The forest service workforce in the Pacific Northwest is largely immigrant, low-literate, and Spanish-speaking with unique vulnerabilities due to a lack of skills and safety training, occupational immobility, remote work locations, and small contractor employment.
The Northwest’s long-standing occupational health and safety programs, based at the University of Washington, propose a capacity building project for safety and health training of restoration forestry services workers, serving Washington, Oregon and Idaho. The Northwestern US faces catastrophic wildfire risks and a rapidly emerging need for forest fuels reduction work. This work relies heavily on manual labor conducted by small private contract forest service firms, small forest landowners, young workers, and Spanish-speaking immigrant workers.
This project is conducted for reforestation pesticide handlers, a workforce that is largely Latino, faces significant language barriers to accessing label information, and has limited organizational and safety training support. According to U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Foreign Labor Certification data from 2015 to 2021, Oregon has seen a significant increase in H2B forestry guest worker visas, compared to the other states in the country, with Jackson County having the most of H2B workers in the state.
