HEALTHY FORESTS,
ABUSED WORKERS
Safety, Health and Working Conditions among
Forest Ecosystem Restoration Workers in Southern Oregon
by
The Alliance of Forest Workers and Harvesters and
The Labor Occupational Health Program, UC Berkeley

July, 2012

 Acknowledgements
Worker Surveyors: Francisca Cortes Cortes;
Maria Cortes Cortes; Erika Bucio
Project Advisory Committee: Dinorah
Barton-Antonio, MPH, LOHP; Marko Bey,
Lomakatsi Restoration Project; Erika Bucio;
Diane Bush, MPH, LOHP; Sergio Cabesas;
Santiago Calzada; Juan Pedro Cervantez;
Andres Cortes Cortes; Francisca Cortes
Cortes; Maria Cortes Cortes; Andres Cortes
Telles; Braulio Maya; Chrystal Reyes;
Enrique Santos; Andrea Steege, Ph.D.,
NIOSH; Carl Wilmsen, Ph.D., AFWH.
Advisory committee members developed the
questionnaire, translated it into Spanish,
pretested it, and did participatory analysis of
the results.
Data Entry Volunteers: Noam Osband;
Diana Cortes

Write up, editing and review: Carl Wilmsen,
Ph.D., AFWH; Diane Bush, MPH, LOHP;
Dinorah Barton-Antonio, MPH, LOHP;
Marko Bey, Lomakatsi Restoration Project;
Cece Headley; Noam Osband; Enrique
Santos; Denise Smith; Andrea Steege,
Ph.D., NIOSH.
Photos: cover top, Lomakatsi Restoration
Project; cover bottom, Oshana Catranides
Illustrations: Mari Stein
Spanish translation of report: PDX
Spanish, Portland, Oregon
Funders: University of Washington's
Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and
Health Center under a National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health
(NIOSH/CDC) cooperative agreement
(#0H07544); US Department of Labor,
OSHA (grant # SH-20823-10).

The contents of this report are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily
reflect the official views of or endorsement by the US government or other funders.

 Why this Study?

Methods

In November of 2011 a forest worker was
killed by his chainsaw in southern Oregon.
While thinning trees, the saw kicked back
and struck him in the neck. His co-workers
had no cell phone reception in the remote
area where they were working, and no other
way to call for help. They were unable to
stop the bleeding, so the unfortunate man
bled to death. Just 22 years old, this young
worker had no training in safe work
practices.

We convened a project advisory committee
that included forest workers and
representatives of LOHP, the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
(NIOSH) and the Alliance to develop the
survey and provide general guidance to the
study. Using the National Agricultural
Workers Survey and a survey of restaurant
workers in San Francisco’s Chinatown6 as
guides, we developed a questionnaire
tailored to the unique working conditions
forest workers face. Alliance staff trained
three women from the forest worker
community in interviewing techniques.
Although the interviews were intended to be
in-person, once the women started
interviewing, it became evident that most
workers did not want to sit through a lengthy
interview that took 2 to 3 hours to complete.
As a result, the survey became self
administered. The women distributed
questionnaires to workers, asking them to
fill them out at their leisure at home, later
returning to pick them up. The women
clarified responses the workers gave on the
questionnaires as needed. They asked each
respondent to name 3 other workers who
might be interested in filling out a
questionnaire. Doing “snowball sampling”
in this way, the women distributed 200
questionnaires and retrieved 151 completed
ones of which 150 were usable (response
rate of 75%). SPSS was used to analyze the
data. To assure confidentiality the workers
were instructed not to write their names on
the questionnaires. No information was
entered on any questionnaire that could link
it to a specific worker, and completed
questionnaires are now sequestered in a
locked location.

While this case is sad and shocking, lack of
safety training and failure to mitigate
occupational hazards are everyday realities
for forest workers in the Pacific Northwest.
Previous studies show that illegal labor
practices permeate the industry.1,2,3 Data
from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and state
agencies indicate that forest ecosystem
restoration workers in Oregon suffer 3 times
the rate of occupational injury and illness of
the workforce at large and 9 times the
fatality rate.4,5 Yet, few studies have
documented the extent of the problem. Nor
have problems with wage theft and overall
working conditions been adequately studied.
The Alliance of Forest Workers and
Harvesters (a worker, harvester and
environmental advocacy organization) and
the Labor Occupational Health Program
(LOHP) at the University of California,
Berkeley, partnered to conduct a small
community-engaged research project to
document occupational injuries and
illnesses, medical treatment options, wage
issues and general working conditions
among immigrant, Spanish-speaking forest
workers in Southern Oregon.

