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List Posting and Replies
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tra-@asje.org
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Feb 16, 2007 14:17 PST
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Apologies list recipients for the recent non-list messages. I've changed the
list settings so replies will go to the author of the message, not the entire
list. If you want to send a reply to the entire list, send it to ncr-@topica.com.
Thanks for your interest and participation in this list. Feel free to post
anything relevant to natural resources restoration and/or a restoration economy.
Cheers,
Tracy
PS- This is my ASJE email address: tra-@asje.org. To contact me about
anything else, please use tra-@forevergreenforestry.com. I am phasing out
tra-@sohum.net.
At 01:13 PM 2/12/2007, Maggy & Charlie Herbelin wrote:
HI,
I think you meant to send this to Tracy Kattleman. I don't have a current
email address for her. But you could try tra-@sohum.com
sorry I can't help more.
Peace, Maggy Herbelin
At 07:34 PM 2/10/2007, you wrote:
Hi Tracy
We've got one student , Amanda Lord, who would like to work with ASJE for her
service learning this semester. Again , its about 6 hours a week starting in
March.
We'll need to get together to discuss some of the objectives / golas of her
placement, and fill out some HSU paperwork for admin purposes.
Hopefully we can do this in the next week or two and get things rolling. Let
me know your availability .
Also, if you have the time, I'm teaching forest and culture, and it would be
great if you were able to talk to my students about forest restoration,
fire councils, and some of your experiences as a registered forester.
interested?
t
Testimony tells of forest full of abuses
By Diane Dietz
/The Register-Guard
/Published: Thursday, February 1, 2007
Two dozen Hispanic forestry workers told high-ranking Bush administration
officials about wrongs they suffered at the hands of unscrupulous contractors
on federal forests in Oregon.
The tree planters, stand thinners and slash burners said they're driven in
cramped vans three or four hours to work sites - where they work three hours -
then return home, and they're only paid for their time on the forest floor.
"We go home and the bills are waiting for us. How are we going to pay them?"
said Marcos, a Medford worker who would not give his full name because he
feared retaliation from the contractors he works for.
The job is dangerous and injuries frequent, the workers told Agriculture
Department Undersecretary Mark Rey and Labor Department Deputy Administrator
Alex Passantino, who appeared at the forum held in a University of Oregon
building near Autzen Stadium.
Workers are cut by chain saws, whipped by branches and hit by falling trees.
And when they're hurt, the unscrupulous foreman turns his back, the workers said.
"They don't want to take you in for treatment," said Medford worker Martin
Carrera. "They want to wrap you up with a rag and hope you get better."
The workers say they are taken from job to job, sometimes 20 or 30 hours from
home. The contractor puts them up with six or seven men to a hotel room. They
must cook their own food outdoors, no matter the weather.
They work eight, 10 or 12 hours a day, get 10 minutes for lunch and no breaks.
When they are thirsty, they must stoop and drink from forest streams.
"They don't treat us like people. They treat us like slaves," said a woman who
identified herself as Francisca, who testified for her husband, who was
traveling to a job.
Hugo Peregrino, a manager with Mount Saint Helens Reforestation, traveled from
Washington to testify.
"Everything they have said is true," he told the officials. "We have been
suffering for 20 years and it will continue to happen if you don't do something."
Rey and Passantino told the crowd of 80 contractors, forest workers, academics
and government officials that the Forest Service and the Department of Labor
spent 2006 working on the problem - and the agencies will use information
gathered at the forum to improve working conditions in the coming season.
"It's clear there's a lot more that needs to be done," Rey said.
Over the past year, the Forest Service reviewed all 150 active reforestation
contracts. The Department of Labor conducted two dozen site inspections and
expects to do a similar number this year.
The inspections yielded four cases where contractors were shorting the pay of
their workers, said Ron Hooper, the Forest Service director of acquisitions
management. Two were in Idaho, one was in Utah and the fourth was in New
Mexico, he said. The agency ordered back pay for the workers and in some
instances levied fines.
Officials created a wallet-sized card in English and Spanish it plans to
deliver to reforestation workers that explains their rights under federal law.
It includes a toll-free phone number to report abuses.
The Forest Service also revised its contracts to educate contractors on what
they must pay. It's the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour on private land
and the typical wage for the job - usually $11 or $12 an hour - on public land.
The contracts also spell out what safety gear the contractors must provide and
what rules apply to housing and travel conditions.
