Lawmakers working on logger legislation

AUGUSTA – A bill that would allow collective bargaining between landowners and loggers and truckers hauling wood is being tweaked by lawmakers easing it through the Legislature, Rep. Troy Jackson said Tuesday.

Jackson, D-Fort Kent, had hoped to bring the bill to the Legislature for debate this week, but it could be two more weeks before the bill comes before the House, he said.

Loggers who stayed off the job for three weeks last month in northern Maine support the bill they claim would give them a voice in landowner-dictated working contracts.

At one point in their work stoppage, loggers had offered to return to work if Gov. John Baldacci would agree not to veto the bill if it passed the Legislature. The governor refused the ultimatum.

Many loggers have said they will travel to Augusta from northern Maine when the bill is debated in the Legislature. More than 50 loggers from northern Maine attended a hearing on the bill last year.

“We have been getting feedback on problems with the bill [LD 1318], and we have been working at it with the Attorney General’s Office and others,” Jackson said Tuesday. “We are trying to cover all our bases to get this through the Legislature.

“At the same time, we are trying to make sure the protection for workers stays in there,” he said. “We are having a lot of good, well-informed people look at it.”

Jackson hopes to have it before the Legislature during the week of Feb. 16.

The bill has gathered fierce opposition from landowners and wood-using mills for the last two years. Last year, the bill was passed by the House of Representatives and was tabled in the Senate.

Federal antitrust laws don’t allow loggers to get together to negotiate prices with landowners, according to Rep. William Smith, D-Van Buren, one of the sponsors of the bill. A state exemption would allow negotiations much like a state law allows potato growers to negotiate with processors on prices for potatoes.

The bill would allow arbitration by a state board when loggers and landowners cannot agree on rates. Landowners covered by the bill need to own more than 100,000 acres in Maine.

The bill was precipitated by contractors who make substantial equipment purchases to get more efficient cutting wood when they are paid less and less for cutting the wood, Smith said last year when he proposed the legislation.

At the same time, Smith had said logging companies are opposed because of potentially higher rates for contractors. Currently companies dictate prices to contractors on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.