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the youngest was 18. Survey respondents
were almost entirely from Mexico. Just one
indicated that he was from Guatemala. On
average, survey respondents have been in
the U.S. for 8 years, and have been working
for their current employer for half that time.
The vast majority of respondents were
native speakers of Spanish. Only one worker
indicated that his native language was not
Spanish; his was Triqui. All of the
respondents were men. Twenty-eight
percent of the workers in the study were
working in the U.S. as part of the temporary
foreign labor (H-2B) program. The median
number of years of schooling the workers
had completed was 6. Just 5 percent had
completed more than the 9th grade.

Overview
Workers in the forest ecosystem restoration
industry (henceforth forest workers) do
manual labor to develop, maintain, or
protect forested areas, including planting
trees, pest control, thinning and cutting
brush and small trees, piling and burning
brush, and habitat improvement. The work is
seasonal, and spread over a large geographic
area, including public and private lands.
Most workers spend long periods of time
working away from home. Although official
estimates are probably low, there were an
estimated 3,672 forest workers in Oregon in
2010.7
The work is inherently dangerous. Similar to
the findings of other research,1,2,3 the
workers who participated in this study face
hazards on a daily basis such as extreme
weather, rough terrain, chainsaw accidents,
falling trees and branches, poison oak, forest
fires, contaminated drinking water, and
snakes, bears, mountain lions and biting
insects. In addition, workplace practices like
having inexperienced workers at the front of
the work line, working too close together,
not providing rest breaks, being pressured to
work faster and harder, being pressured to
work when sick or injured, and not carrying
drinking water increase the chances of
getting injured, contracting a work-related
illness, and developing complications from a
work-related injury or illness. In addition,
cheating workers of their pay is widespread.

Working Conditions
Income

General Characteristics of Survey
Respondents

Survey respondents earned an average
hourly wage of $15.27. The lowest wage
reported was $8.95 per hour, and the highest
was $20. This translates into a median

The median age of the workers in the study
was 30. The oldest respondent was 57, and
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monthly income of $1,800, with only 4% of
the respondents earning more than $2,500
per month. Income is affected by the
seasonality of the work. The majority of
workers did not work all year, working an
average of 8.2 months. They were especially
unlikely to have work in December and
January, during which only 25 and 30
percent, respectively, reported working
during the past year. Most respondents
(69%) said that they did not work at any job
when they were not working in the woods.
Twenty-one percent did farm work, and just
2% did work that was not related to forestry
or farming.

during more than 6 pay periods (Figure 1).
When asked if the boss had ever owed them
wages, 37% said yes, and more than threequarters of these said they never received
the wages owed them. In other words, nearly
one in three of the survey respondents have
experienced wage theft of this type. Nearly
two-thirds said that their wages are
sometimes paid late. More than half (58%)
indicated that they did not get all the work
they were promised in the last 12 months;
close to a fifth said that this occurred during
more than 6 pay periods. Almost all the
workers in the study (86%) said they do not
get paid for travel time.

Large numbers of the workers in the study
reported experiencing wage theft of various
kinds. Close to half (48%) said that they do
not get paid time-and-a-half when they work
more than 40 hours in a week. Forty-five
percent said that they did not get paid for all
the hours they worked during the past 12
months. One in eight said that this occurred

Although the law requires employers to pay
workers working on federal contracts an
additional amount ($3.59 per hour on
service contracts in Oregon) in lieu of
benefits and provide them with paid
vacation and holidays,8 most workers in the
study reported not receiving these benefits.
Sixty-five percent said that they do not

Figure 1: Percent of respondents who were not
paid for all hours during one or more pay periods
More than 9
pay periods,
6-9 pay
3%
periods, 9%

Did not
answer, 7%

3-5 pay
periods,
13%

Paid for all
hours, 51%

1-2 pay
periods,
17%

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receive pay in lieu of benefits and 28% do
not know whether they do or not. Almost all
(91%) said they do not receive vacation or
holiday pay.

driving practices to distant work sites may
increase the risk. Three out of four survey
respondents reported that they do not make
rest stops after 8 hours of driving. Over half
(52%) said that one worker did all the
driving. Another 21% said they were
transported by a professional driver, and
20% reported some other arrangement.

