Not enough loggers

I want to protest the choice of words in the article, “Labor shortage behind state’s lack of lumber; loggers unwilling or unable to shoulder industry workload” (BDN, Dec. 27-28). A few years ago the Bangor Daily News reported that Maine loggers were leaving Maine because of low wages and competition from bonded Canadian loggers. So, it is not surprising we do not have enough Maine loggers today.

In a truly free market with a true labor shortage the wages would have risen to the point that loggers were attracted back to Maine, and new workers were attracted to logging. Labor shortages were always a temporary situation in the past, and we allowed the market to correct the situation. What we don’t have are enough Mainers who are willing to do logging work at the wages the employers want to pay. Those wages are still too low for this work. A more honest headline might have said: “Maine lumber industry cannot survive in a global economy without cheap labor.”

Whenever employers start talking to journalists about a labor shortage they are often preparing the public for an infusion of low wage foreign workers. We are in a race to the bottom, designed by utopian economists who don’t care about the American middle class, and a bunch of politicians who lack the courage to change course.

Our problem is not a labor shortage. What we really need is a radical change at the federal level in trade and immigration policies, and blunt reporting from journalists about what is really happening to American industries and American jobs.

Shirley Lawson

Eddington