HELP SUPPORT H2B VISA PROGRAM

As  with most service and construction industries, we have a significant immigrant workforce. That throws us into the national immigration debate. Whatever your personal situation or opinion about immigration in the United States, this hot-bed issue is something you have most likely read or talked about recently as it is front page news due to the focus of the Trump administration.

 

With Oregon's unemployment rate at a record low level , staffing is difficult at all levels of the economy, especially for seasonal labor like 25% of our workforce is. 

As the Portland Business Journal wrote last week,   there are high risks of Oregon's historically low unemployment rate .  Combined with the increasing minimum wage to $15.00 per hour and mandatory health care and sick benefits for all, prices for many services and products are rising significantly.  

 

For nearly a decade, we have utilized a guest worker visa program called H2B to fill our seasonal labor positions. Not only does it ensure that our seasonal labor force is legal, it provides us a very stable and motivated workforce.  In this immigration debate environment, programs such as H2B are subject to criticism and are at risk of being lost.  Some say it takes away opportunity for American workers or suppresses wages but with our local unemployment rate at 4.5% and the required   H2B wage of $15.14/hr , neither is true. As a part of the application process, employers must prove the inability to attract local workers at that prevailing wage. This year, those recruiting efforts produced 4 local candidates for the 60 visas we applied for. 

 

As a user of this valuable employment tool, we of course support it. There has been an increasing support of programs like this nationally as a source of improving our legal migrant workforce. Recently, the US Chamber of Commerce, a long supporter of the H2B Visa program , recently asked chambers of commerce across the nation to support legislation to support and stabilize the H2B Visa program. The Hillsboro Chamber of Commerce signed on to this support and I am asking you to do so as well.   https://www.saveh2b.org/

 

Please click on the link below to sign on to a petition we created to ask Senators Wyden and Merkley, and Rep. Bonamici to support H2B Legislation: