Loggers speak out at hearing UMFK session centers on contracts, pricing

FORT KENT – Tony Theriault works 70 to 80 hours a week hauling logs from the Maine woods. He maintains he makes less money now than he did 19 years ago, when he bought his first truck.

On Friday, Theriault told a hearing of the Legislature’s Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Joint Committee that he grosses $700 to $800 a week less than he did in 1984, when fuel and repairs were cheaper and the cost of a new truck was 30 percent less than it is today.

Theriault, 43, told lawmakers he is frustrated that he – and hundreds of others like him – are not allowed collective bargaining when dealing with large landowners and companies that set prices in the logging industry.

“No one ever sat down with me to negotiate trucking rates,” he said. “They give me a rate and say, ‘Take it or go home.'”

Theriault was among a dozen people who testified at the daylong hearing at the University of Maine at Fort Kent. Between 40 and 60 people attended the hearing at various times during the day.

The committee is looking at new payment models for the logging industry. It is taking 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 is scheduled to submit a report to the Legislature by Dec. 3.

“Why can someone who plays baseball be allowed to negotiate a contract for $200 million over a lifetime, and we can’t do it?” Theriault said. “We work like everyone else, and we are just as good at what we do, as anyone is playing baseball.”

“Loggers” is a term that includes every job in the woods – from the person who handles a chainsaw to the operators of wood harvesters to truckers. They are all professionals, Theriault told the legislators. He said he has driven 2 million miles without an accident or traffic summons.

State Rep. William Smith, D-Van Buren, testified that there are no “employees” in the North Woods.

“There are people controlled by landowners, and they are called independent contractors. Contracts, developed by lawyers in high-powered firms, can only be terminated by the landowner, as they are one-way contracts,” he said. “It’s take the rate or go home.”

State Rep. Troy Jackson, I-Fort Kent, has been a logger for 15 years. He said workers are controlled by intimidation and the lack of bargaining power.

Sen. John L. Martin, D-Eagle Lake, said he was “frankly shocked” when he learned the state Department of Labor had approved 649 requests for bonded labor this season.

“They are taking jobs of people from here who left because they could not get jobs in the Maine woods,” Martin said. “Salaries would go up in the Maine woods were it not for the bonded labor program.”

Rep. Rosaire Paradis, D-Frenchville, called it “an intolerable situation.”

Another logger, Dean Plourde of Fort Kent said the hearing hall should have been full Friday. He said he understood some people in the industry would not testify because of fear of retaliation from landowners.

“Many loggers are not here because they believe that nothing will happen to help them,” he said. “Landowners are not here because they know there is no threat to them [in the Legislature].”