American Hort Successful H-2B “Day Of Action” AmericanHort teamed up with the National Association of Landscape Professionals, the Seasonal Employment Alliance, and the H-2B Workforce Coalition to host a “day of action” on November 13. Over 150 H-2B users from across the Craig J. country, most from the landscape Regelbrugge industry, came to Washington, DC to advocate for H-2B cap relief to be included in any final spending bill passed by Congress. We are grateful for all of our members who came to the Nation’s Capital for the November 13 event. AmericanHort and state partner associations sent a grassroots appeal as well, which led to several hundred additional emails and calls to Congressional offices as well. If you have not yet communicated your support to Congress for H-2B cap relief, please act now. During Hill meetings and via grassroots messages, our members asked that their elected officials sign onto a letter to Congressional leaders calling for cap relief
to be included in a final spending bill. Senators King (I-ME) and Rounds (R-SD) and Reps. Bergman (R-MI) and Keating (D-MA) are leading these letters. We will share the final letters shortly, but our preliminary intelligence shows that our Hill outreached resulted in a large bipartisan group of lawmakers signing onto these letters, with 30 signatories in the Senate and 100 in the House. As with past years, “must do” appropriations bills offer the best opportunity to pass temporary H-2B cap relief, while we work toward a permanent solution to the H-2B labor crisis. House and Senate leaders have agreed to a temporary spending bill to fund the federal government through December 20 while lawmakers work to reach an agreement on a host of fiscal 2020 spending bills. The House and Senate are expected to vote on the measure the week of November 18. We will keep you updated on the status of efforts to pass FY 2020 cap relief quickly. We are also continuing to work to negotiate a permanent H-2B relief bill. ❦ Craig Regelbrugge
DOL Releases Final H-2B Recruitment Rule On November 15, The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released a final rule that rescinds the H-2B requirement to advertise in print newspapers and instead requires that all jobs be posted on SeasonalJobs.dol.gov, which will be an expanded version of the existing DOL job registry. The new rule takes effect on December 16. Employers with existing notices of acceptance from DOL will need to follow the instructions in the letter related to print advertising. Starting December 16, DOL will remove this broad-based print newspaper requirement in lieu of advertising on the electronic job registry. However, in certain circumstances DOL
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may still require print advertisements if it believes that newspaper advertising is more effective in a specific geographic location. Employers should follow the advertising instructions in their notices of acceptance from DOL. ❦ Laurie-Ann Flanagan Laurie-Ann Flanagan is Executive Vice President at DC Legislative and Regulatory Services, Inc. (DCLRS) with over 20 years of experience in the federal legislative and regulatory process. Laurie and DCLRS work closely with AmericanHort on a variety of issues including energy, labor and immigration, pesticides and fertilizers, small business, and water policy. Laurie chairs the H-2B Workforce Coalition on behalf of AmericanHort and NALP.
