What is the H2B Temporary Work Visa Program?

The program provides a legal path for guest workers to come and work in an industry that has a seasonal, peak needs, or an onetime  occurrence for additional labor in a specific graphical area.  It is similar to the H2A program, which is designed to being in temporary labor to harvest farm crops.  Industries that are now using the H2B program include fishing, crabbing, crabmeat processing, and the hospitality industry.  These varying industries have suffer local labor shortages when their businesses needs are at peak season and the local labor market does not have sufficient people power to fill the needs.
Forestry is the same way, and was the first industry to use the program.  A company has to file an application with the U.S.DOL defining the labor need, how many people, what are the physical requirements of the job, where the job is located etc.  Then the U.S. DOL will tell the company that they must test the labor market in order to see if there are enough local Americans willing to perform the job, for the prevailing wage of that industry in a given location.

Once this is completed the DOL will certify the net number of positions that are not filled by the labor search and this approved net number is then sent to the Dept of Homeland Security who actually process the visa approval.  The visas are issued at American Consulates in the county from which the company seeks to sponsor the labor from. 
What makes the forest industry different and difficult to maintain adequate labor is the same as it is for farmers.  The work is generally based on production, (like a factory) it is outside in the heat or cold of winter, and the job sites change from town to town, state to state over a season.  An American can’t go home at night and few people are willing to sweat and work at an aerobic pace all day.

Smokers generally can’t handle the heat and the aerobic nature of the work, people who are over weight can run the risk of a heart attacked.

In our modern sedentary society about the only group of Americans who are accustom to these conditions are athletics, or former military personal.  It has been a long term goal of Renewable’s to tap into service personal leaving the military to seek forest conservation workers from this aspect of our society as in our history we found many Veterans from the Vietnam war enjoyed planting trees and being in the forest reconstructing the environment.  Most of our full-time staff are vets.

While planting a tree, or running a chainsaw sounds simple, it is repetitive in nature and requires a person be able to maintain focus and work on a team at the pace of the team to complete the work timely and profitability.  Tree planting for example, we require that a person be able to plant 1,500 seedlings per day on the average site.  That is 3 trees per minute.  The industry standard has been 2,000 per person per day for decades but the quality of work tends to decline and only our pro experienced planters can plant 2,000 seedlings in a day.  On our last large contract our piece rate was 7 cents per tree so those who made this production earned $140 per day and we had many who did this.

Chainsaw work is the same slashdown of cull trees and or removal of midstory repressed trees generally runs at 2 trees per minute as a minimum production rate.  Pre-commercial thinning of young saplings that are thick can be cut with an overgrown weed-eater and a brushcutter operator can cut thousands of saplings in a day if he or she stays at it.
Contrary to what most city folks think, snakes are not hanging from the tree-tops waiting for you to come along.  To become a Forest Conservation Worker one must be savvy and able to walk with confidence in the forest, or swamps, or mountainsides to be productive.  This is why we like to combine Americans with experienced Forest Conservation Workers who can truly lead a new worker into the forest.  While the task may be repetitive in nature, the flow is like water in a mountain stream.     

Fixing the H2B visa program (1MB PDF)