WikiHome

Migrant Workers

James V. Hamilton, PhD
Instructor of Forestry, Haywood Community College, North Carolina

In the United States, migrant workers historically have played a role in filling labor needs. Since the mid-20^th century, a majority of the immigrant workforce in the United States has been predominantly nonwhite, non-English speaking, and emigrating from Latin America, the Caribbean, or Asia (Edmonston and Passel 1994).  During World War II, the Bracero program was initiated by Congress to allow hundreds of thousands of guestworkers from Mexico to work temporarily in the United States as the domestic labor force shifted to support the war effort (Reimers 1992). While this program ended in 1964, the number of Spanish-speaking immigrant workers in the United States has surged since the early 1980s due to changes in immigration policies and an influx of undocumented workers, primarily from Mexico. Migration of workers from Mexico has also shifted from traditional “gateway” states such as Texas, California, and Florida to other states—particularly in the Southeast. Between 1990 and 2000, Hispanic population growth in North Carolina, Arkansas, and Georgia surpassed 300 percent (Kochar et al. 2005).    

Within forestry-based and wood products industries, migrant workers fill many niches. Sawmills and logging operations, furniture manufacturers, tree-planting contract crews, and greenhouse and nursery industries rely on immigrant workers due to tighter labor markets, global competition, and an availability of migrants seeking work due to the economic disparity between the United States and its southern neighbors. While some migrant workers have transitioned into forestry jobs from seasonal agricultural work or other industry sectors, many forestry-based industries and labor contractors recruit workers directly from their host countries.

Under the 1986 Immigration and Reform Control Act (IRCA), the H-2A and H-2B guestworker visa programs allow U.S. employers to legally hire workers temporarily for unskilled jobs that cannot be filled by American workers. While employers in the food processing, landscaping, and service industries hire many of these temporary workers, the majority of permits and visas for this program are issued to forestry employers or labor contractors that service forest industries (McDaniel and Cassanova 2005). Under new forest management initiatives and tightened budgets, the U.S. Forest Service has become increasingly reliant on private contract crews, many comprised of migrant workers, to clear brush, reforest tracts, and implement management on national forests. Contractors also utilize large numbers of migrant workers to staff private fire-fighting crews, which have become more common in the western states during fire season.

In the southeastern United States, migrant workers make up the majority of tree-planting crews hired to reforest private and commercial timberlands. In the major Christmas tree producing states—Oregon, North Carolina, and Michigan—over half of the industry’s workforce is comprised of migrant workers (Hamilton 2004). In North Carolina, the furniture manufacturing industry recruited large numbers of skilled craftsmen from Mexico in the early 1990s as local workers left factories for higher paying “white-collar” jobs (Tewari 2005). While the majority of immigrant workers in these industries come from Mexico, many come from other Central American countries, the Caribbean, and even South America. 

Migrant workers are also major participants in nontimber forest products markets. Enterprises such as collecting pine straw for landscaping, picking wild floral greens, and harvesting nutraceutical products from the forest are popular means of seasonal employment or additional income. In the Pacific Northwest, Hispanic and Asian immigrants compete for wild mushrooms and floral greens like salal (Gaultheria shallon) (Ballard 2003). In North Carolina, 90% of galax (Galax urceolata) is wild-harvested for the European floral greens market by Hispanics who now greatly outnumber the local residents who traditionally picked leaves for decades (Emery, Ginger, and Chamberlain 2006). The harvesting of nontimber forest products on public lands has presented additional challenges for the US Forest Service, the National Park Service, and other public land agencies. The language barrier has an impact on permitting, enforcement, and safety in areas where harvesting is common. Cultural differences and conflicts also arise between immigrants and locals as these new industry participants have sparked dialogue on resource exploitation, sustainability, and equitable treatment by natural resource management agencies (Hansis 1998; Salazar 1996; Schelhas 2002).  

Employers and labor contractors in forestry and other industry sectors have faced scrutiny of legal status, occupational safety, housing, and wage exploitation issues regarding their migrant labor force. Media coverage of these “hidden” worker populations and occupational safety data have shed light on higher workplace injury rates and training shortcomings among the migrant workforce. The dynamic and rural nature of the migrant workforce in the forestry sector poses challenges to employers, researchers, and regulators alike in addressing these issues. However, despite struggling with these concerns, employers generally tout a strong work ethic and recognize the significant contribution that these workers make to the forestry industry in the United States.

References

Ballard, H. 2003. Harvester knowledge and science: participatory research on the impacts of harvesting salal (Gaultheria shallon). Proceedings of the Rural Sociological Society 2003 Annual Meeting, Montreal, Quebec.
Edmonston, Barry and Jeffrey Passel, eds. 1994.Immigration and ethnicity: the integration of America’s newest arrivals. Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute.

Emery, M., Ginger, C. and J. Chamberlain. 2006. “Migrants, markets and management of natural resources in western North Carolina.” In The new South: Latinos and the transformation of place. Furuseth, Owen J. and Heather Smith, eds. London: Ashgate Publishing.

Hamilton, James V. Jr. 2004. The dynamics of labor in North Carolina's Christmas tree industry. Doctoral Dissertation. Department of Forestry, North Carolina State University, Raleigh.

Hansis, R. 1998. A political ecology of picking: non-timber forest products in the Pacific Northwest. Human Ecology 26 (1): 49-68.

Kochar, R., Suro, R. and S. Tafoya. 2005. The new Latino South: the context and consequences of rapid population growth. A report for the Pew Hispanic Trust. http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/50.1.pdf  (accessed May 15, 2006).

McDaniel, J. and V. Cassanova. 2005. Forest management and the H2B guest worker program in the Southeastern United States: an assessment of contractors and their crews. Journal of Forestry 103 (3): 114-119.
Reimers, David M. 1992. Still the golden door: the third world comes to America, 2^nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press.

Salazar, D. J. 1996. Environmental justice and a people's forestry. Journal of Forestry 94 (11): 32-36. 
Schelhas, J. 2002. Race, ethnicity, and natural resources in the United States: a review. Natural Resources Journal 42 (4): 723-763. 

Tewari, Meena. 2005. Non-local forces in the historical evolution and current transformation of North Carolina's Furniture Industry. In The American South in a global world. J. Peacock, H. Watson and M. Mathews, eds. Chapel Hill and London: UNC Press.