Griping about DOL's Prevailing Wage system

Why do Governments have a wonderful capacity of taking something completely good and turning it into a nightmare? Does the very definition of democracy mean "you cannot get anything done quickly when dealing with the Government?"

The DOL launched its new Prevailing Wage System on January 01, 2010. Previous to that the State Workforce Agencies (SWA) determined the Prevailing Wage for their state. A Prevailing Wage Determination (PWD) is required to determine what the wage rate should be for a job. Previously the SWAs were widely different and caused a lot of problems. So DOL wanted to centralize the process. Commendable indeed, but they introduced this whole thing with no alpha or beta testing whatsoever.

The DOL created a form, which has to be filled in by hand or typing and then snail mailed to the DOL. DOL then types it into their system. A form that we could submit electronically would have been so much easier and traceable, (like PERM), but DOL wont have that. We send ours by certified mail, and then we don't hear from one or two of them at all. They get lost in the mail. We have certified receipts to prove they reached DOL's doors, but no way to follow up.

The officers who determines the are untrained. They sometimes ask stupid questions. Some get returned if we use the major as "general" even if this is for a third preference skilled worker job. The officers do NOT have basic training. I can understand some confusion initially, but we have crossed the six month mark. And the determinations vary so widely from one adjudicator to the other, that they outdo the variance between the different SWAs. So much for a centralized system.

The PWD takes forever to get done and come back, and then it is sometimes valid for barely two months. After that the employer has to advertise for the job, wait a month and then file. And the Prevailing Wage has to be valid at the time of filing. Since advertisements are valid for 6 months only, and there is no knowing when we will get the prevailing wage from DOL, it is not advisable for employers to start advertising without the prevailing wage determination.

There are only so many combination that the PWD form can have. The simple solution would be to mechanize the whole system and have a computer determine the prevailing wage. It would make far less mistakes than humans and would be a lot cheaper. But then, that is not how the system works.


For more information contact Houston Immigration Lawyer or Houston Immigration Attorney, Annie Banerjee

If only our Government had common sense

In the Matter of UMG Logistics today, Balca denied the case because they felt that knowledge of Spanish is not necessary for a truck driver who will deliver goods exclusively to a small community in Mexico. Balca said that the employer merely asserted that Spanish is required without giving evidence for it. Come on Balca and DOl, we all live in the US. We have all visited Mexico. Ok, maybe you have only visited Cancun, but surely you know a Mexican person whose English is not quite great. It does not take a genius to realize that you cannot do business in interior of Mexico without knowing Spanish.

Similarly, I was given a Request for Evidence (RFE) in a National Interest Waiver Case, asking me to prove that breast cancer research is National in scope and not local. We had to actually give National Statistics to prove that breast cancer is National.

But then, we never hired Federal workers for their ability to think and rationalize.

Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details

Is DOL becoming Socialist?

The DOL introduced a new Prevailing Wage system which will centralize everything. Previously each State's Workforce Agency gave those Prevailing Wage. Obviously there were discrepancies in how each SWA operated causing problems with DOL filings.

However, DOL introduced this new system of centralized Prevailing Wage determination with no computerized system of filing. We have to mail in our request to the DOL. Then the DOL will take forever to come up with a Prevailing Wage. The DOL has advised employers to file the Prevailing Wage 60 days prior to advertising for a PERM, since the ads expire in 6 months. This is strange because the DOL went computerized much earlier than the CIS did. Why could they not have a faster computerized process BEFORE centralizing the whole process? Was this then intentional?

This will slow down businesses, and filing of immigration. Similarly in July of 2009 the DOL significantly slowed down the LCA filings for H-1Bs. Which makes me wonder if DOL is slowing down things as a protectionist measure which caters to socialism? Is this the death of free enterprise, and business at the speed of 21 Century? It was another Democratic President and Congress that passed the AC 21 to speed the process up about a decade ago.

Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details

When the Government Tries to fix things

There is only one fixed law of Governments: When Government tries to fix things it ALWAYS fails. It will therefore fail in the whole bail out mess, no matter who is the President.

So last Friday DOL tried to fix its computer system, which was working OK, it messed things up. Apparently DOL knows about this problem and is trying to fix things. Among the problems we noticed:

1. Sponsorship questions are taking longer to generate
2. The link which employer click on that E mail to verify sponsorship is NOT working
3. When printing the ETA 9089, the job experience data field is empty, although you can view the data. This problem seems to have been fixed
4. Filed cases are getting a C designation (for Chicago) even though all PERM cases are handled by Atlanta and should get a A designation.

Hopefully DOL will not deny cases for failure of employers to reply to the sponsorship e mails, because the glitch is in their computers.

But then, it is the Government at work, so who knows.

See why they need to certify more computer professionals.

On another note: If the Employer has has submitted the registration application and has not heard anything from the DOL for weeks, they should write to:

BE-RFI.Atlanta@dol.gov




Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details