New call for forest labor review

Rialto congressman will seek hearings on working conditions of the pineros.

By Tom Knudson -- Bee Staff Writer

A congressman who once worked with Cesar Chavez has joined the fight against abuse of Latino forest workers, saying the U.S. Department of Labor is not doing enough to prevent their mistreatment.

Angered by the dangerous working conditions, excessive payroll deductions and primitive living arrangements endured by the migrant workforce, California Rep. Joe Baca, D-Rialto, said this week that he plans to request a hearing before the House Agriculture Committee soon after lawmakers return from their winter break.

His focus, he said, will be examining how such abuses could have occurred on the Labor Department‘s watch.

Last month, another California congressman, George Miller, D-Martinez, called for hearings to examine the involvement of the U.S. Forest Service, which hires firms that employ Latino forest workers - known as pineros - but defers on enforcement of wage, safety and other workplace laws to the Labor Department.

Baca said his concerns apply to all of the Latino workers who do the bulk of the manual labor, mostly planting and thinning, in America’s forests. But he was particularly concerned about the estimated 10,000 who toil legally under the federal government‘s guest worker program, officially known as H2B workers.

"Nothing will change unless the DOL strengthens its work protection (standards) in the guest worker program," Baca said. "They’ve never established a meaningful system to prevent the displacement of U.S. workers and the exploitation of temporary foreign workers. They need to do that."

Labor Department spokesman David James said his agency shares Baca’s concerns for worker safety. But he defended the department‘s performance.

"The Department of Labor is proud of its record of enforcement of laws under its jurisdiction," James said in a statement. "If the congressman has specific examples of abuses of those laws we would encourage him to go ahead and immediately contact us with the specifics."

Michael Dale, an Oregon attorney who has sued the department on behalf of pineros, said Baca‘s scrutiny is long overdue.

"The department’s record of enforcement is shameful - not something to be proud of," said Dale, director of the Northwest Workers‘ Justice Project.

Baca, a former California state senator and assemblyman who once joined in pickets on behalf of farmworkers, also wants to focus on transportation safety.

Nothing is more dangerous to the pineros than simply getting to the rugged, remote job sites where they work. Just last week, two more Latino forest workers died in a van accident in Washington - the 22nd and 23rd to die nationwide in the past three years.

"The DOL has not required employers and labor contractors who transport workers to provide them even with seat belts," Baca said. "That’s an area I want to look at too."

Baca’s concerns first emerged during a Dec. 7 House Agriculture Committee hearing on a bill - HR 4200 - aimed at speeding up the recovery of federal lands damaged by wildfire and other catastrophic events.

"Mr. Chairman," Baca said in a statement submitted at the hearing, "I completely agree that recovery is essential, but I am also very interested in ensuring that the contractors doing this recovery are not engaging in criminal violations of health, safety and labor law."

Citing a November Bee series, "The Pineros: Men of the Pines," which reported wide-ranging mistreatment of Latino forest workers, Baca said: "These ... violations of labor, health and safety laws are shocking. Examples of workers being charged to use an outhouse, being paid for eight out of every 12 hours of work and deductions for alleged ‘bad work’ are unacceptable, especially if the contractors were to be paid with taxpayer funds."

In its nine-month investigation, The Bee found that the legal foreign workers often were treated just as harshly as undocumented laborers. On Forest Service and private land, they were exposed to dangerous conditions, hurt on the job and compelled to live in squalid conditions while often working for contractors with histories of violating federal laws.

Labor Department oversight was lax and inconsistent, The Bee found. While one branch of the department occasionally fined forest contractors for labor law infractions, another branch certified those contractors to recruit more guest workers.

"Why should we reward them ... if they are continuing to repeat the same kind of violation?" Baca told The Bee.

"At some point, we‘ve got to say, ‘You have a history of violations. Ya no más’ - no more."

The Bee found that H2B workers toil amid legal risk, too. Unlike H2A guest laborers who work in agriculture, non-farm guest workers cannot legally seek the counsel of a federally funded legal aid lawyer.

"That‘s something worth looking into," Baca said. "That‘s something I would explore."

As a Democrat, Baca is a minority member of the Agriculture Committee, giving him less leverage to successfully push for hearings. If he is turned down, he said, he will request information directly from the Forest Service and the Labor Department.

"I’m going to hold them accountable," he said.