Street Roots • May 27-June 2, 2016
Lawmakers pick up the mantle on timber workers
t is unconscionable that there are thousands of workers
in Oregon who would suffer injury, forego fair pay and
endure untenable living conditions out of fear of losing
their jobs.
It’s happening on our farms, in our hotels and
restaurants, and in our beloved forests, where reforestation
workers - most of them
immigrants - are laboring with
little or no tangible representation
™ for their rights.
In February, Street Roots investigated these working
conditions, and through a series of stories, turned the
heads of state lawmakers who are now taking the issue to
heart.
This week, the Oregon Senate Workforce Committee,
chaired by Sen. Michael Dembrow (D-PorÜand), took up
the issue of forest workers rights and abuses in a special
informational hearing. Lawmakers listened to accounts of
crowded living conditions, undrinkable water, debilitating
injuries, a demoralizing environment and in some cases
death.
The lawmakers should be applauded for pushing this
issue forward, as should the organizations that supported
the workers and the workers themselves who had the
courage to testify.
We trust lawmakers and the bureaucratic machinery in
Salem will honor the testimony of these laborers with real
action. And to make it easy, much of the improvements
don’t have to involve creating something new. It is about
following through with the laws that already exist, and
putting the resources behind the agencies charged to
I
EDITORIAL
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Editorial
enforce them.
This means increasing the budgets for enforcement, and
compelling the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land
Management - which are already inspecting many work
sites for compliance with project contracts - to work with
OSHA to conduct joint inspections so safety can be
examined at the same time.
Improving workforce conditions also means removing
the barriers to reporting problems, most notably the fear
of retaliation. That fear not only means serious issues go
unreported, it also skews the reports that do exist: The
worst offenders, those who intimidate workers, have the
fewest complaints, and continue to receive government
contracts.
Other suggestions have practical applications on the
ground. Joel Iboa with the nonprofit Beyond Toxics calls
for supplying crews with water purification kits and
sanitation, and given the hazardous nature of herbicides
and pesticides applied by forest and field workers,
requiring that all applicators be licensed.
“We owe fair treatment to these workers.” Sen.
Dembrow said.
Yes, particularly considering that many of the people
employing them do so with our tax dollars.
So as the 2017 Legislative session starts ramping up, we
will look for real movement forward in fulfilling the charge
of our state agencies to ensure safe working conditions for
all workers. Oregonians are tired of oversight bureaus
functioning in name only. We can demand, and deserve,
fair treatment for all.
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Roots?
Contact Israel Bayer at israet@streetroots.org ■
Staff
Executive Director Israel Bayer
It’s time for real investments in housing
I
Israel Bayer is the
executive director o f
Street Roots. You can
reach h im at
israel@streetroots. org
o r follow him on
Twitter ®israelbayer.
have witnessed people suffering on the streets every
day - all day, year after year, for the past 15 years.
s k y ro c k e tin g in y o u r city. H u n d re d s of b a b y b o o m e r s o n
fixed incomes are retiring by the month and you re short
35,000 affordable housing units to support the very people
that made your city.great. What do you do? That’s the
They are traumatized. I am traumatized.
question everyone is asking.
People tell me on the streets that they are desperate to
One thing is clear. We need leadership and support from
find housing. It’s one tragic story after another. They also
all sectors of our community. The old way of doing
tell me how tent cities or
business isn’t working. Some would argue it never has.
encampments are keeping them
neither Folks
here nor there today. What we need are real
safe, especially That’s
for women.
housing
reforms
and massive investments in the affordable
BIBBCTOB*! describe to me just how important
housing stock in our community.
it is to have a small moment of
M SB
First things first: Editorial boards and the business
calm in the middle of a raging
community around the city should support newly
storm or the hell that is
By Israel Bayer
introduced legislation by the city for a construction excise
homelessness. They tell me these
tax. The tax, referred to as CET, is a 1 percent
encampments save their lives.