Although illegal deductions from paychecks
for food, safety equipment, transportation,
immigration fees and other costs were often
taken in the past, only a few workers in this
study reported experiencing this. Fourteen
percent said they had deductions taken from
their paychecks for food, 9 percent reported
deductions for safety equipment—others
reported having to buy safety equipment
with their own money (see section on Safety
Equipment)—9 percent reported deductions
for tools, and fewer than 2 percent reported
deductions for other expenses.

Workplace Practices
Workplace practices increase the danger at
work. Three out of four survey respondents
feel that there are sometimes or never
enough workers to complete the work safely
and at a reasonable pace. Ninety-one percent
indicated that they and their co-workers
work too close together sometimes or every
day. Eighty-six percent said that they work
with inexperienced workers in front
sometimes or every day. Working too close
together and having inexperienced workers
at the front of the line increases the risk of
trees and branches falling on other workers.

Working Out of State
Forest workers spend long periods of time
away from home working on contracts on
distant forest lands. Almost all survey
respondents (92%) said that they worked out
of state in the last 12 months. On average
they spent 26.4 nights away from home.
Most (89%) stayed in motels for which the
boss usually paid. The conditions in the
motels, however, were not good. More than
three-quarters of the respondents said there
were not enough beds in the room for all the
workers staying there (with an average of
5.3 workers per room). Although 85% of the
workers cooked their own meals, only 40%
reported that their rooms had cooking
facilities. Almost half (46%) cooked
outdoors on campfires.

Pressure to maintain a fast work pace and
lack of rest breaks
Workers and their foremen are under
pressure to complete the work as quickly as
possible. This creates a work environment in
which workers are continually pushed to
work harder and faster, and fear being fired
if they speak out or complain. Almost all
survey respondents (90%) feel they are
pushed to work too fast or too hard
sometimes or always. Nearly two-thirds
(59%) went to work during the past 12
months even when they felt too sick to
work. Almost half (47%) went to work
during the past 12 months even when they
felt a lot of pain from an injury.

Vehicular accidents are a major cause of
death of forest workers. While this is true of
instate and out-of state transportation,
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More than three-fourths of the survey
respondents reported never getting rest
breaks, and an additional 17% only get rest
breaks sometimes. Seventy-seven percent do
not consistently get a lunch break every day.

Safety Equipment
A bright spot in the study is that a sizable
majority of respondents say they use
personal protective equipment (PPE)
everyday. Eighty-five percent always use a
hard hat and gloves, and more than half of
the respondents also always use protective
lenses, chaps, ear protection, and protective
boots. However, one-third of respondents
report having to buy at least one item of
personal protective equipment themselves
(Figure 2) and a few report having
deductions taken from their paychecks for
PPE. It is likely that more workers than this
have to purchase their own PPE because we
did not specifically ask who paid for PPE.
Instead, these workers took it upon
themselves to write on the questionnaire that
they buy PPE themselves. This is especially
significant since Oregon state law requires
employers to provide all necessary PPE
except boots to workers at no cost. A
similarly disturbing finding is that 95% of
the respondents said that their PPE is
sometimes or always worn out.

Verbal abuse, harassment and unfair
treatment
Verbal abuse is common. Four in five
workers in the study said that they were
yelled at on the job during the past 12
months. It was almost always the foreman or
boss who did the yelling. A quarter of the
respondents reported that they were
threatened, bullied or harassed at work
during the past 12 months, and in 60% of the
cases it was by the supervisor.
A majority of survey respondents (68%) also
felt that they had been treated unfairly at
work. Because they feared retaliation or did
not know what to do, most of these workers
did not challenge this unfair treatment.
However, of the 13 workers who did
challenge the unfair treatment, 9 felt like
their efforts were successful.

Figure 2: Percent of respondents who wrote
on survey that they had to buy safety
equipment
Ear
muffs/plugs
15%
Chaps
6%

Hardhat
22%
Safety
Goggles
23%

Gloves
34%

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In addition, although 71% reported that
there is a first aid kit at their workplace,
38% of these respondents did not know if it
was stocked with gauze, disinfectant,
bandages, stretcher and other supplies. It is
also disturbing that 24% of the survey
respondents did not know whether there was
a first aid kit at their workplace.

drink from streams, and 55% said that they
do both. By drinking untreated water from
mountain streams, the workers risk getting
E-coli or giardia infections.

