Working in the woods: It’s never been
easy or steady. Ethical contractors say they can’t compete
because the Forest Service awards contracts to the lowest bidder.
And as the low bidders race to the bottom with offers below the
true cost of the work, they’re leaving behind a trail of
injured workers, labor violations, and poor quality results –
and sparking Senate hearings.
The hearings on
forest-worker abuse – inspired by the 2005
“Pineros” series in the Sacramento
Bee, which exposed rampant mistreatment of immigrant
forest workers – catalyzed conversations between advocates
and agency personnel about systemic problems within the Forest
Service.
In response, at a recent public forum in Eugene,
Ore., on forest working conditions, Forest Service officials
announced they are revamping the business model that guides how the
agency funds and organizes restoration projects. Officials say the
new model will measure the quality of results rather than just the
quantity. It will also improve conditions for workers who perform
arduous tasks, such as thinning and planting trees, by allowing
them to work closer to home for longer periods of time.
For the nation’s forest workers, things couldn’t get
much worse: In 2003, more than 85 percent of Oregon’s
forestry workers earned less than the federal poverty level for a
family of four. Cassandra Moseley, director of the Ecosystem
Workforce Program at the University of Oregon, says, “We can
look back… over the past three decades, and we can see abuses
including cheating workers out of their wages, unsafe and
unsanitary working conditions, poor training, and disrespectful and
degrading treatment.”
The new business model
addresses some of those problems by encouraging national forests to
create projects tailored to the local workforce that extend for
several years. Currently, many contracts last only three or four
months, forcing workers to either find other jobs or follow the
work from forest to forest.
Proponents hope the stability
provided by longer contracts will motivate rural entrepreneurs to
invest in businesses, and businesses to invest in their workers.
“You want people who live and work in an area to be involved
in stewardship. Local knowledge is real,” says Lynn
Jungwirth, executive director of the Watershed Research and
Training Center in Hayfork, Calif.
The new model will
also improve workers’ skill levels, says Jungwirth. Instead
of separate contracts for, say, fuels treatment and fish-habitat
restoration, the new model would combine forestwide projects into
one contract, allowing workers to hone a wider set of skills. Ron
Hooper, the Forest Service’s director of acquisition,
believes a better-trained workforce will save money by being more
efficient, and that the changes to planning and packaging contracts
will enable more of the agency’s dwindling dollars to reach
the ground.
Three national forests will pioneer the new
model: the Shasta Trinity in Northern California, the Colville in
Washington, and the Allegheny in Pennsylvania. This summer, agency
personnel and community stakeholders in these forests will begin
drafting projects and assessing local capacity. Field work should
commence in 2008.
These restructuring efforts reveal that
the Forest Service has been listening to community-based forestry
leaders like Moseley. “In a world where economic, ecological,
and social well-being are connected,” Moseley says,
“forest-worker issues are forest-health
issues.”
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