Once again, a Bush "compassionate conservative" initiative turns out to benefit businesses more than the ostensible subjects of the initiative.
Business Cheers Bush's Plan to Hire Immigrants More Easily, but Labor Is Wary
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: January 12, 2004
Every year Frank Romano has trouble hiring enough workers to fill the vacancies at his nursing home chain in Massachusetts, from $60,000-a-year nurses to $8-an-hour kitchen and laundry workers.
Not only are there not enough American-trained nurses available, said Mr. Romano, who hires 300 new workers a year, but hardly any Americans are willing to take the lowly, sweaty jobs in a nursing home's kitchen or laundry.
Mr. Romano has long savored one solution for such hiring woes: the federal government should make it easier to bring in workers from abroad.
Not surprisingly, he joined executives in many industries, including hotels, restaurants, hospitals, construction and agriculture, to applaud President Bush's new proposals to revamp immigration policy and to make it easier to hire foreign workers.
"Americans just don't want to take a lower-paying, entry-level job," said Mr. Romano, founder and owner of the Essex Group, a chain of 15 nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, based in Rowley, Mass. "They will not apply for it. Last year, I had to spend close to $300,000 on help-wanted ads because it was such a struggle to find people to do the jobs we need done."
Mr. Bush's proposals would give renewable three-year visas to illegal immigrants already working in the United States as well as to foreign applicants who are newly hired for jobs here. But many unions and immigrant advocacy groups have denounced the plan, saying it would create a permanent, exploitable second-tier of workers who would never have the opportunity for permanent residency and full citizenship.
Mr. Bush's plan is an outline, and Congress is expected to add specifics when it takes up new immigration legislation. Under the plan, businesses would have to show that no Americans want the jobs available before they bring in temporary workers from abroad. Business wants that test to be minimal, with many embracing a White House proposal that businesses be allowed to hire foreigners if no Americans respond to job postings on Web sites.