Training
Safety training is problematic as well.
Although 60% of the workers in the study
received some type of training on the job,
only 39%, reported receiving safety training.
Moreover the training forest workers usually
receive consists of no more than a few
minutes of a coworker or foreman showing
them what to do. Another indication of the
prevalent disregard for safety training is that
74% of the workers in the study disagreed or
strongly disagreed with the statement that
the boss considers health and safety
important. This sentiment extended to their
fellow workers with 59% disagreeing or
strongly disagreeing that their coworkers
consider health and safety important.

Almost all (92%) of the workers reported
that their employer does not provide a toilet
at the work site every day, and 86% said that
the employer does not provide water for
washing hands.
Current Health Status
In general the health of the workers in this
study is good. The majority of respondents
(58%) rated their current health status as
about the same or better than a year ago.
Most had never been told by a doctor or
other health professional that they had a
chronic or serious disease such as cancer,
heart disease or tuberculosis. Three workers
(2%) indicated that they had been diagnosed
with asthma, 2 (1.4%) had been diagnosed
with high blood pressure, and 2 with some
other disease. Eight percent of the
respondents reported feeling depressed all or
most of the time during the past 12 months,

Drinking Water and Sanitation
The situation with drinking water is
complicated. Fifty-three percent of the
workers in the study said that the contractor
they work for does not provide clean
drinking water every day. This sometimes
meant that while there was drinking water in
the van, the workers themselves had to carry
the water to the work site, sometimes at a
distance of greater than a mile from where
the van was parked. As a result, 35% of the
respondents said that they bring their own
drinking water to work, 10% said that they
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a rate that is slightly higher than the national
average of 6.7% of the general population
suffering major depressive disorder in a 12
month period.9 Another 13% reported
feeling depressed a moderate amount of
time.

sprains, dislocated bones, and broken bones
(Table 1).
Reporting and Treatment of Injuries
As Table 1 shows, workers were most likely
to report lacerations and broken bones to
their supervisors. Seventy-six and 73
percent, respectively, of the workers who
suffered these types of injury said they
reported their injury to their supervisor.
Burns/scalds and other unspecified injuries
were reported the least: 48 and 42 percent
respectively. Abrasions, bruises, sprains,
dislocations and insect stings were reported
at rates in between these extremes. This
suggests that, depending on the nature of the
injury, between 25 and 58 percent of on-thejob injuries are not reported to supervisors.

Injuries and Illnesses on the Job
Injuries
Out of 150 forest workers who completed
questionnaires, 61 (41 percent) indicated
they were injured on the job during the last
12 months. A third of the workers in the
study suffered scrapes and abrasions, 29
percent suffered insect bites, and nearly a
quarter were burned on the job. Between 10
and 17 percent suffered bruises, lacerations,

Table 1: Reporting and Treatment of Injuries

Number of
cases

Percent of
sample who
were injured
(n=150)

Percent of
injuries
reported to
supervisors

Percent of
injuries
treated

Scrape/abrasion

50

33%

52%

66%

Insect bite
Burn
Bruise
Laceration
Sprain
Dislocated bone
Broken bone
Other injury
Amputation

44
34
25
21
20
18
15
7
0

29%
23%
17%
14%
13%
12%
10%
5%
0

50%
48%
64%
76%
65%
56%
73%
42%
0

64%
74%
64%
81%
70%
72%
80%
57%
0

Injury Type

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The main reasons workers gave for not
reporting their injuries were that they were
afraid they would be fired, and they were
afraid of otherwise getting in trouble. The
high rate of reporting of lacerations, broken
bones, sprains and bruises—which consisted
of between one-half and three-quarters of all
cases—is notable given this fear. Workers
on the project advisory committee suggested
that their colleagues are more likely to
report serious injuries to their supervisors.
What workers consider a serious injury,
however, cannot be determined from the
data collected by this survey.

scrapes, insect bites and bruises are due to
workers not feeling like their injuries were
serious of enough to require treatment in
some cases.
Most of the workers who said they were
injured on the job in the last 12 months
(60%) sought treatment for their injuries
from providers of Western medical care
such as health centers, private doctors
offices, hospitals and other places. Yet, a
sizeable portion (40%) went to curanderos
(traditional healers). Nine workers sought
treatment from curanderos and providers of
Western medical care (hospitals, health
centers, chiropractors, and
ophthalmologists) (Figure 3).

