Foreign workers are crucial to Michael Voisin’s family-owned oyster business in Houma, but Voisin says he’d rather not have to pay them an extra 50 percent.
He and other Gulf Coast employers are worried about a federal rule set to take effect 1 January that will require a wage increase for foreign workers handling seasonal jobs in seafood processing, landscaping, forestry and other industries under the H-2B visa program.
The rule is designed to make sure such workers earn the ?“prevailing wage.”
“It could mean that we do not bring in labor, which means we produce less,” said Voisin, president of Motivatit Seafoods. “Some smaller companies may not make it through.”
Members of Congress from the Gulf Coast hope to block the Department of Labor rule. Lawmakers plan to vote next week on a spending bill that includes an amendment to do that.
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