The President has repeatedly said that if there are federal regulations interfering with business and employment then we should just let him know and he will correct the situation. He has beat that drum ever more loudly as he now redoubles his campaigning efforts for 2012.
This Presidential offer has always been a lie. You may remember the NLRB suing Boeing in an attempt to tell the company where it can operate. For every regulation the President delays, his appointees in the bureaucracy are issuing hundreds of new ones that take effect now.
The latest outrage is a combination of lefty regulators abetted by a lefty judge.
La. Business Owners Sue over New Rules for Guest Workers
By Julia Preston
September 11, 2011
In Louisiana, seasonal workers cut alligators into steaks, peel crawfish, shuck oysters, shell crabs and process shrimp. They are paid on a piecework system – the more you produce, the more you are paid. If there is anything more evil in the minds of union leaders than basic capitalism, it’s piecework – anything even remotely related to individual merit is anathema in the labor movement. They call it “involuntary servitude”.
In a time of major unemployment and a President who claims to be Ronald Reagan moving government regulations out of the way, his Labor Secretary has undertaken a wide critical review of Bush administration rules and published a 77-page proposal of changes.
Louisiana seafood employers use local and foreign workers. The work is hard and the pay is low so it is only attractive to the folks on the bottom rungs, those that can earn above average wages in piecework systems and Mexicans who can earn enough seasonally to support themselves all year at home. Many Americans cannot afford to lose year-round government benefits if they take seasonal, piece-rate jobs – how does that statement taste? So the industry depends upon Mexicans who come here legally and regularly, often in family groups, on H-2B work permits.
As with every industry, this one is important not only to the Americans who work there but also for the American workers in the many industries and jobs supported by this one. After decades of complaints from industry about the inefficiencies of the H-2B program and general outrage regarding illegal foreign workers, President George W. Bush streamlined the application process. Farmworker unions sued the Labor Department to reverse them and the Department is cooperating in spades.
In August 2010, a federal court in Pennsylvania ordered Labor Department officials to issue new rules on how employers should determine wages for H-2B workers. The new wage rules were issued in January the court ordered them kept secret until last month – they go into effect September 30. According to a Labor Department officer, “More of these jobs could be filled by U.S. workers if they were aware of the opportunity and paid prevailing wages.”
Get it? There is nothing illegal about the pay system and Americans will be able to continue to work this way. But for foreigners, whom the Labor Department can control, we plan to make this traditional pay scheme illegal. Our “central managers” intend to employ more American workers in some utopia but the immediate result will be bankrupt businesses and many more unemployed American workers across the country.
Meanwhile, the industry is suing to prevent the new rules from putting all of them out of business. The fishermen, restaurants, local landlords, et al, across the nation anxiously await the outcome and small businesses everywhere wonder if they are next.
· We should note that the Louisiana food associations must sue both the Labor Department and the Department of Homeland Security which jointly administer the H-2B program. How good do you think that is for the nation?
· How true do you think it is that entry level employment will ever be accepted by the majority of people on welfare, no matter what it pays?
· Do you think it is the job of government agencies to determine employment compensation?
· What do you think of a Pennsylvania court ruling on employment issues in Louisiana?
· Do you think that wages and employment practices should be identical across the nation? Whatever the practices, should they be the business of the federal government?
I believe in federal government regulation but this nation has gone significantly too far and needs deep reform of not just current rules but of what the feds have authority over. And finally, this President is an outrageous liar even when measured by the standard of American national politics.
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