Most workers (69%) sought treatment for
their injuries regardless of type. It may be
that the lower rates of seeking treatment for

Figure 3: Where did you get treatment for your
injury?
40
Chiropractor

N
u 35
m
b 30
e
r
25

Emergency Room
First Aid at Job Site
Hospital

o
f 20

Private Medical Doctor's
Office

W 15
o
r
k 10
e
r 5
s

Combination of Western
Medical Providers
Community Health Center
Curandero and Western
Medical Provider
Curandero

0
Curandero

Western Medical
Provider

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For the majority who did seek treatment,
however, the data suggests that they often
bear the financial burden of their medical
care. Slightly more than half of the workers
(52%) who were injured on the job paid for
treatment of their injuries themselves.
Twenty-five percent reported that their
employer paid for the treatment with his
own money. Just 3 percent reported that the
treatment was covered by workers’
compensation insurance. Twenty-four
percent reported receiving compensation
from the workers’ compensation system for
missed days of work.

A common problem among loggers who
operate chainsaws is Raynaud’s
phenomenon in which fingers turn white
and/or become numb.10 To assess whether
forest ecosystem restoration workers also
experience this problem, we included
questions about it in the survey. Thirtyseven percent of the workers in the study
reported that their fingers felt numb, and
another 4% said that their fingers turned
white during the past 12 months. On average
this occurred 4 times per week. Two
workers said it happens about once a week
and 2 workers said it happens every day.

Musculoskeletal Pain

Illnesses

Many workers also experience pain, usually
in the back, severe enough to warrant
missing work. As Table 2 shows, more than
a quarter of the survey respondents
experienced back pain during the last 12

Half of the workers in the study reported
working with pesticides during the past 5
years. Of these, 25% reported getting sick
from pesticides, although we did not ask
what symptoms they experienced.

Table 2: Musculoskeletal Pain
Experienced pain
Percent of sample
Percent missed
during the past 12 that experienced
a day or more
months in the:
pain (n=150)
of work
Back
49
27
Shoulder
25
17
Elbow
26
13
Hand
27
11
Leg
23
11
Other
5
4

months bad enough to miss a day or more of
work. Roughly one in eight reported pain in
their shoulder, elbow, hand or leg.

When asked about rashes in a separate set of
questions, 61 percent of the survey
respondents reported having a rash in the
past 12 months. The most common reported
cause of the rash was poison oak (74% of
respondents). Six percent said it was due to
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chemicals, and 20% said it was caused by
something else.

Although the question was intended to elicit
only a single answer, 35% of respondents
checked more than one response. Most of
these responses included a combination of
hospital or doctor treatment and treatment
by a curandero (traditional healer).

Eighteen (12%) of the respondents reported
having diarrhea for more than 3 days during
the past 12 months.
Of those experiencing musculoskeletal pain,
finger symptoms and/or work-related
illnesses most (89%) did not report them to
their supervisor. The most common reasons
they gave for not reporting them were that
they were afraid they would be fired or
retaliated against, they thought it would be
too much trouble, or they were afraid of not
getting more hours at work.

How Representative are the Findings?
The sample of forest workers who
responded to the survey was not random,
and therefore the results cannot be
generalized to all forest workers. One
potential source of bias is the possible oversampling of workers who have experienced
problems at work. Employees of one
company that has a bad reputation among
workers are over-represented in the sample.
Thirty-nine percent of the workers in the
sample said they work for this company.
Yet, this group of respondents had a lower
rate of injury on the job than the other
survey respondents (33 percent as opposed
to 41 percent for the entire sample).
Statistical analysis of the effect the overrepresentation of employees of this company
in the sample might have had on survey
results found only very weak or weak
relationships between the company for
which the respondent works and his answers
to the survey questions. We conclude,
therefore, that bias from over-sampling of
employees from one company is minimal in
the survey results.

Access to Health Care
Seventy percent of the workers in the study
feel that it is difficult to get the health care
they need in the United States. The main
reasons they gave for having difficulty
getting access to health care were that health
care providers don’t speak Spanish (85%)
and that the cost is too high (62%).
When asked where they usually go for
treatment if they are sick or injured, the
respondents indicated the places listed in
Table 3.
Table 3: What kind of place do you
usually go to if you get sick or injured?
Combination
35%
Hospital
22%
Community health center
18%
Private medical doctor’s office
10%
Healer/curandero
6%
In my own country
6%
Emergency room
1%
Migrant health clinic
1%

