Foreign workers keep show running on midway
Carnival jobs taken by non-citizens under the H2B visa program
“And go!” Claire Condon, 23, of Cape Town, South Africa, shouted into her microphone.
Her customers, two girls at the Houston rodeo’s Big Water game, fired watergun blasts, propelling their respective markers upward as they hit the targets.
The buzzer rang. Condon handed the 9-year-old winner a plush unicorn half as large as she was.
Why, you might wonder, is a South African working at the Houston rodeo’s midway?
“The American workforce is not interested in this kind of work,” said Chris Lopez, vice president of carnival provider Ray Cammack Shows. “We couldn’t do it without these folks.”
Condon is one of the 300 foreign workers RCS employs to run midways for fairs across the U.S. The crew includes a few U.S.born workers, but they are significantly outnumbered.
For 18 years, RCS has relied on the H2B visa program for nonagricultural temporary workers. Visa holders from countries including Mexico, Costa Rica, Australia and Russia handle everything from building and running rides to cooking and selling food.
To get those visas, employers must satisfy the U.S. Department of Labor that the work can’t be filled by U.S. workers, and that foreign workers won’t have adverse effects on the wages and working conditions of their U.S.born counterparts.
As required by those rules, Lopez pays to advertise carnival jobs in the U.S., and he keeps phone logs and certified receipts for email and letters that show he’s reached out to local communities and followed through with all work inquiries from U.S. citizens.
But the responses he gets from U.S. citizens aren’t enough, he says. Too many people shun nine months of work requiring heavy lifting, living in mobile homes and frequent travel.
Lopez’s company is hardly alone. A 2013 study by the nonprofit ImmigrationWorks USA found that as more Americanborn workers attain higher levels of education, more foreign workers are needed to perform lessskilled labor.
There’s stiff competition for the 66,000 H2B visas available each year. (The visa is distinct from its H2A counterpart that is meant for seasonal agricultural work and has stricter requirements for employers.) The last of the visas available for fiscal year 2017 were awarded this month, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
From fiscal year 2012 to 2015, Texas had the highest number of H2B jobs certified by the Department of Labor. The largest number of those was for landscaping.
Industries such as outdoor entertainment account for 10 percent of total H2B visas issued to U.S. employers each year.