With fewer foreign laborers available, St. Louis needs the grass cut

CREVE COEUR, Mo. – There aren't enough people to cut the grass in Creve Coeur.

On some city-owned properties, such as the corner of Ladue and Mosley roads, the weeds are sprouting and spreading, and the bushes haven't been trimmed.

What's happening on those slivers of public land in an affluent suburb of St. Louis far from the border can be traced to a larger debate on national immigration policies.

It's a small snapshot of the big shortage of seasonal workers, mostly from Mexico, relied upon by local landscaping companies to provide labor during busy summer months.

The U.S. government issues 66,000 H-2B visas annually to allow foreign workers to be in the country temporarily for seasonal nonfarm labor. Most positions in the St. Louis area pay $13.81 an hour.

Last year, 15,000 additional visas were allowed. And the federal spending bill approved in March authorized adding more, although that hasn't happened.

More visas should be allowed, and delays in getting workers here are crippling local businesses, said Pete Schepis, director of operations for the Greenwood Group landscaping company based in Wentzville.

"We can't get people to come to work. We try to hire people. They come for a week or two weeks, we've had people come for a day," Schepis said. "The government thinks there are people out there who want to do these jobs, and that's just not the case."

The same is true at Munie Greencare Professionals. It has offices in nine states, and applied for 160 workers through the visa program. But it got only 63, said Erin Barr, director of human resources operations.

Munie crews are working six days a week to keep up with demand.

And there are delays in getting workers here. The five Mexican workers employed by downtown-based C&C Seamless Guttering Inc. arrived in mid-April, a couple of weeks later than last year due to delays, said David Casteel, the company's president. They're the same five he hired the previous year — he said such continuity is vital in his business, which also has difficulty hiring U.S. workers.

"It's really important that we get the same guys back who have been trained and established relationships with us and our customers," said Casteel.

And the labor shortage can be seen in less consequential ways in places such as Creve Coeur, which has outsourced the bulk of its mowing for about a decade.