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Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/144453
Staying Current By Tom Delaney Image above ©istockphoto.com/Veni Think Immigration Reform Does Not Affect You? L andscape companies face three difficult challenges when recruiting new employees: 1. Finding good, qualified local workers willing to accept manual labor jobs. 2.Verifying a potential employee's legal status. 3. Having access to a reliable electronic verification program that is not overly burdensome, particularly for small businesses. If you hire people, immigration affects you. You will have to use an EVerify system if Senate Bill 744 passes. In Senate Bill 744, under one section on E-Verify, the employee cannot be terminated should a "further action notice" or non-confirmation notice be received pending the various appeals processes, up to and including a hearing with an administrative judge. Some labor lawyers say it means that once the application is filled out or the interview/hiring process starts, you are married to that candidate, including paying for, training, and employing him or her until all options proving the worker is not authorized to work are exhausted.This may be a substantial risk of discrimination suits and other problems. The timeframe for this to take place, according to the maximum limits in the bill, is three days to get a further action notice back from the "system," three days to get the individual to sign documentation that the notice was given to them, 10 days for an employee to contest the further action notice, and 10 days to get a response back from the system with possibility of an extension. At this point, the employee may appeal the decision to the administrative judge, and who knows how long that will take. Make a mistake on documentation, termination, or wrongfully employing the individual — or set a pattern of using unauthorized workers during the documentation process — and an employer could be faced with a $10,000 per person fine and possibly serve up to 10 years in prison. Another problem companies face is determining if they have any employees, no matter how long they've worked for them, with I-9 verification papers of which they seriously question the authenticity. With such a large Hispanic population working in our industry, that question may be on the minds of many company owners. We need to support legislation that provides an acceptable mechanism for legalizing these improperly documented workers, or that gives employers access to a steady workforce of full-time temporary workers along the lines of the new "W Visa" program included in S.744, the "Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act." This legislation is currently being debated in the United States Senate. However, we believe that Congress should increase the number of visas for these new temporary workers and ensure the formula for adjusting those numbers meets future economic demands. In the future, the no match letters companies occasionally receive from Social Security will have a process to follow unlike the no match letters issued today that say this notice is not grounds for dismissal. But, when you have a termination process, how are you going to replace those workers? While employers face challenges in confirming the work eligibility of some employees, an even larger challenge lies in the fact that, in many cases, few or no legal workers actually apply for landscape jobs because of the temporary nature and physical demands of the work.The merry-go-round starts with advertising for candidates, interviewing the few that show up, and hiring someone who may not show up for, or is late to, work every day — or does not last the week and goes AWOL and you have to fire him or her and start the merry-go-round again. For these reasons, many landscape companies rely on the existing H2B program as their source of documented, seasonal, visa-holding nonimmigrant workers who fit their seasonal labor needs. This program, however, is very complicated, costly, and time consuming for employers. Many have abandoned the program; but, if left unsupported by them, it may never be useable again, with unusable wages and over-the-top regulations. The industry has a problem with the quality and quantity of available workers. If you don't think it is bad now, just wait until the economy picks up. By your management decisions, you have some leverage on quality and retention, but quantity will be your Achilles' heel. Some that use the H-2B program because of seasonality also use it for quality of work based on the available workforce in their area. So you can't afford to turn a blind eye to immigration and think it does not affect your business and industry. Stay on top of this developing situation by following the news or visiting the Legislative Updates portion of the Government Affairs page at LandcareNetwork.org. LI Tom Delaney is director of government affairs at the Professional Landcare Network (PLANET). For more information, visitwww.landcarenetwork.org. 26 Landscape and Irrigation July/August 2013 www.landscapeirrigation.com