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So why did he stop using the program?<\/p>\nIf you\u2019ve been a landscape contractor for any length of time, you know that there is a labor crisis in our industry. You have work, but not enough workers to get it done. And when you do get people, they often don\u2019t stay, or aren\u2019t able to perform the tasks you\u2019ve assigned them.<\/p>\n
Dustin Davis knows how that feels. Says the president of Metro West Lawn & Landscape LLC, St. Charles, Missouri, \u201cWe\u2019re in a predicament now where we have quite a backlog of work, and we\u2019ve hired everyone we could find. But it\u2019s not enough. There\u2019s so much training involved, and there are just not enough experienced people out there that are willing to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s a contractor to do? Well, he can apply to the Guest Worker program, which brings in temporary workers from other countries. It\u2019s nicknamed H-2B after the visas the workers are issued. The visas are only good for as long as the work lasts, however many months that is. Then, the workers go home, back to Mexico or Guatemala, where the majority of them live.<\/p>\n
The consensus among contractors who\u2019ve used the program is that it works well, when it works. Too often, however, it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Glenn Jacobsen started Midland Park, New Jersey-based Jacobsen Landscape Design and Construction 40 years ago. He\u2019s also a past president of the board of directors of PLANET, now the National Association of Landscape Professionals. He used the H-2B program for 15 years, from 2001 to 2015, when he stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe used to hire about 15 or 20 H-2B workers every year,\u201d Jacobsen says. \u201cAnd for the first 10 years or so, it was a very positive experience. They became trained personnel who enjoyed working here for those nine or 10 months.\u201d<\/p>\n
So why did he stop using the program?<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re always changing the rules, making it more restrictive every year, and the process so difficult and expensive that it really wasn\u2019t worth it anymore. We still never had a guarantee of getting our men, and it\u2019s hard to run a company when you don\u2019t know when your workforce is coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s not the workers\u2019 fault. They come when the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, the arm of the Department of Homeland Security that administers the program, says they can.<\/p>\n
No contractor I\u2019ve ever spoken with has had anything but praise for the H-2B workers they\u2019ve hired, including Jacobsen. \u201cI have a lot of respect for them, because they work very hard. The quality of the people is very, very good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Kristek, president and co-owner of Wickman\u2019s Garden Village, Springfield, Missouri, usually requests 50 H-2B workers for the season. This years\u2019 group was supposed to arrive April 1. When I spoke to him on April 25, they had still not arrived.<\/p>\n
When I asked Kristek how much his business would be hurt if doesn\u2019t get those workers soon, he said, \u201cI would not use the word \u2018hurt.\u2019 I would use the word \u2018crushed.\u2019\u201d
\nHe says, \u201cWe\u2019ve already had to bail out of some jobs. Even if they come some time next month, it\u2019s to the point where it\u2019s greatly affecting the continued viability of my company, one that\u2019s been around since 1922.\u201d<\/p>\n
The number of guest workers allowed per year is capped at 66,000 divided into two quarters. Half of them, 33,000, arrive Oct. 1, the other half come April 1. Our industry draws from that pool, along with the reforestation, hospitality, restaurant and seafood processing industries. Landscape companies use up the lion\u2019s share of the April 1 allotment. Occasionally the cap is raised, but never by enough to meet the demand.<\/p>\n
The process is costly in both money and time. First, there\u2019s a huge stack of paperwork \u2014 \u201cthree-quarters of an inch thick,\u201d says Stephen Faulkner, owner of Faulkner Landscape and Nursery Inc., Hookset, New Hampshire \u2014 to get through. \u201cYou have to dot every i and cross every t, or you could have your application rejected,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
Because the process is so drawn out and difficult, many contractors hire companies like Labor Consultants International of Coeur D\u2019Alene, Idaho, to cut through the red tape for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to prove your need, that you have the work, and that there are no American workers who\u2019ll take those jobs,\u201d explains Terry Forrester, LCI owner and general manager. \u201cThe Department of Labor requires that you place help wanted ads in your local Sunday newspaper and another weekday edition. A single Sunday ad can cost anywhere from $500 to $3,000.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen there\u2019s the $1,825 application fee,\u201d continues Forrester, \u201cthe consulate fee of $190 per worker; the cost of their inbound and outbound transportation; all the FedEx\u2019s back and forth; and our fee. Most contractors end up spending around $10,000, once you add up everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe recruitment effort (taking out the ads) is expensive,\u201d confirms Kristek. \u201cWe\u2019re already into this for many thousands of dollars, just trying to get our visas for this year. I\u2019m out all that money, without enough workers to create any production to help earn that back. I\u2019m drowning.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I spoke with Paul T. Mendelsohn, NALP\u2019s vice president of government relations on April 25, he\u2019d just gotten off the phone with another contractor who also hadn\u2019t received his workers on April 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people haven\u2019t gotten their workers yet, and they\u2019re very upset and frustrated. Congress authorized the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor to issue a certain number of visas but gave them discretion about whether they would do it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kristek says, \u201cRight now, I don\u2019t have any firm answer from the government on when my guys might be able to show up. If I had a timeline where I knew when they were going to be here, that would help ease the pain. Otherwise I\u2019m going to have to walk out on some contracts, and we\u2019ve already lost some.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThus far the administration has not acted, nor given us a timeline of when they plan to act,\u201d says Mendelsohn. \u201cWe don\u2019t know if they are going to raise the cap \u2014 issue additional visas \u2014 or by how many. We\u2019re very concerned that they are slowplaying it. We might run into a situation such as we had last year, where there were around 90,000 businesses that were certified as having met the need, but they only authorized 15,000 additional visas.\u201d<\/p>\n
