Legislative hearing for loggers Friday

FORT KENT – The Legislature’s Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee will hold a daylong hearing on new payment models for the logging industry starting at 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 12, in the Fox Auditorium at the University of Maine at Fort Kent.

The committee will hear testimony on logging and trucking rates, collective bargaining, independent contractor status, new scaling methods, timely payment, bonded labor and other logging issues.

By order of a joint resolution in the Legislature, the committee is directed to examine how logging contractors and their employees are paid, the impact of public policies on forest management, and state labor and educational policies pertaining to logger apprenticeship programs.

The committee will submit a report to the Legislature by Dec. 3.