Tag Archives: Guest Worker Program

by | April 26, 2012 · 6:08 am

Hospitality Industry Employment Risks: Federal Lawsuit Alleges Miami Employment Agency Forced Thrity "H-2B Status" Guest Workers To Do Unsanctioned Work As Housekeepers At Florida Hotels

According to the lawsuit, thirty guest workers were brought to Miami by Villanueva, purportedly to work at the W South Beach as housekeepers for $8.28 an hour.

“…(plaintiff) had many of the workers do unsanctioned work for less than minimum wage. He charged the workers “security deposits” ranging from 50,000 to 100,000 Filipino pesos– or $1,200 to $2,350– which they would lose if they quit those jobs. He crowded the workers in housing Florida and New Jersey, “on floors, air mattresses, and in hallways”, according to the suit, and in “beds infested with bedbugs.”

According to a new federal lawsuit, the Filipino worker who changed your sheets at W South Beach Hotel, or served you lunch at posh restaurants and country clubs, may have essentially been an indentured servant. Seventeen Filipino immigrants allege that a ring of Miami-based employment agencies charged them outrageous “security deposits,” forced them to work for less than minimum wage and no overtime, and stashed them in overcrowded housing.

In a statement to Riptide, the hotel’s general manager George Cozonis acknowledged that the W had used Villanueva’s workers in the past: “W South Beach does not currently work with Jose Villanueva’s agency, Lincoln Road Employment Advisory Services, to provide staffing to the hotel or any of its affiliated operators. LREAS was used briefly during the opening period of the hotel, but all ties were severed more than 19 months ago.”

Employers such as the W, The Admiral’s Club country club in Jupiter, and the Kiawah Island Club in South Carolina arranged with Villanueva for the workers to immigrate under H-2B status from 2006 to 2009.

For more:  http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2012/04/miami_employment_agencies_supp.php

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by | December 10, 2010 · 5:51 am

Hotel Industry Employee Issues: Report Finds “Fraud And Misuse” Of H-2B Guest Worker Program By Hotel Management And Owners

The H-2B program for unskilled non-agricultural migrant workers is one of the nation’s many alien worker programs, and one that, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report, is subject to extensive fraud and abuse.

The H-2B program is both smaller than the H-1B program, for high tech workers, and subject to considerably less attention. In terms of visa issuances, one measure of the size of these programs, there were 44,847 H-2B visas issued in FY 2009, compared to 110,367 H-1B visas. These numbers are from the annual Report of the Visa Office at the State Department.

Since the H-1B program displaces American workers with college degrees, and depresses wages where the high-tech workers are concentrated, it secures a lot more public attention that the H-2B program, which operates at the other end of the labor market, where employers hire landscapers, forest workers, waiters, and other less-skilled workers.

GAO’s report on the troubles with the program are based on a solid foundation; the agency’s auditors found ten closed criminal and civil cases in which courts had decided that employers had misused the program and abused their alien workers. The highlights of these cases, as quoted in the report, are as follows:

Hotel owners forced H-2B workers to work in substandard conditions, confiscated workers’ passports, and threatened workers that they would be sent home in a ‘box’ if they disobeyed orders . . .

Workers from India paid at least $20,000 for H-2B visas to enter the U.S. but were never employed by the construction company . . .

Conspirators fraudulently obtained H-2B certifications from Labor for over 3,800 individuals, leased workers to undisclosed businesses not listed on the visa petitions, [and] defrauded the government of $7.4 million in payroll taxes . . .

The nation would do just fine without any H-2B program at all; the only “cost” would be that some marginal employers would have to increase their wages a bit to attract workers to their jobs.

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