It should have surprised no one in Maine that the logging report recently issued by the state’s Department of Labor offered neither clear culprits nor easy answers. The questions of how Canadian bonded labor affects wages and the influence of mechanization on the price of wood are complex, and the report reflects this.

In short, the report concludes that in some areas of Maine, the presence of Canadian loggers has some negative affect on wages, but that other factors are more important statewide. Geography plays a part, as do the distribution of land ownership and the increasing trend toward mechanical harvesting. With only about 400 H-2 bonded Canadians of the 3,800 loggers working in Maine last year and an ongoing shortage of workers in the industry, it is understandable that the report would look elsewhere for the source of depressed wages.

The average logger, according the report prepared by Pan Atlantic Consultants and The Irland Group, works 41 weeks a year and earns a gross logging income of $31,505. Many loggers may disagree with this figure and the general public might conclude the work pays well. But long, hard hours under difficult conditions and increasing demands for skills and machinery make this wage hard won. And for many loggers, the only increase in income during the last 15 years has come through improved productivity; the price per cord has either remained flat or fallen.

The report makes several recommendations that would reclassify some logging jobs, better define wage scales for specific work and alter the way bonded labor is surveyed, among other things. They changes probably are useful in producing incremental improvements in wage conditions, but it is difficult to see how they would make the Allagash workers, whose protests first got the Labor Department involved in re-examining bonded labor, feel anymore secure about their future employment.

It does, however, give the Legislature a base on which to build a further investigation of the economic conditions in the logging industry. By giving lawmakers analyses of various components of logging, the report should also lead to more concrete answers and a far better public understanding of what it takes to work in the Maine woods.