By Tom Knudson -- Bee Staff Writer
Published Saturday, May 27, 2006
An amendment approved by the U.S. Senate Thursday as part of its sweeping immigration reform package would make it easier for Latino forest laborers toiling legally in the United States as guest workers to battle abusive employers in court.
Sponsored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat, amendment No. 4055 -- informally known as the pinero amendment -- would allow such workers to seek help from federally funded legal aid lawyers, a right now available only to guest workers in agriculture.
Guest workers who labor in the woods planting trees and thinning brush, on public and private land, "have been asked to come to the United States because of a labor shortage," Bingaman said this week on the Senate floor. "They are here legally. They pay U.S. taxes."
His move is the outgrowth of a November series published in The Bee, "The Pineros: Men of the Pines," that reported widespread wage exploitation and hazardous working conditions among Latino forest workers.
A hearing on the issue was held in March before the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests. At the hearing, "We heard that making H2-B forestry workers eligible for legal aid is the single most effective thing Congress could do to address the problem of exploitation of forestry workers," Bingaman told the Senate.
Michael Dale, executive director of the Northwest Workers' Justice Project in Portland who testified at the hearing and advocated just such a fix, reacted positively to Bingaman's action. "I think it's great," Dale said.
Bingaman's amendment was folded into a larger package of generally noncontroversial amendments and approved by the bill's bipartisan sponsors, Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, and Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat.
Its fate remains uncertain because the Senate bill, which calls for an expanded guest-worker program and a path to legalization for millions of undocumented workers, must now be reconciled with a more conservative House immigration bill.
Scott Miller, a legislative aide for Bingaman, said the amendment is a small piece of the debate over immigration reform but an important one for pineros, who are among the country's most neglected work forces.
"This will be the first domino that, after three decades, will clean up the industry," Miller said.
About the writer:
- The Bee's Tom Knudson can be reached at (530) 582-5336 or tknudson@sacbee.com.