[Sweet Land]

The Meadowmere Resort in Ogunquit can't fill ten of their positions.

They could if they offered more money.

[dangus]

It is a moral sin in the Catholic Church to import labor for the purposes of keeping wages low.

[mewzilla]

Huh? Talk about outsourcing. I thought ME had a fairly high statewide unemployment rate. Now the Dems want to import cheap foreign labor? Hypocritical much?

[dangus]

>>The tourism industry hopes congress raises the cap on visas<<

Next time you hear people talking about raising the number of Visas for highly-educated foreigners to fill jobs, you know what they are talking about. These jobs simply need more brilliant minds than our universities are capable of turning out!

[Age of Reason]

Looks like there are plenty of people in Maine who could use the work, and they are a lot closer to those jobs than people in Mexico and Central and South America are:

http://www.pressherald.com/news/children/031214castmain.shtml?com_sent=1

[doug9732]

The "backup plan" is raise wages.
Republican employers are addicted to cheap foreign labor. They should plan to raise wages until they can attract Americans to take the jobs.

[SheLion]

I don't want to hear it. I hope Maine Tourism chokes this year. The way the government is treating everyone, we are telling people to go to NH and enjoy themselves. Let the Guv scratch his own butt and wonder what's going on. As if he didn't know! humph!

[Madame Dufarge]

Well, what a wonderful opportunity for the "undocumented" to blend into the crowd - no questions asked.

Maine is one signature away from becoming the first Illegal Alien Sanctuary State in America. Immigration lawyers supporting illegal aliens are pushing Governor Baldacci to sign an executive order that will stop state agencies from questioning a person's immigration status.

[Final Authority]

First response said if they offered more money there would be no problem. I believe this is only part of the problem. The main issue is wages coupled with a captive labor pool. The ski industry has this figured out by recruiting college aged folks from South Africa to work the winter. It works for a resort if they can find cheap housing, have ready transportation, and they can speak English. They are at work because the van comes to get them and they agree to a set duration of service so the resort is set for the season. One can live with Mexican housekeepers and dishwashers but for most other service personnel one should speak English, have a sense of the class of the guests and be clean and attractive. The Balsams in NH's mountains where they charge more than $200 a day per guest would not hire non English speakers to manage the pool or golf courses but might consider others to wash dishes, I think. When I've been a guest only white people of European decent were visible.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

The Meadowmere Resort in Ogunquit can't fill ten of their positions. If they don't have enough chambermaids, the resort might have to close a section of the hotel this summer.

This is America...they don't know how to hire illegals like everyone else?