SACRAMENTO BEE

November 15, 2005

Editorial

Indentured servitude

Valuing work in U.S. forests

The final installment of "The Pineros: Men of the Pines" by The Sacramento Bee's Tom Knudson and Hector Amezcua, which appears in today's paper, is much more than a story about seat belts and vehicle inspections.

Yes, let's require seat belts and enforce vehicle inspection laws. But let's not delude ourselves that that will solve the problem.

These van crashes are a microcosm of what's wrong with the way the United States treats migrant reforestation workers - and generally values lower-skilled work within our borders.

Thinning and planting trees used to be done by Americans. Think back, for example, to the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, with camps in the forests (each with a mess hall, laundry, tool house, recreation hall and canteen). The camps even provided teachers who taught the young men academic and vocational skills. CCC workers were responsible for more than half of the reforestation, public and private, done in the nation's history.

What changed? Since the late 1980s contractors working for the U.S. Forest Service and private timber companies have relied on imported labor, primarily from Mexico and Central America, to do reforestation work. Naturally, this creates an oversupply of workers and depresses wages and working conditions. The Bee's series reveals just how eminently exploitable this work force is.

Americans are familiar with migrant farm workers after decades of relentless exposure by writers such as John Steinbeck in "Harvest Gypsies," newsmen such as Edward R. Murrow in "Harvest of Shame" and activists such as Cesar Chavez. By 1986, these workers, at least on paper, had won some protections under the law. Employers are required to provide transportation to the United States and free housing while they work. Workers have access to legal aid when they encounter work violations. These provisions have helped improve working conditions somewhat, though they have been undermined by lack of enforcement.

Migrant reforestation workers should have the same protections, but they don't. They are essentially indentured servants. They often have to borrow money for the journey to the United States and thus arrive in debt to the contractor before they even begin work. Contractors sometimes even hold the deeds to workers' homes and cars as collateral.

And because they don't get housing or pay for travel time, migrant reforestation workers must get up at 3 or 4 a.m. for hours of travel on winding forest roads, so they can put in an 8-to 12-hour workday. Hence the van accidents - and many work accidents. Look at Amezcua's photo of men in a van and you immediately understand the problem: fatigue.

Congress should require that travel time to remote forest work sites be included as part of the paid workday. Housing - as for migrant farm workers - should be required and inspected. Making these changes would do more to prevent accidents than seat belts and vehicle inspections.

Congress also needs to investigate whether the United States truly has a shortage of workers that requires employers to import reforestation labor. The nation has high unemployment in its urban core and rural counties. There is no apparent shortage of lower-skilled people here at home who could do reforestation work. The shortage is in decent wages and working conditions.

All workers hired by U.S. employers to do work in the United States should work under the same rules. The current two-tier system undermines the value of work and treats some people as lesser beings, a deep injustice to those workers and a corruption of American values.