construction tax for both residential and commercial
“
I also work with a lot of people
developments. It’s a small price to pay for developers
in power — the politicos, the
media, the bureaucrats, the strategists, the do-gooders and given the opportunities it will create. The tax would
generate millions of dollars annually for affordable housing.
the affluent - who all care very deeply about the issue of
So why are we making it more expensive to build
homelessness. Working together, we all do our best try to
housing? News flash. It’s already expensive to build
capture opportunities for the collective good.
housing and the final costs for new development are
Still, on the issues of encampments, many people try to
already well beyond anything affordable that poor and
rationalize or debate why encampments or tent cities will
working people. Understanding that we are in dire need of
not work. We could do so much better. The neighborhoods
more affordable housing - we have to capture ongoing
will hate it. It’s a bad policy decision. We just need more
revenue on the construction boom we find ourselves.
shelter beds and housing for people on the streets. All
Beyond the construction excise tax, Portland needs deliver
points that I do not disagree with.
a housing bond on the November ballot measure. More
Unfortunately, the reality is that encampments do not
so, Gov. Kate Brown and the Oregon Legislature have to
exist in response to a rational approach to urban planning
deliver important legislation on no-cause evictions and
or a policy strategy or a philosophical approach to wor
ensure a massive investment in affordable housing around
with the homeless. Encampments exist simply because
the state
thousands of American citizens live in absolute poverty, on
After all, it’s not just Portland experiencing this
our streets, in one of the wealthiest communities on the
problem. There isn’t housing available for minimum wage
planet. They are living and breathing human beings
workers and elders up and down the coast, in the central
without a safe place to call home. There are no time-outs
valley and out on the range. It’s high times for some, and
for people on the streets. There is no walking away from
hard times for others in Oregon. To quote the great Woody
the situation that is homelessness.
Guthrie, California and in this case, Oregon is the Garden
I use the encampments as an example, because it
of Eden — a place to live in and to see, but believe it or
appears that no matter how we respond to the housing
not, you won’t find it so hot if you don’t have the do re mi.
crisis, our community finds itself on different ends of a
Doing nothing isn’t an option. If you think it’s bad now,
perspective, debating why things can’t be achieved instead
wait five or 10 years. It’s going to get a whole lot worse
of how things can be achieved.
before it gets better. It’s essential we come together as a
Imagine you were in charge of a city and you have
community and work together to tackle the problem.
thousands of people experiencing homelessness sleeping
on sidewalks, in public parks and under bridges. Rents are
israet@streetroot.otg
Managing Editor ioanne luW
\oanoe®skeetroofs.org
Vendor ProgramDirector Cote Merkel
R M B co/e@sireeiroois.org
Operations Director S arah B e e c ro ft
Development Director Sarah Cloud
Program Assistant Scott Jackson, Jesuit
Volunteer
Development Assistant Ann-Derrick
Gailfot
t Reporters Emily Green, Suzanne Zalokar,
Ann-Derrick Gaillot, Sarah Hansell, Leonora
Ko, Jared Paben, Amanda Waldroupe
Photographers Diego Diaz, Joe Giode,-
Ben Brink
Editorial Assistant Monica Kwasnik
Canvasser Desmond Hardison
Board of Directors
Chairman Brad Taylor
Vice-Chairman Rachel Langford
Treasurer Heather Stadick
Secretary Amber Bielman
Directors Bruce Anderson, Rich Rodgers,
Michael Anderson, Leo Rhodes, Nora Coon,
Marcus Swift
Volunteers
Jan Bayer, John Barker, Stacey Heath, Stephanie
Holum, Anjali Rathore, Zoe Klingmann, Haven
Herrin, Dan Jones, Rob Shyrock, Dennis Hogan,
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Jr., Jeanie Lunsford, Yasmin Amirsoleymani,
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If you are interested in volunteering with Street
Roots, please submit a volunteer application at
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