Court Decides H-2B Visas Should Be Protected by Prevailing Wages to Avoid Hurting American Workers

[pampango]

4. The EPI explanation is below.

I am not making this up. The Louisiana Forestry Association, the Crawfish Processors Alliance, and the American Hotel and Lodging Association actually argued that the required wages should not be set high enough to attract U.S. workers and that the Labor Department is not allowed to protect U.S. workers’ rights to a decent wage. Fortunately, the three-judge panel unanimously rejected this cynical argument and found that setting wages below the local prevailing wage does “adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed United States workers”:

We likewise reject Appellants’ argument that the DOL improperly established wage rates in order to attract U.S. workers—a factor Appellants claim the DOL was prohibited from considering in promulgating the 2011 Wage Rule. According to Appellants, in the NPRM and notice accompanying the final rule, the DOL “discussed the effect of higher wage rates on employers’ ability to attract U.S. workers,” a “factor that Congress and the [DHS] precluded from consideration…” We cannot agree. The INA and DHS regulatory provisions governing the DOL’s issuance of labor certifications require the DOL to consider, in issuing a temporary labor certification, whether H-2B alien workers’ employment “will adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed United States workers,” 8 C.F.R. 214.2(h)(6)(iii), a requirement that derives from the DHS’s charge from Congress to consider whether H-2B workers will have an “adverse effect” on U.S. workers.

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This is great news - for now. If the Department of Labor falls into republican hands in 2017, somehow I doubt it will be very aggressive in protecting "U.S. workers' right to a decent wage."

But that is a future battle. For now this ruling is great news. Thanks for posting it, Omaha Steve.