The goal was to "take the vagueness and generalities out of the contracts and
make them very specific," Hooper said.
The Department of Labor made a "red flag" checklist to help Forest Service
employees spot, document and report violations of labor laws. The Forest
Service agreed to give labor officials a list of where the forestry contracts
are to be carried out, so they know where to inspect.
The contracts require the companies to keep good wage and hour records, so
inspectors can verify that the workers are paid properly.
"We are serious about this and we are putting accountability into the
process," Hooper said.
Still, federal officials admit the task of enforcement is difficult. The work
sites are remote and difficult for inspectors to reach. Hispanic workers who
are unfamiliar with the concept of worker rights are reluctant to report
abuses to the government. The contractors' ranks have frequent turnover.
"The bad contractors are moving in quickly and moving out quickly - taking
advantage of the workers - and they're gone before you guys know it,"
Philomath contractor Lee Miller told the group.
Denise Smith, coordinator of the Alliance of Forest Workers and Harvesters,
said the inspections are just scratching the surface. "It takes a lot more
than showing up one day when everybody knows you're coming," she said.
But Rey said the reforms are going to take time. "We have to sustain this over
several years," he said. "One season by itself is not going to make the
systemic change."
The contractors told Rey the system of strict low-bid contracting the Forest
Service follows has given the advantage to fly-by-night contractors.
They submit bids that are based on exploiting undocumented or guest workers
who are unwilling or unable to seek redress for poor conditions.
No legitimate contractor can compete, said Nick Cicero, a forestry worker from
Ashland. "The prices they do per-acre is physically impossible," he said.
But Rey said the Forest Service's hands are tied. The courts have ruled that
the agency can't reject a low bid because it believes the price is too low.
Strong enforcement would help, said Enrique Santos, an interpreter for the
harvesters' alliance. "You sting a couple of those suckers and this would be
straightened out in no time," he told the federal officials.
--------
Attached and included below are three additional stories about the Forum on
Working Conditions for Forest Workers.
William McCall
AP
Published: 02/01/2007
A top Bush administration forestry official announced Wednesday the Forest
Service will try a new business model for contract work in federal forests to
help prevent worker abuse and encourage investment in rural communities.
Mark Rey, Agriculture Department undersecretary for natural resources and the
environment, said test programs are planned this year for three national
forests the Colville in Washington state, Shasta Trinity in Northern
California, and the Allegheny in Pennsylvania.
The goal is to make forest management projects into long-term projects
stretching over 10 years to allow contractors to invest in equipment and
training for workers, and to allow them to build stronger ties to the
community, Rey and other federal officials said.
"What we're trying to do with this new business model is see if we can respond
to some of the problems that the current contracting system creates in terms
of making it more difficult for local communities to participate,"
Rey said.
Bids for work such as reforestation or forest thinning projects typically
cover only one year and rely heavily on the lowest bidder too often a
"fly-by-night" or unscrupulous contractor who abuses immigrant workers mostly
from Mexico, Rey and other officials said at a public hearing on forest worker
conditions at the University of Oregon.
The new business model likely will have to address current law that prohibits
the U.S. Forest Service from rejecting bids it considers too low, Rey said.
"In the past we have tried to reject bids like that, suspecting that probably
either the work would not get done well or it would get done through the abuse
of contract workers," Rey said.
Rey said the administration will reintroduce legislation called the Healthy
Forest Partnership "that will in part see if Congress will give us
authorization to contract not only with private contractors but with other
units of government including local communities."
The hearing was sponsored by the university, the Alliance of Forest Workers
and Harvesters and Sustainable Northwest to discuss federal efforts to protect
the health and safety of contract workers in national forests.
The Forest Service stepped up those efforts following a series of stories by
the Sacramento Bee in 2005 on abuse of contract workers, largely Mexicans in
this country legally under what was a little-known federal guest worker
program to fill low-paying, non-farm jobs.
In 2006, however, investigations found only four significant cases across the
West two in Idaho, one in Utah and another in New Mexico, said Ron Hooper, the
Forest Service director of acquisition management.
"But it's going to be part of a long-term effort," Hooper said.
Rey, Hooper and Alex Passantino, deputy administrator of the Labor
Department's Wage and Hour Division, listened to a number of forest workers
talk about contractors who refused to pay overtime, failed to provide needed
safety equipment or charged the workers for it, jammed six workers into a
single motel room on trips, and threatened to fire them or blackball them if
they complained to authorities.
Most spoke in Spanish and declined to give their full names.
