As California scrambles to reduce wildfire hazards by thinning its overgrown forests, rural government officials and forestry lobbyists are making a last-ditch effort to kill legislation that would mandate hefty pay hikes under the state’s “prevailing wage” laws for the workers wielding chainsaws and heavy equipment in the woods.
Assembly Bill 1717, authored by Yolo County Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, has the support of influential labor unions looking to grow their ranks and get their dues-payers a bigger share of the massive amounts of state and federal money that’s going to be spent on forestry projects in the coming years.
The unions usually get their way in a Legislature ruled by Democrats, but opponents of the bill are urging lawmakers to buck unions just this once. They say the bill would put California’s forested communities at risk by jacking up costs, which would dramatically reduce the number of acres that are in desperate need of thinning.
AB 1717 sailed through the Assembly this spring. The legislation could go for a final vote before the California Senate as early as this week.
“If this bill passes, it will necessarily shrink the dollars that are going into the projects,” said Staci Heaton, senior policy advocate for Rural County Representatives of California.
The bill’s chief sponsor, the California-Nevada Conference of Operating Engineers, counters that the higher paychecks will actually accelerate the forest-thinning work because it will bring more...
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