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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 19, 2016)
News Page 4 Street Roots • Feb. 19-25, 2016 Two Lomakatsi employees clear and bum brush at Table Rock in Southern Oregon. Lomakatsi is a nonprofit that collaborates with native tribes, cities and other nonprofits to complete restoration projects while providing benefits to the area communities. Timber’s fallen: Part III Grassroots efforts show improving working conditions in Oregon's reforestation industry is possible THE SERIES This is the final installment of a three-part series on the working conditions and treatment of immigrant forestry workers. Read previous articles in this series at hews. streetroots.org. BY EMILY GREEN what he saw. “The land was being devastated by big industry, and the workers were being arko Bey was sitting in on the exploited,” he said. squatters’ movement and Three decades later, healthier forest organizing soup kitchens on New policies have emerged to circumvent York City’s Lower East Side when he set his wholesale devastation of the land, but abuse sights on the Pacific Northwest. and exploitation of immigrant forestry He was 19 when he arrived in Oregon. workers endures. He heeded to work, so he took a job Advocates and reforestation operators say planting trees. effective policy changes will need to come Today he coordinates large-scale from the top down - whether that means ecological restoration projects in Southern changes in government contracting policies, Oregon, but back then, he was an idealistic a better strategy for enforcing labor laws, kid who just wanted to stop clear-cutting. stiffer penalties for serious safety violations, It was 1987, and an increasing number of or all of the above. tree planters and other reforestation During its September meeting, Oregon’s workers in America’s forests were Hispanic Environmental Justice Task Force listened immigrants. It was a shift from 10 years to Latino forest workers and farmworkers earlier when hippies and other Anglo testify about their experiences with wage outliers were filling these jobs. theft, dangerous working conditions, Bey worked across Oregon and Northern exposure to toxic chemicals, and retaliation California throughout his 20s under a for reporting violations and injures. handful of reforestation contractors. Since then, the task force has been He said he enjoyed the camaraderie formulating recommendations for better among crewmembers but was troubled by STAFF WRITER M protecting these vulnerable workers, which it will forward to Gov. Kate Brown. Task force chair Ben Duncan said in an email, “The testimony we heard in September moved all of us, for its passion, its pain, and perhaps most importantly, for our work, for hope in a better future for those in our state who are most impacted by environmental and workplace hazard.” He said the task force will work with state agencies to provide more information to workers about their rights and-will examine current enforcement investigations to ensure training is adequate and protective of workers. U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, who’s taken up issues around H-2B guest workers, said more needs to be done to protect all Oregon workers. The H-2B non-agricultural worker visa program allowed for more than 800 foreign workers, primarily from Latin America, to fill forestry jobs in Oregon in 2013. Riders See TIMBER, page 5