Further mitigating the possibility of bias is
the fact that the sample included workers
from at least half of the 42 contractors based
in Jackson and Josephine counties. Survey
respondents named 21 contractors based in
these two counties and 3 based in other
counties as their employers. A few
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respondents gave names of 3 employers that
were not identifiable on the Oregon Bureau
of Labor and Industry’s list of licensed
farm/forest labor contractors, and 4
respondents declined to name their
employers.

safety training, and routine violation of labor
laws are common in the forest ecosystem
restoration industry. In short, they indicate
that worker abuse is quite widespread. They
also suggest that occupational injuries occur
at much higher rates than official estimates
and that failure to report on-the-job injuries
occurs frequently. This conclusion is
consistent with other research which has
shown that the major systems for counting
occupational injuries in the U.S. undercount
them by as much as several hundred
percent.11

It is also important to consider the reticence
of workers to talk outside of a trusted circle
of family and friends about problems at
work. During the pretest of the
questionnaire, one worker, who the
interviewers knew to have many grievances
with his employer, held back, revealing very
little in his responses to the survey questions
about what he considers poor working
conditions and unfair treatment at work.
Although we were able to determine, in the
case of this worker, that his responses
painted his employer in a more favorable
light than his informal conversations have, it
is impossible to know how worker reticence
might have influenced the answers of other
survey respondents.

Decisive action is clearly needed to improve
working conditions for forest workers. We
recommend taking the following steps.
Effect policy changes.
Revise agency regulations to ensure
that employers cannot circumvent
training requirements and that
workers and their supervisors receive
verifiable training in using
equipment safely, in safe working
techniques, in recognizing and
avoiding hazardous workplace
practices, and in first aid and CPR.
Revise agency regulations to require
Forest Service and Bureau of Land
Management officials to inspect for
labor law compliance. Although such
compliance is stipulated in agency
contracts, agency inspectors usually
inspect only to assure that the work
on the land meets the specifications
of the contract. They should include
verification that the contractor is
complying with all applicable labor
laws in their regularly scheduled
inspections.

Taking all of this into consideration, we
believe that the sample of workers in this
survey includes a cross section of forest
workers in Jackson and Josephine counties.
While some workers may be given to
overstatement, others may understate their
difficulties at work. The results of this
survey are consistent with the findings of
other research,1,2,3,11 and we are confident
that they give an accurate depiction of
working conditions in the forest ecosystem
restoration industry in southern Oregon.
Conclusions and Recommendations
The results of this survey suggest that wage
theft, unsafe working conditions, lack of
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Partner/collaborate with community-based
organizations to assist with monitoring of
violators.

Create a database accessible to the
public providing information on
inspections – when and where they
occurred, violations that were found,
and corrective actions taken.
Require contractors to certify that
they are in compliance with all labor
laws.

Community-based organizations can
act as “eyes and ears” for
enforcement agencies, alerting them
to violations such as workers being
required to buy their own safety
equipment and not getting paid for
all the hours they work. Enforcement
agencies should create opportunities
for partnerships in multi-party
monitoring of working conditions.

Improve enforcement.
Increase funding for enforcement
agencies to hire more investigators
and other staff.
Conduct more inspections of labor
intensive service contracts to assure
compliance with labor laws
including health and safety
requirements.
Improve coordination among land
management agencies and the
Department of Labor. DOL can
provide training to Forest Service
and BLM contracting officers and
their representatives on inspecting
for labor law compliance, and the
land management agencies can
provide timely information on
current contracts to DOL to assist
with its enforcement actions.
Improve oversight to assure that
employers make honest efforts to
recruit U.S.-based workers before
bringing in H-2B workers.
Investigative journalism found that
employers frequently circumvent the
rules for determining whether U.S.
workers are available to fill job
openings when seeking certification
to bring in foreign temporary
laborers on H-2B visas.12

Address the issue of below cost contracting.
A driving force of the abuse of forest
workers is contract prices that are so
low that contractors cannot possibly
pay prevailing wages, comply with
health and safety regulations and still
earn a profit. While federal agencies
have regulations and procedures in
place to assure that contracts are let
at reasonable prices, it is not clear
how effective these are. Therefore,
the extent to which contracts are let
below cost needs to be investigated,
and policies need to be crafted to
assure that contract prices reflect
reasonable expected costs.
Fully use best-value contracting in service
and stewardship contracts on public lands.
Reward contractors that perform
high quality work, pay wages that
enable workers to meet the needs of
their families and save for future
needs and goals (such as college),
and are attentive to worker safety.
12

 Healthy Forests, Abused Workers

Alliance of Forest Workers and Harvesters

forest workers) established in the
2008 Farm Bill, should be fully
funded.

