Logging industry fears labor shortage

MADAWASKA -Northern Maine logging contractors are increasingly worried about their manpower needs after mud season because they might not be able to get Canadian loggers and truck drivers into the Maine woods.

As many as 800 people from other countries work in the Maine woods during the cutting season, which ranges from June to the next March or April each year. This spring, as it is each year, newspaper advertisements seek workers for dozens of logging and trucking contractors.

The alien labor usually can come into Maine under the federal H-2B visa program. The program annually allows up to 66,000 alien workers into the country. The limit was reached in March, and the federal government has not acted on increasing the number of available visas.

In Maine, the annual number for H-2B visas is 4,000 per year. The tourism industry uses 3,200 and the logging industry gets about 800.

While Sen. Susan Collins and other senators have petitioned the president for action, little has come about in the last month or two. There is legislation in Washington to increase the numbers, but the legislation is stalled.

“I may have to curtail some of our operations in logging and trucking,” Richard Guerrette, a St. Agatha logging and trucking contractor, said Thursday. “I’ve even taken one of my trucks out of the woods and equipped it to haul gravel downstate.

“Irving [the landowner] has been asking that we run two shifts a day,” he said. “I don’t have enough manpower to run one shift.”

Guerrette has used as many as five and six foreign workers in the past.

“I believe there is the potential for something to happen [in Washington], but so far nothing,” John Cashwell, president of Seven Island Land Co., said Thursday.

“Potentially, there may not be enough operators to go around in the north Maine woods,” he said.

He said many logging contractors might need to rethink their operation, unless something happens in Washington.

Vaughn LeBlanc, director of the H-2B program for the Maine Department of Labor, agreed this week that the visa situation will hurt the forest industry.

“Loggers and truckers are in the same category as the tourism industry in southern Maine,” he said. “There is a real possibility of not getting visas.

“Most logging visas ended in April or May, and need to be renewed,” LeBlanc said. “Everything is on hold until there is congressional or presidential action.”

“We seek your immediate assistance in averting a situation that has the potential to negatively impact thousands of American businesses,” Sen. Collins wrote to President Bush one month ago.

There has been no response, according to aides in Collins’ office Thursday.

Leblanc said the president has said he would sign legislation that comes to his desk. The legislation is still in Congress.