Help for pineros vowed

Forest Service chief wants big changes

By Tom Knudson -- Bee Staff Writer
Published Thursday, December 1, 2005

Mauricio Ontiveros, without safety goggles or ear protection, clears brush in June at Bullards Bar Reservoir in Yuba County. Sacramento Bee/Hector Amezcua

The head of the U.S. Forest Service vowed Wednesday to change the way the agency supervises labor contracts nationwide to better protect migrant Latino forest workers - known as pineros - from injury and abuse on the job.

The proposals for sweeping reforms, including demanding that agency personnel shut down unsafe job sites on the spot, came in the wake of a three-part Sacramento Bee investigation that uncovered a rash of injuries and hazardous working conditions among the estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Latino workers who do most of the planting and thinning on federal and private forest land across the country.

"My biggest frustration out of this is I want the Forest Service to have a culture of safety," U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth said Wednesday in his first public comments since the series was published Nov. 13-15. "And that means safety for everybody."

Bosworth expressed concern that migrant workers were being hurt and exposed to abuse on jobs overseen by the Forest Service but that little was being done to correct the problems.

The Bee found that Forest Service job inspectors, formally called contracting officer representatives, often jotted notes about injuries, hazardous conditions and poor treatment in their work diaries but did not act on them. By contrast, errors in tree planting and thinning were quickly attended to.

"Two guys knew how to thin but the other three were rank beginners that did not know much about running a chain saw," wrote one contracting officer's representative on the Shasta Trinity National Forest in 2003. "After a little while of them trying to ... learn all at once, a decision was made .... to have them just cut up the slash behind the good cutters and this worked well."

Dale Bosworth

Within days of the stories' publication, Bosworth sent a memo to regional foresters outlining his plans for corrective action.

"I do not expect everyone to become an expert in immigration law, on OSHA regulations or on the wage-and-benefits laws administered by the Department of Labor," he wrote. But when his employees "become aware of possible violations in any of these areas, I expect them to promptly report the situation to the appropriate oversight agency."

Bosworth also called for immediate action to prevent injuries and accidents. When migrant workers are discovered toiling without safety gear - a common occurrence on Forest Service jobs - "don't let them work," he wrote. "When these situations occur, (employees) must take action, just as we would with our own employees."

Related Information

Read memo from Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth

Migrant advocates generally were upbeat about Bosworth's plans for improving job safety.

"It's a huge leap forward," said Rebecca Smith, an attorney with the National Employment Law Project in Washington. "It's great they're starting to look at the whole context, not just the trees but the workers as well."

In California, the Forest Service official who oversees the hiring of private labor contractors - who in turn hire the migrant laborers - said Bosworth's action was definitely necessary.

"My gut feeling tells me we're fairly inconsistent" about ensuring safe working conditions for migrant laborers, said Doug Lee, a director at the Forest Service's regional headquarters in Vallejo. "Some contracting officers' representatives are sticklers about safety and health. Others might not see it the same way."

In California, Lee said the Forest Service plans to team up with the U.S. Department of Labor to educate forest contract officers - and forest contractors - about safety and migrant labor law.

Gerald Hall, deputy regional administrator for the Department of Labor in San Francisco, said his agency also is stepping up its oversight of migrant forest labor across California, Oregon and Washington.

This is not the first time the Forest Service has found itself in the spotlight over migrant labor. Twelve years ago, a House committee report chastised the agency for tolerating abusive conditions among contractors employing Latinos on federal jobs.

A hearing was held. Reforms were promised. The problems endured. Georgia reforestation contractor David Ellis chalked it up to simple economics.

"The U.S. Forest Service is all about saving money and passes the buck to the Nation at large for their policy of hear no evil see no evil," Ellis wrote in an e-mail. "I have seen and heard with my own ears and eyes how the Forest Service (personnel) boast about saving money on contractors who housed Mexicans in tents on the job site, no water, no toilet, no shower, just the low bidder!"

Asked why the problem has resurfaced, Lee said: "It's hard to put your thumb on any specific thing."

He speculated that high turnover among contract personnel who oversee reforestation and thinning work might be a factor. "Our people get experience in one area and then move on to another region," he said.

However, Bosworth said the problems now are different. In 1993, focus was on the hypocrisy of undocumented migrant laborers hired to toil on federal land. Although undocumented workers remain a presence, Bosworth said: "I believe we've made gains" and "now the issue is safety."

To make jobs less risky, Bosworth said he wants to create more accountability at the field level by removing any ambiguity in Forest Service employment contract language so that those overseeing work know exactly what constitutes a violation of labor law - and what to do about it.

Inspector Carla Kempen, left, also in June, checks a tree-planting job in the Tahoe National Forest. The Forest Service chief wants to halt jobs if proper gear isn't being used. Sacramento Bee/Hector Amezcua

Bosworth also said job inspectors must watch for potential problems, including the substandard living conditions and payroll conflicts reported in the Bee.

"It they have suspicions that people are being taken advantage of, cheated out of their money and forced to live in poor places, they need to know who to get in touch with - and they need to do that in a prompt manner," he said.

In his memo, Bosworth directed agency employees to pay more attention to the track records of forest contractors. Scores of contractors compete for Forest Service work, yet records show the agency has frequently awarded jobs to those with histories of worker mistreatment.

"Documented violations must be a factor in evaluating future bids and awarding contracts," Bosworth wrote.

But Maria Andrade, an attorney who has worked with migrants in Boise, Idaho, said that idea was too general and too easily skirted by contractors who tend to change their company names when they run afoul of the law.

"It would be helpful to know how many violations of law a contractor needs to have before they are banned," she said. "And will the Forest Service look beyond the company names to find out if there are repeat offenders running the business?"

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