Allow and encourage contractors to
include costs of training workers in
their bid prices.
Package contracts for long-term
employment. The Forest Service can
package related projects in a given
locale to be accomplished over an
extended period of time in order to
provide longer-term work to
workers.

Protect workers’ rights to form unions, and
crack down on employers who violate the
National Labor Relations Act by coercing,
intimidating or firing workers who attempt
to form unions.
Unions can hold employers
accountable to meeting their
obligations with regard to wages and
safe working conditions.

Fully fund training programs for workers.
Training programs in occupational
safety and health and workers’ rights
have proven effective in improving
working conditions for farm
workers, and the Alliance is
currently implementing a training
program that focuses explicitly on
the unique hazards that forest
workers face. Programs that support
such efforts, such as the Grants to
Improve the Agricultural Labor
Workforce Program (which includes

Taking these actions will go a long way
toward improving working conditions for
the workers who do the intensive labor
required to maintain the health of America’s
forests. It takes excellent forestry to assure
sustainability of forests, and treating the
workers who care for the land with respect is
essential to achieving excellence in forest
stewardship.

13

 Healthy Forests, Abused Workers

Alliance of Forest Workers and Harvesters

References
1

Mary Bauer, Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States, Montgomery, AL:
Southern Poverty Law Center, 2007.
2

Tom Knudson and Hector Amezcua, “The Pineros: Men of the Pines,” Sacramento Bee, 13
November 2005, Series, accessed 9/12/11, http://www/sacbee.com/content/news/projects/pineros.
3

Brinda Sarathy, Pineros: Latino Labour and the Changing Face of Forestry in the Pacific
Northwest, University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 2012.
4

Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Table 1. Incidence rates of nonfatal occupational Injuries and
Illnesses by industry and case types, 2010,” accessed 4/10/12, http://www.bls.gov/iif/#tables.
5

Rhonda Thompson, “Oregon Forest Industry: A Comparison of Occupational Safety and Health
Measures, 2010,” Information Management Division, Department of Consumer and Business
Services, 2011, accessed 4/12/12, http://www.cbs.state.or.us/imd/rasums/4840/10web/10_4840.pdf.
6

Meredith Minkler, Pam Tau Lee, Alex Tom, Charlotte Chang, Alvaro Morales, Shaw San Liu,
Alicia Salvatore, Robin Baker, Feiyi Chen, Rajiv Bhatia, and Niklas Krause, “Using communitybased participatory research to design and initiate a study on immigrant worker health and safety in
San Francisco's Chinatown restaurants,” American Journal of Industrial Medicine, vol.53, no. 4,
2010, pp. 361-371.
7

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, Databases, Tables and
Calculators by Subject, NAICS 1153 Support activities for forestry, accessed 5/2/12, http://bls.gov.
8

US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, “Register of Wage Determinations Under
the Service Contract Act,” 17 June 2011, www.dol.gov.
9

National Institute of Mental Health, “Major Depressive Disorder Among Adults,” 2010,
accessed 9/12/11, http://www.nimh.nih.gov/statistics/1MDD_ADULT.shtml.
10

Canadian Centre for Occupational Safety and Health, “Raynaud’s Phenomenon,” accessed
4/12/12, http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/diseases/raynaud.html#_1_6.
11

Lenore Azaroff, Charles Levenstein, and David Wegman, “Occupational Injury and Illness
Surveillance: Conceptual Filters Explain Underreporting,” Public Health Matters, vol. 92, no. 9,
2002, pp. 1421-1429.
12

Keith Chu, “Feds: Contractors fall short in hiring, Forest stimulus contractors do the minimum
before hiring foreign workers,” The (Bend, Oregon) Bulletin, 10 October 2010, online edition,
accessed 4/14/12, http://www.bendbulletin.com.

14

 For more information contact:
Carl Wilmsen
The Alliance of Forest Workers and Harvesters
P.O. Box 6722
Albany, CA 94706
Tel: (510) 525-4053
Email: alliancefwh@sbcglobal.net

Diane Bush
Labor Occupational Health Program
University of California, Berkeley
2223 Fulton St., 4th Floor
Berkeley, CA 94720-5120
Tel: (510) 643-2424
Email: dbush@berkeley.edu