We’re in the middle of Pollinator Week 2016, an international celebration of the valuable ecosystem services provided by bees, birds, butterflies, bats and beetles. To support Pollinator Week efforts, ALCC has created several web pages of information for both landscape professionals and consumers to learn more about creating a healthy landscape for insects and animals that pollinate our plants.

(WASHINGTON, DC) -- The H-2B Workforce Coalition applauded the work of the Senate Labor Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee, which included in its mark-up of its yearly spending bill important provisions that will help keep American small businesses open and sustain American jobs.

The Senate Appropriations Committee considered the legislation last week, and is hoped to reach the floor sometime this summer.

Update from the H-2B Workforce Coalition on H-2B provisions in recent bills.

Senate Appropriations Bills

Last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed its version of the Department of Labor Appropriations bill. It includes the following helpful H-2B provisions:

• Authorizes DOL to transfer up to $20M of H-1B fee funding to augment staffing for H-2B and H-2A temporary labor certification processing to avoid processing delays.
• Continues the H-2B regulatory relief provisions that were enacted last year to allow the use of wage surveys, prohibit DOL from enforcing the regulations corresponding employment and ¾ guarantee provisions and limiting DOL audit authority.

The bill also includes the following non-binding report language:

If your landscape company does business in Boulder County, we want to make you aware of an ordinance update that could impact your business. The proposed revised ordinance would require landscape companies to obtain a hauler’s license as well as comply with annual reporting requirements.

The Boulder County Commissioners will soon be reviewing an update to the Boulder County Hauler Ordinance (http://www.bouldercounty.org/env/trash/pages/haulerordinance.aspx). The changes would require any “person or company in the business of collecting, transporting or disposing of Discarded Materials for another, for a fee, or for no fee” to obtain an annual hauler license from the county.

The recent Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) final rule regarding overtime has more implications for businesses than payroll.  The rule pertaining to white collar workers (including administrative personnel, outside sales, managers), which the Department of Labor released last month, has the potential to greatly impact your employees’ morale. Team members may be confused by changes in their compensation and may not understand these changes are the result of government regulation.

The newest generation of students involved in landscape studies, according to Pickens Technical College administrators, are entering the industry prepared with skills and the desire to start careers working for local companies. Veronika Tucker is one example. 

Englewood-based Designs By Sundown received The ELITE Award for their maintenance work on the grounds of Chautauqua Park, an historic site in Boulder which is open 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. Site maintenance involves several sustainable landscape practices consistent with Colorado Chautauqua Association’s (CCA) mission to “preserve, perpetuate and improve the site and spirit of this Chautauqua.” Their goal is to become the most environmentally sustainable National Historic Landmark in the nation, and Designs By Sundown is an enthusiastic partner in this effort.

Michael Moore (Diggable Designs Landscape Construction, Lakewood) received the 2016 Outlook Emerging Leader Award from ALCC. The Colorado native grew up in Centennial and graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in landscape horticulture. After receiving his degree, he spent some time in California before returning to Colorado to establish Diggable Designs with his wife Jessica, a designer, and friend Dylan Hicks as operations manager.

OSHA has been busy this spring, issuing a number of final rules that employers must work to implement. One such rule relates to injury reporting.

On May 11, 2016, the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) issued a “Final Rule to Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses.” The new rule, which takes effect August 10, 2016, is an effort to update data collection on injuries. Employers will be required to submit records electronically. Collected injury and illness data will be made available online to the public on OSHA’s website (after any personally identifiable information is removed).

The following H-2B action request was issued by the H-2B Workforce Coalition:

Your help is urgently needed to counter negative attacks on the H-2B program. There will be a significant amount of activity in Congress this week related to the H-2B program and we need your help.