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The Straight Story

(48,121 posts)
Thu Mar 28, 2013, 03:13 PM Mar 2013

Judge Vacates Flawed Immigrant Wage Rule

Judge Vacates Flawed Immigrant Wage Rule

(CN) - Finding that the Labor Department's 2008 Wage Rule "directly contradicts" the Immigration and Nationality Act, a federal judge gave farmworker groups a permanent injunction.

In 1952, the Immigration and Nationality Act created the H-2B visa program, which allows employers to bring foreign workers to the U.S. to perform temporary, unskilled, nonagricultural work. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) administer the program.

Prior to filing an H-2B petition with the DHS, an employer must apply for a temporary labor certification from Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, confirming that no "qualified" U.S. workers are available to perform the position sought at its "prevailing wage."

Over the past three decades, the DOL has periodically changed its method for calculating prevailing wages, without notice and comment, and often without explanation. Most recently, it adopted the 2008 Wage Rule, which defines the prevailing wage as "the arithmetic mean ... of the wages of workers similarly employed at the skill level in the area of intended employment."

http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/03/27/56108.htm

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