Guest workers or unauthorized immigrants? The case of forest workers in the United States

This study examines regional differences in the legal status of forest workers in the Pacific Northwest and Southeastern United States, using United States Department of Labor data and qualitative fieldwork in Alabama and Oregon. The authors find that there are significantly fewer H-2B guest workers on federal lands in Oregon than on privately owned forest plantations in Alabama, and the Southeast more generally. By contrast, numerous workers on federal lands in Oregon are undocumented. This difference may largely be explained by variations in the economies of scale in forest work in the Pacific Northwest (federal lands) and the Southeast (mainly private lands). The study also finds that there is no real difference in the working conditions of undocumented immigrants and guest workers—both groups face labor exploitation. Guest workers in the forest industry, many of whom have no previous work experience or access to social networks in the United States, face extreme isolation at worksites, are beholden to contractors, fear losing their jobs if they complain, and are generally unaware of their basic rights. By contrast, many undocumented forest workers in Oregon belong to established social networks through which they are recruited onto forest labor crews. However, unauthorized workers are also vulnerable to labor exploitation because they fear deportation and are obliged to their kin-employers. Policy recommendations to improve labor conditions and enforce existing labor laws for all forest workers include: better tracking of workers across states to monitor labor abuses, allocating more resources to state labor departments to facilitate worker outreach and worksite inspections, and better communication among land management officials and the Department of Labor.