work the idyllic palm frond huts of Kuyaba restaurant until the winter tourism season slows. That means traveling for more than an hour in crowded taxis and JUTA mini-buses to get to work.
A typical day for Lee has the waiter finishing the dinner shift minutes before mid-night and commuting home, only to awake at 5 a.m. to catch transportation for the morning breakfast service on the beach.
Earning a living in Jamaica makes for a much more trying day than working the Main Street Chatham inn and walking a quarter mile back to his Snow Lane living quarters, admitted Lee.
The absence of a labor force along Main Street in Chatham and in most Cape towns during the summer season is a growing problem, agreed Wendy Norcross, executive director of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce. She said the visa quota was filled earlier this year and will leave a number of businesses relying on foreign workers shorthanded this summer.
“The problem is more widespread,” Norcross said. “This year it’s going to be worse because more people have been shut out, denied requests because the cap was reached sooner. We paid a lot of overtime last year and a lot of innkeepers made their own beds.”
The H-2B visa program is “patently unfair,” according to Norcross, because it discriminates against the summer economy. She said the 66,000 visas are issued based on the federal fiscal year which begins on Oct.1. This allows states with winter and spring season economies to take advantage of these workers first.
U.S. Department of Labor statistics show in FY 2003 Texas enjoyed the benefit of the most H-2B workers at 14,690, followed by Colorado at 13,322 and Florida with 7,235. Massachusetts was ranked sixth with 5,808 workers. But there could be a sharp reduction in the Bay State this year.
The law prohibits employers from filing applications more than 120 days before the employment date for H-2B workers. Because the Cape’s economy is a summer one, Norcross said, most of those visas have already been designated by the time local businesses apply.
The chamber of commerce director said the group has been working with Congressman William Delahunt, D-Quincy, and Gov. Mitt Romney formed a task force last year, to address the issue. There is also a study underway, conducted by Suffolk University and the Commonwealth Corporation, to define the regional economic impact on the H-2B visa shortage.
Two weeks ago, Delahunt, working with a bipartisan, bicameral Congressional coalition, filed H.R. 793, known as the “Save Our Small and Seasonal Business Act of 2005,” a bill seeking to address the need for temporary work visas, which the congressman said is essential to the region’s seasonal economy.
The bill seeks to reserve 33,000 visas, half the annual allotment, for employers needing workers during the summer. To address the immediate shortage, as well as a potential backlog next year, the bill would also allow exemptions for workers who have participated successfully in the H-2B visa program during the past three years.
“Closing the door on H-2B visas creates enormous and urgent hardship for small businesses throughout the country,” Delahunt said. “Congress must act this year.”
“For the second year in a row, we have reached the H-2B visa cap before Massachusetts’s summer tourism industry is eligible to apply. This bill provides immediate solution to this problem,” Senator Edward Kennedy, D- Massachusetts, added.
Steve Schwadron, a senior aide in Delahunt’s Washington D. C. office, said on Monday it would require quick action to correct these conditions in time for this summer season. Schwadron said if the Republican leaders in Congress and the administration were interested it could be fixed administratively, without need for the legislation.
The biggest obstacle remains the many members of Congress opposed to any serious immigration reform. The White House --- responsible for the original Homeland Security Department decision --- has repeatedly refused to collaborate on any administrative redress for affected small businesses, Delahunt said.
There is support building for the legislation, according to Schwadron, who said as of Monday there were 25 co-sponsors. Delahunt and Congressman Wayne Gilchrest, R- Maryland, conducted a briefing on the legislation with Senators Barbara Mikulski, D- Maryland, and Judd Gregg, R- New Hampshire Monday.
“It could be effective this year, but it would require very prompt action,” Schwadron said. “We’re in this for the long haul.”
Lee said he realizes it is very unlikely he will be able to come to Chatham to work this summer, but he hopes government regulations can be changed to allow more foreign workers to come to Cape Cod in the future.
“I know a lot of employers up there will be affected because they depend on the seasonal help,” he said. “They can use my pen to sign the bill if it will help them out.”
3/10/05
ping
it seems good to clear up the myth that all mexican laborers are being paid less than minumum wage, as if business is somehow using them because they're cheap and too ignorant or fragmented to do anything about it. No and no. Business uses them because they show up and earn their pay.
Gee, they could always pay high enough wages to attract American workers.
ping
But, but how will blue state residents survive without their foreign servants?
And extend the law of supply and demand to employers? Perish the thought.
How dare you suggest "free market" principles! You don't know your place! The rules are that checked-pants Republicans are to flaut the law and you are work in their sweatshop with no complaing, or health care!
Silly me, never mind.
I know lots of college kids who have worked hospitality on Cape Cod and there must be lots more who would like to. One friend's kid spent several summers chipping paint, cleaning bathrooms, cutting grass, whatever.
I know the apple growers in Massachusetts value Jamaicans who have been working here since 1942 (during the WWII labor shortages) over Americans because they are more workmanlike and really value the jobs. Farmers complain that Americans damage the trees and aren't as productive.
I live in "apple country" (think Verifine) and the Jamaicans you run into in the grocery store seem to come from another planet. Coal black skin, workmanlike demeanor and dress, polite and gracious. It is hard to understand how a country populated with people like this can possibly be poor.
This is about the H2-B, not the flood of illegals working under the table.
"Those businesses" try to make their situation sound desperate so Congress will capitulate and give them more visas.
Well they may be fooled in Washington but out here in the real world the solution is obvious: pay workers a living wage and they'll get all the help they need.
If they can't find enough labor tough, close up shop and get into something else. It's called the free market.
Employees can and do seek out the higher wages. Just ask most of the players on NY Yankee roster. Employers do the same.
There is no such thing as a jopb Americans will not do. There is a susch thing as a job that America companies are not willing to pay what it takes to do them, hence Illegals are allowed in. No illegals wages go up, Americans get interested in the jobs. The free market, stop depressing wages by flooding the market with cheap labor.
a good distinction to make, since the "public debate" generally seems to be laboring under the illusion that all Mexican labor is of the under-the-table variety.
bump
for a price, maybe. and if I have to pay you $45,000 to clean toilets, but I can someone else to it for $30,000, and he happens to be a legal immigrant, well, I guess he gets the job.
That's not what's happening here, businesses aren't even attempting to find Americans in many cases, they simply want Congress to give them a neverending supply of cheap labor from abroad.
I bet if the H-2b program ended for a year almost everyone of these employers would find the help they needed domestically.
For those who didn't then it's time to get into something else. The days of corporate welfare need to come to an end.
do what we do in Texas, hire mexicans!! If that doesn't work try what works at Chili's and Firday's -hire college kids. Wait the college kids in MA don't need to work, their parents are rich and they want foreign workers to keep the price of their beautiful Cape Cod affordable by importing labor that earns no benefits and has no long term health care. /sarcasm off
My wife teaches under privileged and at risk kids. Many have very little prospects a graduation. They would love a job for $12 to $15 an hour. Americans ned jobs too. And as I see it American citizens should have dips even if it cost companies more.
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