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Newsday.com
Plan could ease LI worker shortage
BY MITCHELL FREEDMAN.mitchell.freedman@newsday.com

August 11, 2007

Responding to complaints from resorts on Long Island and across the country, federal officials plan to streamline the procedure for hiring summer workers from overseas and to eliminate the government certification procedure that added months to the processing of some applications.

Hundreds of summer employees are needed on Long Island to work in resorts, in restaurants, for landscapers and at other businesses on the East End, where the small school-age population and long travel times make it difficult to fill summer jobs.

Laraine Creegan, executive director of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce, said the record delays in getting approval for H-2B workers this year left many local businesses struggling to hire staff, with the last of those foreign nationals arriving only in the past few weeks.

She said the good weather has meant full bookings at local motels, and the staff shortage has meant a lot of overtime for workers in Montauk.

"If you tried to book a room out here in the last few weeks, you couldn't do it," she said.

Included in a series of immigration-related initiatives announced Friday was a pledge that the federal Department of Labor would issue new regulations streamlining the H-2B permit process for non-agricultural seasonal workers.

Federal officials said the procedure would be similar to the permanent foreign labor certification process, under which employers certify that the potential worker will be a full-time employee, that there is a bona fide job available for them, that no U.S. worker can be found to take the job and that they will be paid local prevailing wages for that type of job.

Rep. Timothy Bishop (D-Southampton) said the proposed change in the seasonal worker permit system should help end the problems that East End businesses experienced this year.

"I applaud the streamlining of the H-2B visa application process given the importance of the seasonal work force to Suffolk County small businesses," Bishop said in a statement."