Golden, Jackson criticize lack of action on Canadian logger loophole
The Farm Workforce Modernization Act, passed by the U.S. House Thursday, offers sweeping reform to programs that allow foreign agricultural workers to be employed in the U.S. One thing it doesn't do, though, is address a loophole that allows Canadian truckers to operate in the U.S.
That's a gap U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine 2nd District, and Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, have been pushing to close for years.
The two combined on a joint statement Thursday to criticize the lack of action by Congress on the loophole to the H-2A visa program, which allows workers from other countries to come to the U.S. for seasonal agricultural work. The certification process requires employers to show they've actively recruited U.S. workers for jobs first. The act passed by the House Thursday makes changes to the program, including allowing visas of up to three years for some specialty producers, like dairy, if they can show there's a year-round need.
Golden, Jackson and others have pushed for logging to be removed. "H-2As are intended for foreign agricultural workers who come into the United States for extended periods of time to harvest perishable crops," the pair said in their statement. "Trees are not perishable."
Canadian loggers are allowed to bring Canadian goods into the U.S., and haul U.S. goods to Canada, but the issue is corporations using Canadian truckers, at lower wages that what Maine workers would be paid, to transport logs from one Maine point to another, which is not allowed. Golden and Jackson said the issue happens daily, with Canadian truckers making commutes into northern Maine to participate in the American domestic logging market, competing directly with Mainers for jobs and depressing wages.
Golden and Jackson said in the statement, "H-2A visa cannot be used for the domestic transport of harvested timber. By enforcing federal law and holding companies accountable for misusing the H-2A program, the federal government can protect these jobs."
'Just pawns in this whole thing'
Jackson, in August, produced a Facebook video explaining the issue and saying that despite shutdowns and furloughs at local companies that had put Maine loggers out of work, the Canadian truckers were still operating in the state.
"The Canadians are still cutting wood in Maine, the Canadians are still trucking in Maine," Jackson said in the video. "People are laid off right now, and we have Canadian trucks hauling Maine wood in Maine." He said its the corporations that are at fault. "The Canadian workers are just pawns in this whole thing, like we are, too."
Jackson, a logger by trade, said the issue goes back generations, to when his father was a logger, and well before.
Loggers in northern Maine have presented evidence for years that companies with headquarters in Canada that operate in Maine are using Canadian truckers, thereby "abusing the H-2A visa system," Golden and Jackson said. "And for years, Mainers have asked the federal government to address the problem with a simple, straightforward regulatory fix."
The issue has been a long-standing one in Maine — in November 2009, the state Department of Labor fined three Canadian logging companies for violating the rules and banned them from the H-2A program for a year. Rules for hiring Canadian loggers were tightened in 2010, but after companies were penalized in 2011 for breaking the rules, Maine's labor commissioner, Robert Winglass, had a "change of heart" after meeting with the companies and withdrew the penalties.
Little has happened since, though Jackson, for more than a decade and, more recently, Golden, have used multiple channels to try to gain traction for the issue. "Repeated letters to the relevant agencies from both state and federal officeholders have only resulted in those agencies passing the buck. Repeated attempts to legislate a solution in Congress have been blocked by party leaders," they said.
Golden "consistently pushed the Trump administration and his colleagues in Congress to take action," the release said.
Last year, he proposed an amendment to the Department of Labor funding bill. He also called on the Department of Agriculture, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor to conduct an investigation into allegations of Canadian truckers operating illegally in Maine. In 2019, he proposed two amendments the Farm Workforce Modernization Act to exclude logging activities from the definition of "agricultural labor or services."
Jackson has introduced bills for more than a decade that would support Maine loggers and penalize Canadian companies that break the rules, and has also publicly criticized lack of action over the years. In 2017, he brought Gov. Paul LePage to Fort Kent to hear directly from the affected truckers. He has also written to the relevant federal agencies and Maine's secretary of state, and last summer filed a complaint against the Department of Labor for failing to enforce federal cabotage laws, with regulate sea, air and ground transport services.
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I respectfully disagree with the assertions by Senator Jackson and Congressmen Golden that there are laws being broken by Canadian truckers with H-2A visas hauling wood point to point in Maine. It is my understanding that the H-2A visas are in place through DOL to allow just that to be done completely legally, and only after a costly and rigorous application process that nobody would bother going through if we had enough US truckers willing to work 90 miles west of Ashland. I ask that this matter be researched further by our elected officials. It would also be helpful to know many cabotage violations there have been in the past 10 years in our Maine woods. I also didn't notice any attempt by MaineBiz to get the other side of this story from DOL or the "corporations" that are allegedly complicit. Both sides of this story would offer the readers a more balanced picture of these reported claims and perhaps invite potential solutions. If the laws need changing, then let's change them, but don't accuse our corporations (landowners I assume) of breaking laws without first understanding what those laws are. The landowners of the our great North Maine Woods serve thousands of Maine's outdoor recreation enthusiasts every year by opening their millions of acres of forestlands, roads, mountains, waters and trails to hunting, camping, sightseeing, fishing, snowmobiling, etc. For this and the thousands of Mainers for which they provide jobs, I think we owe them more respect than what this one-sided article portrays. I work every day in economic development and the forestry industry is paramount to our rural economy across Maine, so we must do everything we can to sustain logging, trucking and our ever-diversifying forest products industry.
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