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Seasonal guest worker program

Friday, June 22 at 12:01 AM

This Speakout has not been edited

By Mike Gilsdorf, President, Colorado Employers for Immigration Reform

Just one month ago, the Colorado Employers for Immigration Reform, a multi-industry business coalition formed to advocate a sensible, comprehensive solution to the immigration crisis in our country. Our group represents businesses employing more than 500,000 people and contributes $26 billion to the state economy annually. Since our launch and to our relief, Congress has made remarkable progress toward fixing the broken immigration system that has plagued many of our state's businesses.

The bipartisan compromise agreement envisioned in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (S. 1348) announced last week addresses the four principle areas that Colorado Employers for Immigration Reform believes are crucial to effective reform: enhanced border security; a new employment verification system; provisions for future temporary, year round guest worker programs to fill jobs that U.S. workers are unable to fill; and, settling the legal status of the 12 million undocumented people already in the country.

As the bill is being debated over the next few weeks, many Colorado businesses will be eager to see provisions retained that allows us to continue a legal avenue for hiring a seasonal work force included in the bill, similar to the current H2-B visa program.

Several important industries to our state including hotels and lodging, landscape, nurseries and restaurants all depend on an ongoing seasonal workforce to fill jobs due to the state's low unemployment rate and the lack of interest they receive from Americans in seasonal work and the type of jobs to be filled.

While the Y2-B component of the new bill addresses seasonal guest workers, Colorado businesses need ongoing assurances that we can bring in a seasonal workforce every year during peak seasons. We need the ability to bring back the same workers annually to avoid unnecessary and expensive training and recruitment. We also need to make sure the number of seasonal workers is dictated by the market's need and not a set cap that may actually be lower than what we now have in place. Most importantly, we need to make sure we can continue to use a seasonal workforce until comprehensive reform takes effect and while border security issues are being resolved.

We recognize not everyone will agree with all provisions of the 326-page bill. However, Colorado Employers for Immigration Reform believes "perfect" should not be the enemy of the good. In the good faith spirit of the negotiations to date, we support the bill. We applaud the senators and representatives of the Administration that negotiated in good faith to find workable and fair solutions to the myriad of problems requiring attention in our failed immigration system.

Senator Ken Salazar deserves special thanks for the constructive role he has played in seeking solutions to comprehensive immigration reform. His leadership on the negotiation committee and willingness to represent diverse interests in Colorado is notable and appreciated. As we move forward, we encourage Colorado employers to communicate with our congressional leaders that immigration reform is needed and 2007 is the year to accomplish it.

READER COMMENTS

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Posted by oisjfuyzaj on October 1, 2007 12:46 PM

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Posted by dianne on September 22, 2007 11:20 PM

Guest Worer program?
You gotta be serious!
We ALREADY have 12-30 million guests..that shouldn't be here.
Why in the world do you think we need
"MORE"?!

Posted by NO VACANCY! FULL! on June 22, 2007 07:37 PM

Just reading who the letter is from tells me it is slanted towards Illegals. This person deserves no respect and doesn't represent the opinions of Colorado Citizens!

Enforce the existing laws now!

Posted by [Elwood] on June 22, 2007 10:27 AM

Mr. Gilsdorf, I notice you conveniently failed to advocate severe penalties for any employer that continues to employ illegal immigrants after this legislation passes.
So tell us, what is the wage intend on paying these “Guest Workers”? What Benefits? Medical? Dental? Who pays for the education of their children? Who pays for the birth of their children?
You see Mr Gilsdorf, everyone is aware how much the hotel and restaurant industry pays in wages and it is not enough to support a family. If decent wages were paid, your industry wouldn’t have to prey upon needy foreign nationals to staff your businesses.
You can champion Senator Salazar all you want, but there are plenty of Coloradans who realize that he would not be so enthusiastic about this immigration plan if those 12 million illegal immigrants were say…..Chinese or Russian..
The bottom line is that your group and every other industry that advocates the use of cheap labor relies upon the consumer and taxpayer to subsidize the wages and benefits of those employees. The Employers for Immigration Reform have a lot of nerve writing to a newspaper and acting as if you are some law abiding industry that is attempting to do things the right way. You have been the amongst the worst violators of illegal employment and now you want to convince Coloradans that we should support the new immigration plan?
Anybody that is knowledgeable about the practices of the restaurant and hotel industry knows what you are really asking everyone to support.. modern day slavery.

Posted by I'm not fooled on June 22, 2007 08:01 AM