Extension Report

Baldwin County Extension Office

302A Byrne Street

Bay Minette, AL  36507

Telephone (251) 937-7176 or

928-0860/943-5611 ext. 2222

FAX (251) 937-7285

Beau Brodbeck

Regional Extension Agent

Forestry, Wildlife & Natural Resources

December 29, 2009

Migrant Forest Workers; Providing Opportunities or Exploitation?

Natural resource managers are forced to walk a fine line in contracting the labor necessary for managing forests in the forest products industry.   The balances between exploitation and opportunities for migrant laborers common in the forest products industry are difficult to comprehend and are certainly not likely to be in black and white.   Personally, I do not know where I stand on this “gray” topic.  However, in this article I hope to present the bare facts on both sides of this complex dilemma which have far reaching implications to the health of the forest products industry.

The southern United States has some of the world’s most intensively managed forests.  Seventy-nine percent of the total acres planted in trees in the United States were in the Southern region.  Most were planted by Latin American migrant laborers.  Research found that contractors complained American workers were unwilling to do manual labor. The need for cheap and reliable labor has driven the forest industry to seek labor outside our borders. 

According to research at Auburn University, migrant laborers plant the nearly 2 million acres of trees every winter in the South.  They are recruited through a temporary 9-month H-2B Guest Worker visa program.  H-2B migrant laborers, prevalent in the South since the late 1980’s have transformed the southern landscape from dwindling agriculture to booming forestry.

The H-2B Guest Worker program was implemented after the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.  This program was designed to prevent employers from hiring illegal workers.  It was designed to provide temporary labor to employers who could demonstrate a shortage of local labor in non-agriculture seasonal jobs. 

In 2004, migrant labor constituted 84 percent of the forest management labor force according to Auburn research.  Reforestation and herbicide applications are heavily dominated by migrant labor.    Dwindling profit margins and American laborers demanding higher wages led the forestry industry to depend on “imported” labor. 

In 2005, about 89,000 laborers worked under the H-2B program in forestry, seafood processing, landscaping, construction and other non-agriculture jobs.   The department of labor indicates that 13 percent work in the forest industry, leading all industries in the number of visas requested annually.

The forest industry needs laborers who view bottom level jobs as an opportunity to earn money.  For most Americans, physically demanding work with hourly wages not far above minimum wage is undesirable.  In contrast to American opinions, research has found that Latin American guest workers derive prestige and honor as a result of working in the U.S. and sending money home.  The opportunities of earning American dollars attract laborers to the potentially lucrative guest worker visas. 

For many migrant guest workers, forest industry jobs provide opportunities to improve their standards of living in their home countries.  Many guest laborers will sleep 4, 5, or 6 people to a hotel room to save money to send home to their families.  According to a 2004 report by the Latin American Economic System, monetary remittances entering Latin America and the Caribbean in 2002 were an estimated $24.4 billion.   

For many smaller Latin American countries with less productive economies, the remittance share of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was over 10 percent.    For many of these countries remittances surpassed the value of exported goods by more than 50 percent.  In other words, for countries like Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador their greatest export is labor.  Additionally, the internationalization of agriculture has reduced the number of jobs available in many agriculturally based economies in Latin American.

The Inter-American Development Bank estimates that 80 percent of remittances reaching Latin America come from the United States.  Remittances sent to family members are generally aimed at helping recipients cover basic needs such as housing (including construction), food, health, education, and a small fraction has been used to develop small business ventures.  The impacts of remittances are undisputable; these funds have improved living standards in many Latin American countries. 

However, there is a potentially exploitative nature to the H-2B visa program.  This subject has been the product of recent research, congressional hearings and groundbreaking legal cases over the past 5 years.  The H-2B

A Southern Poverty Law Center report says that the guest worker program, as it currently operates removes one of the fundamental protections of competitive labor markets, the ability to change jobs when mistreated.   H-2B Guest workers are bound to employers who hold their visas, which enable them to legally work in the United States. Research documented some contractors prefer workers with limited or no experience working in the United States.  They prefer hiring people from rural Latin American communities and often will not rehire the same worker for more than 5 years.  Workers with limited experience are unfamiliar with the system and are less likely to complain and are unable to simply walk off the job. 

Further research looked specifically at the reforestation sector.  Interviewed contractors and laborers pointed towards common exploitative tactics such as underpaying workers, inflating wages and recovering costs through charging guest workers exorbitant rates for tools, transportation, and money transfers. 

Additionally, the production requirements of between 1500 to 2000 planted trees per person per day, common among contractors, is only achievable by the toughest work hardened laborers.    Those unable are replaced creating what researchers have described as a “revolving door” system. 

As the program stands today, guest workers are “imported” laborers, with limited legal rights.  Some have gone as far as comparing the H-2B visa program to the “indentured servitude” system common in the 18th and 19th centuries.  .   It is clear that the forest industry depends on cheap reliable labor capable of performing the harsh jobs few Americans want.  Secondly, Latin American laborers appear willing to fill these positions as an opportunity to improve their living standards. 

Over the next few years there are likely to be changes in immigration laws governing many of the visas providing labor to the forest industry.   While the H-2B program, for the most part, appears to be working some believe it needs to allow workers the opportunity to transfer their visas between contractors.  A “free agent system” as Patrick McLaughlin, a researcher at the George Mason University, explained during the Domestic Policy Subcommittee Hearing in Washington.  This is only one suggestion among many ranging from terminating the program to leaving it be.  However one thing is certain, someone has fill to the jobs no one else will to keep the forest products industry in Alabama.

Latin American Laborers Carrying Firewood in Guatemala

Email address: brodbam@auburn.edu

Phone: 937-7176 or 943-5611, ext. 2222

The Alabama Cooperative Extension System (Alabama A&M and Auburn Universities) in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture is an equal opportunity educator and employer.