A Working-Class American who will be harmed by rule changes! - hardman, chuck

### ### The laws of supply and demand are pretty simple---increase the labor supply of visa workers and the demand for American labor will go down as will wages for Americans who engage in similar jobs or the same ones. Here in Jackson, Wyoming, we have hundreds of Americans doing the same jobs visa workers do. Exact same jobs. This rule change will hurt American workers in our community. ### ### In one of the most expensive places to live in the United States we have employers offering up horrible wages that never keep pace with inflation nor meet the needs of our working-class American citizens. The business community has not and will not compete for American labor in the American marketplace as long as they can run off and hire a visa worker with little if any oversight. The new rules will exacerbate the problem. We are being overrun with illegal immigrants, J-1 and H-2B visa workers---by the thousands in our small town. ### ### The entire petition for alien labor should be an open, public, transparent process with plenty of oversight to ensure American workers are not further harmed. Currently, the employers and their applications for visa workers are all kept secret and hidden from public review. Now the Department of Labor proposes changes to the process to reduce oversight even further. This is a threat to the health and welfare of America's working class and in a time of economic distress no less. ### ### The federal government doesn't ensure my economic success nor my access to high paying jobs. It should not ensure low-cost labor to the business community, nor should it ensure the success of private enterprise by providing it with alien labor when that business knowingly enters a marketplace where labor and housing is scarce and refuses to make any serious effort to attract Americans to their positions. And that housing if often scooped up by immigration lawyers who help the business community secure visa workers thus denying housing opportunities for Americans and thus American workers for our area jobs. ### ### When 2000 visa workers descend upon Jackson every summer, the market for housing dries up for Americans. The business community is perpetuating a shortage of American workers so as to secure cheap immigrant labor and the new rules will make that process even easier and the problems even deeper. ### ### Currently, the federal regulations seem to get little enforcement—be it with legal alien workers or illegal ones. I rarely see employers advertise the wages of open positions as required of employers seeking alien labor. Where's the oversight? The public can't even see tear sheets from newspaper ads summited with petitions for alien labor. Additionally, area employers, with the assistance of local workforce agencies, seem to be assigning incorrect classifications to positions—assigned to keep wages low instead of ensuring a “fair” one as required by prevailing wage laws. Of course, “prevailing wages” are often nothing more than “immigrant wages” since these are wages immigrants have accepted and kept depressed. Those are just some of my concerns which will be even harder to monitor and address under the new rules. ### ### Plenty of Americans would love to live in Jackson, Wyoming, next to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park. If the business community can't find American labor perhaps it's because they aren't addressing the true needs of employees like supporting a local housing market for working-class Americans, providing adequate compensation to their employees, and passing along the true cost of their goods and services to their customers instead of subsidizing those costs with immigrant labor. ### ### The new rules won't address the “labor shortage” problems, they will only perpetuate them and make them worse. This is an attack on American labor. Make oversight stronger not weaker. The real shortage is with employers who are prepared to and want to compete for American labor. ### ### Do not allow these changes to become law. Stop the DEPARTMENT OF LABOR and Congress from aiding immigrants and their employers at the expense of America's working class. ### ### Employment and Training Administration 20 CFR Parts 655 and 656 RIN 1205–AB54 Labor Certification Process and Enforcement for Temporary Employment in Occupations Other Than Agriculture or Registered Nursing in the United States (H–2B Workers), and Other Technical Changes