AUGUSTA – One man’s desire to make up for lost work time and possibly wages the day before caused him to speed to a job site Thursday. That decision cost the man his life and claimed the lives of 13 of his co-workers in a traffic accident in the Allagash Wilderness Waterway.

The men, who were foreign workers from Guatemala and Honduras, were being paid “by the piece,” a rate that usually brings a higher paycheck than a prevailing hourly wage. But they were not under orders from the company to hurry back to the site and finish what was not done the day before, said Keith Hansen, a Bangor-based project manager for their employer, Evergreen Forestry Services of Idaho.

“It’s only a self-imposed motivator,” said Hansen, who stood outside of a press conference Friday. “We’re not a time-card punching company.”

At the press conference, the lone survivor of the accident said rain fell while they were working Wednesday, and that cut short the crew’s usual 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. work day by four hours.

Edilberto Morales-Luis, 24, of Guatemala said his foreman wanted to get back to work quickly Thursday. It would take 21/2 hours to get from their home in Caribou to the work site, and the foreman had arrived late to pick them up, he said.

“We were not in a particular rush to get there, but the foreman seemed to be in a rush because of the rain [the day before],” said a distraught Morales-Luis.

State police say excessive speed, between 60 and 70 mph on a wet, muddy logging road, was the cause of the accident. The 15-person van blew a tire as it approached the John’s Bridge, fishtailed and subsequently flipped off the bridge into 15 feet of water.

A decision on whether to work earlier or faster to make up for lost work time “usually” is made by the crew’s foreman and not by the company that hires them, said Vaughn LeBlanc of the Maine Department of Labor, who certifies foreign workers that are employed in the state.

“A company will say, ‘This is what we need to do and this is how to do it,'” LeBlanc said. “The foreman decides how to do it. That’s the job of the foreman.”

That is who probably told the workers that he wanted to make up for lost time, LeBlanc said.

“He might say, ‘Let’s make our deadline here, we have a job to do,'” said LeBlanc, who noted that foremen generally are paid more than crews.

Wages and work status

The 15 foreign workers hired by Evergreen Forestry Services each were being paid $75 per acre to thin trees, Hansen said.

“If a guy has cut 10 acres, he’s going to get $750,” Hansen said.

Each worker also would receive $5 a day for gas for their equipment and other expenses. If production fell below specifications because of rain, for example, the workers would be paid the prevailing wage of $10.40 per hour, Hansen said.

LeBlanc said, “They can make good money if they do the piece rate.”

Under their visa status as foreign workers employed in the logging industry in the United States, the crew workers are to be guaranteed pay for 40 hours of work each week, LeBlanc said.

The 15 men were classified by the state as foreign workers and not migrant workers. Foreign workers carry a specialized “work visa to do a specific job for a specific time period for a specific employer,” LeBlanc said. A company that hires foreign workers must file an itinerary with state labor departments to show the general areas where the workers will be.

Overall, about 5,850 foreign workers are certified in Maine, and Evergreen Forestry Services has certified about 340 of them.

A migrant worker, on the other hand, is someone, either with a “green card” or a U.S. citizen, who can work anywhere in the country without being certified by state labor departments, LeBlanc said.

“You could be a migrant worker,” he said, “if you don’t work for the same employer every year and half your income comes from agriculture.”

Earlier this year, Evergreen Forestry Services filed a required itinerary with the state’s labor department that listed how many foreign workers they would be employing in the state and in what general areas they would be working from April to November. Evergreen Forestry Services stated it would have 340 workers either planting or thinning trees in the Fort Kent, Caribou, Jackman, Rangeley and Greenville areas of Maine, and in the Stewartstown area of New Hampshire.

“Due to the nature of the work, it is not done in a city but I have tried to list the closest major city to the general area,” an unidentified representative of Evergreen Forestry Services wrote on the itinerary.

Contracts

Evergreen Forestry Services was under a contract from UAP Timberlands of Arkansas and its subsidiary, Pinebelt Inc. of Old Town, to supply the foreign workers to thin trees in parts of Maine. The foreign workers involved in the accident were heading to property managed by Seven Islands Land Co. and owned by Pingree Associates, one of the largest landowners in New England with more than 900,000 acres, mostly in northern Maine.

Late Thursday, questions remained as to which company actually employed and paid the foreign workers. Under certification rules, there could not be a subcontract between the certified company and another firm particularly if that other firm was paying the workers, LeBlanc said.

On Friday, LeBlanc said Evergreen paid the workers, and even though they had a subcontract with UAP Timberlands/Pinebelt, it was his understanding that Evergreen met the certification requirements for foreign workers.

Ronald Lemin, forestry team manager for UAP Timberlands’ office in Old Town, said his company is not directly involved with the workers. UAP Timberlands hired Evergreen Forestry Services, and that he has paperwork from Evergreen to show that it met all federal certification standards.

“We don’t touch the migrant workers, we don’t pay them,” Lemin said.

Lemin said UAP Timberlands/Pinebelt was hired by Seven Islands to map the sites that need to be thinned, and after it is completed, inspect the properties to see that the work was completed according to specifications, and that UAP hired Evergreen to do the job, he said.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s wage and hour division inspected all contracts between UAP Timberlands and Evergreen Forestry Services regarding the work that was to be done and by how many foreign workers, he said.

Michael Frett, director of the state labor department’s worker protection division, said he could not find any wrongdoing in the certification process by Evergreen Forestry Services. The state labor department does not have jurisdiction to investigate accidents involving workers, he said, but it refers all incidents either to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration or the U.S. Wage and Hour Division.

“There is nothing about this accident or this incident to suggest improper conduct by the employer,” Frett said.

LeBlanc said every year he meets with Evergreen’s Hansen to review certification policies.

“Keith is a straight shooter, he’s just a nice guy,” LeBlanc said. “He does it by the book.”

John Chavez, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Labor in Boston, said he could not comment on “an open and ongoing investigation.”

Insurance

Evergreen Forestry Services on Friday filed its initial report of an accident with injuries with its insurance company, Liberty Mutual of Massachusetts, said Peter Smith III, president of Evergreen Forestry Services. Other reports will be filed in the next couple of weeks.

“Even though the police said we needed to wait for their identification, we’re pretty sure we know who was in the van, sad to say,” Smith said. “We’re so devastated by [the accident] that sometimes it’s hard to even think.”

Liberty Mutual investigator Craig Miller, who watched Friday’s press conference, said he received the workers’ compensation claim, and that he could not comment on it.

The 15 foreign workers were riding in a 2002 Dodge Ram van rented by Evergreen Forestry Services from Thrifty rental. Hansen said Evergreen Forestry Services had the required insurance for the workers to use the van.

LeBlanc said under the federal Migrant Seasonal Workers Protection Act, a company that provides transportation must carry a minimum of $1 million in liability insurance on the van.

“We’re trying to determine if these workers are owed worker’s compensation,” he said.

Vans

The safety record of 15-passenger vans is something that U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe said she wants to look at.

On Friday, in a statement, Snowe said a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed that fully loaded vans are 40 percent more likely to roll over than those with lighter loads, primarily during times when drivers make abrupt accident-avoidance maneuvers.

She said she is calling for a full briefing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation to evaluate the safety of 15-passenger vans.

“The van’s handling characteristics may not have been the primary cause in this incident,” Snowe added.

Typically 15-passenger vans are used in van pools, church and school outings, and as transportation to and from airports, Snowe said.

“Given their frequent use in transporting larger groups, I believe it is important to quantify the safety of these vehicles, particularly during accident avoidance, with greater clarity.”