The program has always been something of a political football. Some senators and members of Congress like the program, and some others don\u2019t. One has to wonder if the anti-immigration tone coming out of the White House is affecting the way the program is being administered.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is affecting it, without a doubt,\u201d says Mendelsohn. \u201cSome of our congressional champions who\u2019ve had direct discussions with the White House or the Department of Labor keep being told that these people are taking jobs that would otherwise go to citizens and are artificially holding down the wages of American workers. That\u2019s along the lines of the anti-immigration rhetoric we\u2019ve been hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n
But what they\u2019re being told just isn\u2019t true, according to Mendelsohn. He cites independent research that shows every H-2B visa issued creates or sustains 4.64 jobs \u2014 exactly the opposite of what the program\u2019s critics are claiming. \u201cIt helps drive salaries up. When H-2B workers are getting the prevailing wage, as is required by the Department of Labor, it drives up wages throughout the entire company.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Faulkner can attest to that. \u201cI have 16 regular employees and bring in six H-2B workers every season.<\/p>\n
Those six guys are so proficient and well-trained that I can afford to grow my company and pay my American workers better money.\u201d<\/p>\n
And, they\u2019re failing to take into account what Mendelsohn called \u201cthe downstream impact,\u201d or ripple effect, that denying or delaying the H-2B workers has on local economies. Kristek can attest to that. \u201cI\u2019ve been wanting to buy some new equipment, but if I don\u2019t have people to install the jobs, I don\u2019t need them. We won\u2019t buy nearly as many materials \u2014 mulch, plants, pipes \u2014 and that affects our suppliers and our suppliers\u2019 suppliers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The guest worker program gets lumped into the immigration debate. But it shouldn\u2019t, because the H-2B\u2019s aren\u2019t immigrants. As Mendelsohn points out, an immigrant is someone who plans to permanently move to another country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe H-2B program doesn\u2019t allow that. They have a date when they\u2019re supposed to go back, and 99 percent of the people abide by that. They have families and responsibilities back home. The program allows them to provide for a better life for their family in their home countries without needing to move to the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the five-plus years I\u2019ve been writing articles for this magazine, I\u2019ve heard contractors all over the country, in every region, say repeatedly that they have trouble finding workers. When they do, they discover that many of them fibbed about their skills, had bad attitudes, or weren\u2019t prepared for how hard the work is.<\/p>\n
A few have stopped doing pre-employment background checks and drug tests saying that if they did them, they\u2019d have no employees at all. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not a wage issue, either,\u201d says Davis. \u201cOffering more money doesn\u2019t get you better people, necessarily.\u201d<\/p>\n
Theories persist about the current state of affairs. Alex Salazar, co-owner of The Salazar Landscape Co., Sun Valley, California, says his company has not had any luck hiring people between 18 and 25. \u201cThey have a very poor work ethic, and they don\u2019t stay on. Our field is very intense, very labor-heavy, and often it\u2019s something they just can\u2019t handle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davis is even more blunt. \u201cThe American workforce has gone soft,\u201d he contends. \u201cI know that\u2019s a broad statement that doesn\u2019t apply to everybody. But they seem to have a lot of personal issues that get in the way of them coming to work \u2014 \u2018my grandma died,\u2019 and so forth. \u2018Oh, didn\u2019t she die last month, too?\u2019 Meanwhile, there are six H-2B guys sharing an apartment who have to be deathly ill before they\u2019ll miss work, because their families back in Mexico are depending on them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right now, we have a very low unemployment rate. That\u2019s a factor, too. So is the seasonal nature of our business. Many good American workers are lost because they have to find other jobs to fill out the rest of the year; they often don\u2019t return.<\/p>\n
But the H-2Bs do. Many work for the same contractor for 15 or 20 years, becoming interwoven into the fabric of the business. \u201cThat\u2019s what happens,\u201d affirms Jacobsen. \u201cThey become part of your family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Faulkner, who owns both a landscape company and a nursery, depends on the skills of his returning H-2B workers. \u201cYou need a lot of people, when you\u2019re getting 10 or 12 tractor-trailer loads on a Monday. My guys know my irrigation system, know where I like to put everything. It took four or five years for them to learn that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year, he couldn\u2019t get any of them. \u201cAnd it was hell around here. We were stacking trees on top of trees, just to get them off the trucks. A lot of the trees were damaged or died.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taking on the problem Clearly, our industry needs to start attracting young people. NALP is trying to do that via it\u2019s Industry Growth Initiative. \u201cWe want the public to fall in love with this industry, to see the benefits of healthy lawns and landscapes, and for the best and brightest to seek careers in it,\u201d says Missy Henriksen, NALP\u2019s vice president of public affairs.<\/p>\n
NALP recently launched a Landscape Industry Careers website. \u201cIn January, we launched an annual Landscape Career Day, supported by a host of planning and promotional materials. We developed a 22-page toolkit to help companies put on successful career day events, such as hosting community service projects in their neighborhoods or working with a local scout group,\u201d Henriksen says.<\/p>\n
The idea is to reach out to students, parents, educators and even working adults who don\u2019t like their current career paths, make them aware of all the opportunities offered by our industry and also dispel any misconceptions they may have about it.<\/p>\n
This is clearly the way to go. If we can encourage young people to view green industry careers as the well-paying, opportunity-filled, satisfying occupations that we know them to be, we can assure a willing, able and competent workforce that will take us into the future. Don\u2019t we have to?<\/p>\n
The current political climate is having a major impact on the green industry and its ability to hire the reliable H-2B workforce it has come to depend on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":3056,"parent":0,"template":"","main-categories":[25,28],"class_list":["post-3053","features","type-features","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","main-categories-business","main-categories-landscape"],"yoast_head":"\n