Lack of Seasonal Worker Visas Straps Chesapeake Seafood Industry
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [WVFT] by Pamela D'Angelo - June 1, 2017
The Chesapeake Bay's crab, oyster and bait industry has been losing its American workforce since the late 1980s, as the old hands retire and younger workers seek better paying jobs.
The packing houses turned to foreign, seasonal workers to fill the gaps, but the visa program Congress established for that, dubbed H2B, quickly reaches the 66,000 worker cap. And that’s forcing some seafood processing plants to shut down.
For example, the only sound you hear at Cowart Seafood Company's bait fish packing facility in the Northern Neck of Virginia these days is the incessant buzz of overhead lights...
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