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Staying Current By Tom Delaney Image above ©istockphoto.com/Veni I Our Green Industry Workforce t is a fact that now and into the near future there is — and will continue to be — a diminishing number of people available for certain Green Industry jobs. Sometimes it is because of the location of the job, sometimes it is the duration of the job, and sometimes it is the job itself. It's also a fact that labor-intensive jobs do not appeal to many workers. The economy is making a somewhat slow but steady come- back. At some point in the near future, there will be an increased need for more workers. The number of legally U.S.-based workers (with valid documents) that meet our industry's needs is question- able. So it will be important to have a workable H-2B-like pro- gram for temporary workers and some number of those workers already here with questionable documentation to keep up a good portion of the workforce for industries like ours. Over and over again, we hear the U.S. immigration system is broken — not just the parts that affect our industry. This not only affects employers that presently use the H-2B program, but those that have employ- ees that could not withstand a thorough check of their social secu- rity numbers. We do not need to be fighting over employees. Some compa- nies may use or be forced to use the E-Verify system to check the legal status of new employees. But I have not yet found one state requirement that targets existing workers. There is a U.S. House bill that does mention if a company receives a no-match social security letter, then it must use E-Verify. But that bill is not going anywhere for now. The politics of this problem are very large at the state and national levels. There have been missed op- portunities, even by presidents, to fix the mess. There will be hard choices, and a large majority of people won't be happy with the solution; but we must start somewhere. And, most important, in- dustries like ours must make sure our voices are heard. What once seemed unthinkable to many is now commonplace, with one-third of the states mandating that some or all employers enroll in the federal E-Verify system, and five states allowing police to ask for identification from people who they suspect are in the coun- try illegally if they stop them for other reasons. With Congress deadlocked and still unable to act on immi- gration, state lawmakers throughout the country continue to take matters into their own hands. A virtual revolution has occurred in the past five years on the question of who should make immi- gration law — the federal government or the states. What once seemed unthinkable to many is now commonplace, with one- third of the states mandating that some or all employers enroll in the federal E-Verify system, and five states allowing police to ask for identification from people who they suspect are in the coun- try illegally if they stop them for other reasons. The states to watch in this legislative session — some with new immigration laws and some with existing legislation — are Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, Utah, New Mexico, Georgia, Arizona, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Dakota, Florida, Nebraska, New Hampshire, California and Washington. Every company in our industry with employees has an invest- ment in the outcome of the H-2B issue. So, we hope all compa- nies will help convince Congress to fix the broken immigration system and not let the Department of Labor ruin a workable H- 2B program and cause industries to waste valuable resources to sue them. LI Tom Delaney is director of government affairs at the Professional Landcare Network (PLANET). For more information, visit www.land carenetwork.org. 26 Landscape and Irrigation April 2012 www.landscapeirrigation.com