Posted on 04/21/2005 3:04:26 PM PDT by Prince Charles
Door slams on foreign landscape workers
April 21, 2005
BY ART GOLAB Staff Reporter
Hundreds of Mexican workers who used to come legally to the Chicago area every spring to do landscaping work have been denied seasonal work visas, leaving landscapers scrambling to find employees to mow and maintain lawns.
One Lake Bluff company applied for more than 150 visas and got none. Those slots make up half the company's seasonal work force, many of them regulars who have come up in the spring for several years.
"They are family members and friends of our current workers who count on this work each year," said Stacy Betz, human resources manager for Mariani Landscaping. "We've trained them and invested in them and they're fantastic individuals."
At least 600 and possibly up to 1,000 visas for landscaping positions in Illinois were denied this year, according to Patricia Cassady, executive director of the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association. One reason is that only 66,000 H-2B visas for temporary, seasonal non-agricultural workers are issued nationwide each year.
And in recent years, more employers such as hotels, restaurants, ski areas, construction companies, amusement parks, carnivals and even minor league baseball teams have become aware of the program and use it.
Early cutoff
This season, the government started taking applications in October and announced the cutoff had been reached by Jan. 3. Illinois got shortchanged because seasonal work starts earlier down south, said Cassady.
Federal legislation that would grandfather in workers who had obtained visas in previous years was approved in a preliminary Senate vote Monday, with both Illinois senators voting yes. But even if it passes Congress it may come too late for this season.
"We've already replaced most of the workers we had hoped to bring up," said Tracey Lester, who with her husband, Ron, owns Architerra in northwest suburban Indian Creek. Architerra had asked for 12 positions, 90 percent of its work force, and got none.
One of Lester's employees, Gerardo Acosta, had hoped to sponsor his cousin Miguel Lomas this year for the first time. "He was looking for a job to support himself and his family," said Acosta, a U.S. citizen. He said other Architerra employees on the visa program liked knowing that they had a job every year. "With the money, they could give their families a better life."
Lester liked the visa program because it provided her with legal workers who had undergone extensive background checks and were willing to work for the wages she can pay, which she says are higher than many landscapers employing undocumented workers.
"With this program you know what you're getting. You're bringing in good people, you're not rolling the dice."
And to politicians who oppose increasing the H-2B cap, Lester has one question: "Who's doing your lawn?"
Americans mow my lawn. And Lake Bluff, Illinois, by the way, is part of the uber-liberal north shore suburbs.
Ha, yeah. That'd be me.
Just leave Chicago and come to southern CA. You can spend damn-near a million dollars on a home and mow the yard with a pair of scissors in under 20 minutes.
The same guy who has done it for years, american and proud of it. I pay him in advance for the season and he or one of his american guys does it weekly and they do a great job.
Exactly, the same guys who do the lawn also shovel the snow in winter (imagine that, they don't relocate thousand of miles south every winter).
Bingo.
Ding, Dading, ding, ding...those be the kind ya' want around to lend a hand. Driveway in my case is very small...yard is two levels though!
Hey ask and find out if any want summer jobs why dont you.
Tough *hit. She can pay the same wages the rest of us pay. She just wants the AMERICAN PEOPLE to subsidize her employees with government benefits she isn't willing to pay.
BTW, we mow our own lawn.
The guys who do my lawn (and shovel my snow) are American.
However, I must confess the guys who do the heavy landscaping, tree trimming, etc. on our lot are all Salvadorans. Their boss is a wonderful guy -- completely legal, married, two lovely kids -- who works his ass off to realize the American dream. He has a full time job with the company that does brush and tree trimming for the local utility, and on the side, nights and weekends, he runs his own landscaping company. I have no idea how many of the guys who work for him are legal or illegal, but they are doggone hard workers.
My boys and I also mow lawns. Hard to get jobs around here because the Hispanics take them all. We'll keep trying so the boys can earn some college money. Life is tough.
In Washington state, high school students aren't allowed to pick apples because the Hispanic foremen won't hire them. There are tons of young kids who want a part time job, who want to earn some extra money; but are prevented from learning to work for money, because the hispanic foremen will hire an illegal first.
If you fertilize it, it will grow.
CHICAGO-NAPERVILLE-JOLIET 6.1%
Should be able to find someone to fill 150 jobs.
That’s what we used to do as kids. But then again, we didn’t need to be (business) licensed, bonded, or insured. Meanwhile, a lot of cities now have ordinances (pushed by labor and liberals) that *require* you to do various things if you hire *anyone* under 18.
You have to sign up and agree to a bunch of hour/day limits (which wouldn’t really apply in this case), but the kid also has to have a “work permit” signed by his guidance counselor (if he’s 17 or 18 and still in HS). That’s whether he’s working while school is in session or not. Seriously.
Violation of the ordinance is $108 or something.
That’s why I do what I do. I could certainly afford to pay someone $100/mo to stop by for four minutes and cut lawn/blow leaves. But then, I’m not too proud to cut it myself with my little 8” Black & Decker rechargeable weed eater. I can do my entire lawn, rake, sweep the sidewalks, squirt some water, and be back inside in under 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, the 13/14/15/16/17/18 year-olds are semi-professional X-Box players.
Not for what she is used to paying while the taxpayer's subsidize them with government benefits. That's the whole point. She isn't happy she doesn't have her "CHEAP" (to her and expensive to taxpayer's) labor this year.
What is cheap? If she was hiring legal aliens with temporary visas, she had to follow federal minimum wage guidelines, and pay payroll taxes. She should be able to hire H.S. or college students for minimum wage.
She's just p*ssed that she won't get her experienced workers at minumum wage, that's all.
"We've already replaced most of the workers we had hoped to bring up,"
Assuming they didn't replace them with illegal labor, I would assume they found some Americans to do the jobs that 'Americans aren't willing to do'. Interesting......
Even just a few years ago around here all the landscaping jobs were done by high school and college kids now all those jobs are taken by immigrants . Now what do they do for summer work? Not much left for them. I hate that LINE that Bush is spouting about Immigrants doing work Americans don't want to do, THAT IS ABSOLUTE B.S.
It's right wing affirmative action.
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