U.S. seafood labor trends unsustainable

In an election year, especially this election year, you get accustomed to lots of talk about the economy and jobs. In the U.S. seafood industry, the discussion about labor isn’t about a lack of jobs openings; in fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Tasks like picking crabmeat, shucking oysters and cutting fish fillets hold little appeal to many Americans, so the work gets done by visiting workers from neighboring countries like Mexico, as I wrote about in the SeaFood Business Top Story for the January issue, There’s Work to Do

Without the H-2B visiting-worker program, the Chesapeake Bay and Louisiana crab processing industries, for example, would struggle to exist, much less compete. But while the program is a godsend for many processors, it’s not exactly a beacon of reliability. 

I spoke with Gary Bauer, owner of Pontchartrain Blue Crabs in Slidell, La., who has participated in the H-2B program for the past 11 years. Without the program, he can’t hire the 80 or so workers he brought in from Mexico to fill the past season’s duties, and locals don’t want the jobs he has to offer. But his and other businesses like his operate on a virtually year-to-year basis, never knowing what the future has in store.  

Among other requirements, Bauer says processors must guarantee 75 percent of the workers’ seasonal contract, even if a hurricane or another natural disaster wipes out production. Companies must apply for visa workers about four months in advance, and some simply hope that they’ll have access to a pool of laborers that cannot exceed 66,000 annually, a total that is tapped into by multiple industries like landscaping, lodging and forestry. 

The H-2B program requirements include what seems like a farcical exercise (my words, not Bauer’s) of buying an ad and posting the job openings in a local newspaper. In more than a decade, Bauer has not hired a single worker through such an ad, leading him to ask an obvious question: “How does anybody make a business plan if you depend on H-2B labor?” 

Fortunately, the visiting worker program has at least one friend in a high place. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) has come to the rescue time and time again to support her state’s crab industry. But you wonder how many eleventh-hour solutions she has left up her sleeve. Her office informed me that the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee passed Mikulski’s amendment to delay the implementation of an H-2B prevailing wage increase for a year, until 1 October 2012. What happens then? 

Simply put, if U.S. seafood processors have to pay 30 to 50 percent more in visiting-worker wages, they’ll go out of business. It’s simple math, according to Bauer. 

“Whatever the magic number is, USD 11, USD 12, or USD 20 an hour, the other half of the equation is the American consumer affording that product,” he said. “It’d make it out of reach.” 

There are many other seafood-labor issues worth watching as well. As the world’s population continues to grow, along with global demand for seafood, the opportunity to grow the industry is there. But current seafood employment trends like a dependence on seasonal jobs and visiting workers and an aging workforce on the seas and on the management level (as is the case in Alaska) just aren’t sustainable.  

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