IAAPA Submits Comment on H-2B Wage Rule

Earlier this week IAAPA, through the H-2B Workforce Coalition, submitted a letter to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) on an H-2B rulemaking. The letter can be viewed in the GR Archive section of the IAAPA website.

The rulemaking concerned the implementation of a recent controversial rule on wage methodology for H-2B workers. In its letter, the Coalition requested that DOL rescind the rule as a means of complying with President Obama’s Jan. 18 presidential memorandum that expressed the administration’s commitment to eliminating excessive and unjustified regulatory burdens on small businesses.

As members of the attractions industry know, during busy seasons companies must supplement their full-time staff with temporary seasonal workers. Unfortunately, even in today’s tough economic climate there are sometimes not enough local workers available to fill all the temporary seasonal positions. As a result, the attractions industry sometimes uses the H-2B program to find seasonal workers.


Now that the comment period has ended, the Administrative Procedure Act dictates that the Department of Labor will consider the comments it received, and produce a final rule that takes those comments into account. However, for political reasons, it is highly unlikely the DOL will heed our suggestion and rescind the rule.