Ethnic Differences in Job Quality Among Contract Forest Workers on Six National Forests

For more then a decade, the Forest Service and community forestry organizations have sought to create high quality jobs for public lands communities restoring national forests. Critics have argued that this strategy ignores the existence of a mobile, Hispanic workforce that undertakes the most laborious tasks in the woods under the worst working conditions. This article compares the working conditions of white and Hispanic forest restoration and maintenance workers from businesses that contracted with six national forests between 1998 and 2002. It finds that Hispanics are a disproportionately large part of the workforce, particularly the labor-intensive workforce, and are more likely than whites to work seasonally, away from home, and work for companies that do not offer health insurance. However, this study found few high quality jobs regardless of ethnicity.