LocalHarvest

Well, they say in business you should track down every lead you possibly can, so I think I might as well ask all you kind folks this question too:

Do you know any young people who need a job this winter?

I am in the midst of re-organizing my business. After 16 years of planting trees with all-Hispanic crews, I want to change things back to using American labor. That is who used to plant trees until the late 1980s, and I see no reason it can't be the same way again, but I'll get back to that later if you are interested. It is a seasonal business, and traditionally it was done by a lot people from the north who don't have much outdoor work going on in the winter time, or people who just generally like seasonal employment. Unfortunately, a lot of those folks work in the skiing industry. A lot of hippies used to do it.

This job entails a lot of travel, and a lot of hard physical labor, in the great outdoors. In the winter time. No, we don't work in the cold rain & snow ... where there is snow there is frost, and when the ground is frozen you can't plant trees. And working in the rain generally yields a crappy quality of work, so I rarely make anyone do that, unless we have just a short time to finish a site and the next site is far away. But it can be cold or hot at times. The pay is $10 / hour. No benefits. This won't be easy for me; my competition uses illegal labor (as I have done for years), and lots and lots of labor laws are broken in the process (again more to follow if you are interested). My planters last year averaged $400/week take-home, and I paid $8.50 / hour on the hourly stuff. On occasion (single species jobs) I pay on production at a piece rate and pay will depend on skill and determination, but could go over $10 at times. This is all done over the table with a normal paycheck with taxes taken out, and I am fully covered by Workmen's Compensation insurance.

I do cover all expenses except clothing such as gloves and work boots of various types (you need good leather work boots for dry warm days and many other days you need rubber boots, because wetland restoration is naturally, wet). I cover all the tools and transportation and lodging. Lodging will be a mix of hotels, camping, and a mobile home out in the country in central North Carolina - but in a small neighborhood of people who work in the jamband music business. The schedule will be busy, but it will definitely flex around shows at times. For example, at one point I had a nice job right outside of Hampton, but that one has been pushed off for a year.

Skills aren't generally required, but good health is; though there are enough small yet simple details to learn that I don't like a lot of turnover. Cigarette smokers would generally struggle. Heavy drinking is right out. Actually, I don't care what anyone does as long as they can do the work.

The work is of two main types - planting small tree seedlings, over and over again to the tune of one to two thousand or more per day. Some folks find that extremely boring...it is quite repetitive. I also do some live-stake installation, which means pounding a pointed stick in to the side of a stream with a rubber mallet. (Some shrub species such as Willow will root into a whole new plant using this technique.) My work this season will focus on interesting stream restoration and wetland mitigation projects which involve multiple species in multiple different planting zones, but at times will also involve planting monoculture pine plantations, the backbone of the tree-planting business. Work will start in the Carolinas and slowly progress northward to the Virginias and Tennessee until the season ends in northern Michigan, where I live.

I could be working right now, and still kind of hope for a short amount of work in North Carolina before Christmas, but recruitment has been tough. I have talked with hundreds of people, yet my most solid-seeming recruits have probably bailed it looks like. I only need three people altogether, and I have one very solid one who isn't available till January - who also happens to be a professional chef looking for a temporary break from his business, but he will be a nice addition to help run the Coleman stove.

So here comes a bit more background on this strange business if you'd like to keep reading. Why do I want to change from easily available and cheap Hispanic labor? I think I will be ahead of the curve on that. Immigration reform will finally come next year; Congress can't just sweep it under the rug any longer. And they won't be in the mood to give much to foreigners in the midst of a Recession/Depression. I will probably do a lot of government contracting in years to come, especially with all this talk of gov't stimulus spending. Right now I am about to bid to enter a pool of qualified contractors to do vegetation work for the National Park Service for five years. There is also a lot of tree planting work on military bases, where illegals can't go any more.

How did illegal labor get so prevalent in our country? It's all the government's fault. In other countries, they crack down hard on businesses using illegal labor. Here, you might get a $50 fine for turning in too many bad social security numbers. Might. Once one business in a given type of endeavor starts using illegal labor, it becomes a competitive advantage and the other businesses must follow suit. So now in many parts of the country landscaping, masonry, and drywall crews are dominated by Hispanic labor, amongst many others. Some reasons for that go back to the 90s when the GOP took over Congress. When the GOP is in charge, they don't try and change laws they don't like ... that would start a big public fight. Instead, they simply gut the budget to enforce those laws, and no one notices, except the businesses being regulated.

The other big thing about illegals is that health care is not an issue. They just go to the emergency room. Everyone benefits from this ... having certain jobs done by people who don't have health insurance helps keep the cost of living down for everyone. And taxes? The government loves this part. How illegal employment works is this ... an illegal gives their employer a Social Security #. At this point they pretty much just make them up out of thin air. The employer pays them with full payroll withholding, and the government gets all the taxes. The illegal doesn't even file for a refund and will never be eligible for the Social Security benefits those payroll deductions earn for the rest of us. The amounts generated in Social Security alone are in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year lately.

If you'd like to discuss immigration reform I would be glad to do it but I don't think this is the appropriate forum. I've only left this discussion of labor in this particular post for the background for the curious. Unless you have worked with illegals I don't think you'll have a truly realistic view of the problem. Blaming them is much like blaming a rape victim for wearing a short skirt. If you could sneak in to Canada and earn 50 times your current earnings, many of you would do it. Changing away from working with those guys will be tough ? they literally changed my life for the bette. I will never again feel down about anything living in the richest, most comfortable society ever created in human history. These guys grew up in shacks with a dirt floor and have an elementary education only in many cases. Right now, I have a really tough situation. There is a guy who worked for me two years ago in desperate need of work. He hasn't worked in two years and is about to be homeless I expect. Most guys, I would have to say "I'm sorry" and move on. But this guy isn't playing with all 52 cards, and he gets taken advantage of in life. He is smart enough to work for me, especially with a little extra help at times. I've worked with one guy like that most years actually. The sad part is, he is supporting his family at home in spite of his mental difficulties. I'll probably end up giving him bus fare to get back to NC to work with my former business partner, who is still using illegals.

So, there you have it. If you know any folks who could handle this job situation, please let me know. I should have my old blog I tried to start two years ago running soon (long story about migrating to a new laptop), so I can show off some pictures and stuff for the curious. I really think things will work out well in the long run. I have been in the business for a long time, and have excellent contacts and a lot of potential work. I am not afraid of the 'meltdown' at all...there is a lot of wetland mitigation work going on in NC and all the other states are expanding it as well. Last year I planted 3 million trees with two full crews of 12. This year will be much smaller, but the big change is a big challenge and I will have to start out with baby steps.