Enrique Santos, spokesman for the Alliance of Forest Workers and Harvesters,
said the hearing would have been packed with hundreds of other workers but
they were afraid of retribution. He added that most immigrants are hard
workers who take pride in improving forest health.
"There has been an increase in unscrupulous contractors that makes it more
difficult for the good contractors," Santos told the panel in brief comments
on behalf of the workers calling for even tougher enforcement of federal labor
laws.
"If you sting a couple of these suckers, I have no doubt this thing would be
straightened out in no time," Santos said.
__________________________________________________________
OPB News
Feds Step Up Inspection of Forest Contractors
By Chris Lehman
SALEM, OR (2007-02-01) U.S. Forest Service officials say they've increased
inspections of companies they hire to manage Federal timberland.
The move comes after complaints from activist groups about the mistreatment of
workers who do things like plant trees and put out forest fires.
Ron Hooper is in charge of lining up contractors for the Forest Service. He
told a group of forest workers and employers in Eugene Wednesday that the
government will also be closely monitoring the contracts to make sure they're
fair to everyone involved.
Ron Hooper: "So that you as contractors, you as workers on these contracts,
can look at that contract and know exactly what you're entitled to in terms of
being treated appropriately and in terms of your wage and benefits that you're
entitled to."
Hooper says the government will also distribute pamphlets to workers outlining
their rights in both Spanish and English.
Many forest service workers are in the country on special work visas and
aren't aware of existing protections.
© Copyright 2007, OPB
___________________________________________________________
Forest workers air their grievances
By Andy Peterson
KVAL
(To view the accompanying video segment go to:
http://www.kval.com/news/local/5435356.html?video=YHI&t=a
<http://www.kval.com/news/local/5435356.html?video=YHI&t=a>)
Workers are hired by contractors to work the forest lands, and those workers
tell us that, while there are plenty of good contractors out there, there are
some who are abusive.
"From my perspective, I've worked in the woods for 30 years," says forest
worker CeCe Headley, "and I think it's the best job you could possibly have.
That said, you can suck the fun out of anything."
Headley was just one of the forest workers to attend a forum Wednesday at the
U of O, a chance to speak with federal officials about how workers are treated
by contractors in the field.
"Some of them, their conditions are quite good and they want to go to work
everyday, and they're wonderful," says Cassandra Moseley of the UO's Ecosystem
Workforce Program, which recently completed a study of forest workers. "And
other people, you just can't believe that it's happening."
"They're worked like dogs," Headley elaborates. "They're in substandard
housing, they're in substandard vehicles, as I said. They're not treated with
respect and dignity, and they're not paid well."
In fact, some of the workers we spoke with today said they didn't even want to
have their faces shown on camera, out of concerns that just by being here at
this event, they could potentially lose their jobs.
This event is part of the US Department of Agriculture's increased efforts to
hold contractors accountable.
"We asked our contract administrators take a more aggressive role," says U.S.
Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey, "in making sure that H2B, temporary
forest workers, were treated in accordance with existing law."
That includes an increase in random inspections of job sites looking for
abuses. Workers like Headley tell us that it's a start.
"What we used to say in tree planting, is they care very deeply about the
health of the tree, and don't look at all to the person planting the tree,"
Headley explains. "So that's what the change that we're looking for."
Those inspections have been underway for the past year, and officials with the
USDA and Department of Labor say they wanted to get feedback before the next
planting season begins.
Tracy Katelman
Executive Director
Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment
POB 1361, Eureka, CA 95502
Office: 840 E Street, Suite 5, Eureka Labor Temple
Phone/FAX: 707-498-4481
Mobile: 707-845-8579
tra-@asje.org
www.asje.org <http://www.asje.org/>
Join Us! www.asje.org/jonew.html <http://www.asje.org/jonew.html>
North Coast Restoration Jobs Email List A project of the Alliance for
Sustainable Jobs and the Environment
www.asje.org
North Coast Restoration Jobs Email List A project of the Alliance for
Sustainable Jobs and the Environment
www.asje.org
North Coast Restoration Jobs Email List A project of the Alliance for
Sustainable Jobs and the Environment
Tracy Katelman
Executive Director
Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment
POB 1361, Eureka, CA 95502
Office: 840 E Street, Suite 5, Eureka Labor Temple
Phone/FAX: 707-498-4481
Mobile: 707-845-8579
tra-@asje.org
www.asje.org
Join Us! www.asje.org/jonew.html
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