Pines in Lines: Tree Planting, H2B Guest Workers, and Rural Poverty in Alabama

Abstract

ABSTRACT The southeastern United States has become the most important timber producing region in the country. Despite increases in productivity, questions remain regarding the indus-try's role in developing, or failing to develop, rural communities in many of the poorest areas of the South. This article examines the recruitment and employment of migrant and guest workers for forest management work, specifically tree planting and reforesta-tion. Based on semi-structured interviews with 35 H2B guest workers and 18 labor contractors the article analyzes the linkages between forest management labor recruitment, poverty, local la-bor markets, and timber productivity in the State of Alabama. We describe the wages, working conditions, organization, and work-ers ' perspectives on forest management work in the South. We also describe the relationship between labor contracting in the southern forest products industry and the H2B guest,workers pro-gram. We conclude with a discussion of the policyimplications of an expanded guest worker program on rural communities and labor markets. The southern region of the United States led all other regions of the country with 79 percent of the total acreage of trees planted in the United States in 1998 (USDA Forest Service 2002). Most of these trees were planted by hand by tree planters from Mexico and Cen-tral America. In the South, tree planters are primarily H2B guest workers recruited to work for U.S. forest labor contractors. The contractors supply their work visas and transport them from major cities in Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. A smaller proportion 74 Southern Rural Sociology, Vol. 19, No. 1, 2003 of the tree planters are resident aliens or undocumented workers who migrate across the United States working in agriculture, poul-try-processing, construction, landscaping, hotels, and restaurants. In early December workers arrive in places such as: Tilly, Arkansas;