Street Roots • Feb. 19-25, 2016
Editorial
Page 3
Write io
Oregon needs to protect all its workers
| ^wo workforces coexist in Oregon: One
that enjoys the protection of labor and
J- safety laws, and one that does not
For three decades, thousands of Latin
American immigrant and guest workers have
performed much of the most grueling work
in Oregon’s forests. Many have been
exploited, intimidated and subjected to
dangerous working conditions, but
widespread fear of retaliation keeps their
plight largely in the
shadows.
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Today, Street Roots
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concludes its three-part
series on their plight.
After interviews with
workers and their family
members, discussions with state and federal
industry regulators and forestry experts -
and after a review of hundreds of government
inspection records, it is clear the status quo
is doing little to protect these workers from
wage theft, dangerous working conditions,
and in some cases even death.
Telling workers to speak up and report
their employers for violations is not the
answer. That’s asking them to risk a job that
they cannot afford to lose.
On the siurface, Oregon is a state that
cares about worker protections. Last session
legislators passed a sick leave law and
banned the criminal record box on most job
applications. This session a steep minimum
wage hike has already passed through the
senate after community groups and advocates
built a momentum around bringing the state
closer to a living wage.
And yet, in Oregon’s forests, many workers
fear being fired for reporting injuries - in
some cases injuries as serious as an on-the-
job amputation.
Many are denied rest breaks, overtime pay
and adequate safety gear while working long,
laborious hours in extreme temperatures -
sometimes without access to drinking water.
At night they sleep eight to a single motel
room.
And the majority of the time, it’s tax
dollars going into the pockets of their
employers.
Companies that violate safety and labor
laws continue to win contracts under the
J|you would like
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to have
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something
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U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land
Management.
It’s time to let policy makers know it’s not
OK to spend tax dollars on work performed
by people who are being exploited.
In Salem, the governor’s Environmental
Justice Task Force has been listening to
testimony from field and forest workers and
is working to tackle some of these issues.
Any plan of action will have to include both
policy makers and community partners with
the following goals:
• Passing legislation to change the
agriculture and forestry inspection criteria
used by Oregon OSHA. Currently, workers
compensation claims play heavily into
deciding which employers are inspected, but
widespread fear of retaliation in reporting
workplace injuries discourages many workers
from ever filing workers compensation claims
in the first place. This results in a system
where law-abiding employers are more likely
to be inspected than those who intimidate
their workers.
• Providing resources to fund a team of
cooperating BOLI and OSHA investigators
and inspectors whose focus is reforestation
and farm inspection and enforcement.
Inspecting 5 percent of Oregon’s 284
reforestation contractors each year is not
enough.
• Drafting legislation to significantly
increase OSHA’s civil penalties for breaking
workplace safety laws. Oregon’s are currently
the lowest in the country for first time
offenses.
• Creating a licensing system for applying
pesticides and herbicides and for performing
reforestation activities. Oregonians must pass
a test to handle food, but not to apply toxic
chemicals or wield chainsaws.
• Making the ForestService contracting
policies more transparent, and conducting a
study to see if the Forest Service is setting
the stage for exploitation by awarding
contracts to unreasonably low bidders.
We appreciate the task force’s attention to
this important issue, and We encourage a
commitment to finding real and lasting
solutions to issues facing Oregon’s
reforestation and field workers.
you’ve
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like to get involved as a
member of our reporting staff,
contact Managing Editor Joanne Zuhl at
503-228-5657, joanne@streetroots.org.
We ask that all submissions include the
■thor’s name and contact iniorniat on,
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Joel Iboa holds up a
bottle of murky
water, showing the
Governor’s
Environmental
Task Force in
September what
immigrant laborers
are drinking at a
labor camp near
Medford in
Southern Oregon.
Seated next to him
is Dagoberto
Morales, founder
and director of
Southern Oregon
Center for
Farmworker
Advocacy.
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Eddie Barbosa, Rachel Langford, Marcus Swift
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PHOTO BY
NATALIE HARDWICKE