low bids and the race to the bottom.

[slimekay]

(For more context on this post, please visit the Facebook group "Tree Planters Anonymous")

On November 16, 2017 I received a call from my regular employer regarding the 2017 probing season in Alberta. They regretfully informed me that their direct award contract had been taken away from them with one year to go. They mentioned that a large, corporate silviculture company had submitted some tremendously low bids, and had won 6 of 7 contracts that had been released by the government.

(Rumor had it that the 7th contract was for around 200 sites, roughly two days of work for a crew of 15 people).

Facing a jobless winter, I was extremely upset by this news. I lashed out online, (a practise I’m not in the habit of doing), having some naive notion that my voice would somehow be heard and all the probers going to work would hold out for better wages and blah blah blah workers revolution etc.

Well, I wasn’t all wrong in that thinking.

Later on that day a small contractor I'll refer to as the little guy, gave me a call and said that he had a spot waiting for me. He told me the price is down and there will be no living out allowance but that he had accommodation set up and work until Christmas with hopefully a couple more weeks into the new year. He was able to secure work from the corporate silviculture company (I’ll now refer to as the big guy) in a subcontracting capacity. I weighed the pros and cons of this and decided that I could still make some money with the wages he was able to pay. Especially before the snow got too deep and the temperature got too low.

Fast forward to December 9th, and the start of our third shift. I get home from work to 5 frantic and angry text messages from my employer. The little guy had a screenshot from the big guy with my post from November 16th in it. The little guy was in trouble because they had employed me and the big guy wanted some heads to roll. I took the post down and pleaded to keep my job. I was put on suspension for three days while my employer spoke to his lawyer about the legalities of letting me go without just cause. As a contract worker I learned that I have zero rights until I have been employed for three consecutive months and when my employer found this out he regretfully let me go in order to protect his contract and all the other employees he had working for him. The big guy wanted me squeezed out and who can argue with a corporation holding all the contracts?

I understood what he had to do but I was still upset.

I spoke to a few lawyers, most of which agreed that there is probably something criminal about this situation but in order to be sure it would cost me a few grand to get my hands on a copy of the contract between the big guy and the little guy and see if they had worked in a clause about who the little guy was allowed to hire and whether or not there was anything in regards to social media posting. Because I was not entitled to any severance, all the money I could pump into this would be lost for good.

So begrudgingly, I packed up and left Alberta.

On my way home to the coast I felt I couldn’t quite leave this alone without some sort of closure. I didn’t want to lash out again and possibly get my little guy employer in trouble. I didn’t want to embarrass myself further by posting frantically and emotionally about all the wrongs I’ve felt I’ve suffered. Then I realized how much impact my silly little post from November had. It had several ‘likes’ and started a long thread of discussion (not an all together intelligent thread, as some members likened the name of the company with a particular body part all humans have in common. A comment which was mentioned to me and that I had to defend by saying it wasn’t me who said that and that those folks have free will to rhyme as they choose).

So I thought I would post this and hope we start a long thread of discussion again.

So what can we do as labourers in an industry built around low bids?

We can stop working for corporate enterprises that have the power to bid low and absorb contracts and fines. If you’re a skilled planter, brusher, prober etc. then you have moral responsibility to leave your large corporate silviculture company.

Why?

Well, you need to make room for that large company to train more rookies. That’s what they are good at. The can’t pay well because they are stretched so thin, have so many office employees, camps, trucks, overhead, etc. so they are perfect for folks getting into the industry and learning whether or not they like planting, can handle hard work, survive in the bush etc.

Also, you are worth it. If your skilled, you should get paid better than these companies can offer you. Not only do you make room for rookies, you can fill in gaps the mid range and small companies have a hard time filling. One of my employers hires two to three rookies a season, for challenging southern interior tree planting. It’s a brutal place to train rookies at times. If he had access to some amazing three year plus planters, he would be able to take on some more trees in his area and our poor rookies can find their legs chasing 12cent trees somewhere else. Furthermore, because you are worth it, you call up your years previous employer and go finish off all their cheap trees when the small time contractors finish up. And don’t worry, if the say they give preference to folks that spend the whole season with them, if they need people, they need people. I know from experience that it’s very possible to get another 20 or 30 days of work in summer from elsewhere when the little guy wraps up.
From here, this would then allow some of the 10 year plus employees to go work for the golden companies that fly under the radar and pay wages that are un-heard of in the industry. The little contractors won’t suffer losing a few of these vets if they were able to fill those spots with those mid career planters.

After you’ve left the 10cent trenches and branched out around the province a little, why not try your hand at coastal planting? You may not have had the opportunity until you have padded out your resume a little more. Or maybe you have had the opportunity but wished you didn’t go in your first or second year because you weren’t tough enough for it. If you have the opportunity to move around the province with better companies, you will be more valuable on the coast and have a better shot at securing long term employment and making good money.

If we can support the smaller companies out there maybe they can gain a better foothold and help out bid these conglomerates based on low over head and providing a better product than the big guys. It won’t happen next year, but five years from now? Who knows?

So if this speaks to you, speak to others. Let’s start talking about who we support with our blood, sweat and tears in a positive way. Let’s try to move away from supporting large companies and throw some support towards the little folks out there. Start talking to people about their experiences with the little contractors and the differing experience of the big ones.

I have a lot more to say on this topic and there is also a lot more to the story of my termination up north. If you have any questions or comments I can be found on Facebook as ‘slime kay’ or you can email me at slimekay@gmail.com

[mwainwright]

Sorry to hear about all that Scotty, you don't deserve to be treated that way. It boggles my mind that a company as large as (redacted) has the time and the inclination to mete out retribution to individuals who have voiced their points of view. Not the first time I've seen this sort of thing in the industry. indeed many contractors think nothing of depriving other workers of their livelihoods, but can't seem to fathom how not everyone is going to be happy about that.

[Tnalp]

Anyone else hear that Spectrum Resource Group Inc is now 70% owned by an American Company?

[slimekay]

I have heard that they are being taken over by an American outfit. not sure who or if the deal has closed yet.

[Scooter]

The buy-in happened around mid-October. I'm not sure what the percentage was, or if it was the whole company.

[TripleS]

Anyone have any more info about this? Who is the american company? Are they in the silviculture industry down there? If so, I find this to be very concerning given the state of the industry in the States.

[newforest]

I am pretty intrigued by that question too, though I find it improbable on a basic level. Investing in essentially a labor brokering service in a foreign country seems like an odd idea to start with.

There are just a handful of really large ( > 6 crews on the road, simultaneously) contractors here that would have the basic experience levels to consider similar operations in another country. They do quite well here but in so doing, I think their plates are pretty full already - why expand into a completely different labor/regulatory market? Just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but if it already happened, I would love to hear the details too.

[mwainwright]

Chances are good that spectrum is not being acquired for their silviculture operations, but for their other more profitable divisions. This is just an assumption on my part, but I suspect that the logic would be similar to carillion's takeover of Outland a few years back.

[Tnalp]

vegetation management to compete with Davey et al...

[mwainwright]

That's probably it

[StormLazer]

The company is Wright Service Corp from Boise Idaho. I heard they own about 80%. http://www.wrightservicecorp.com/
They were probably after Spectrum because of transmission line and vegetation management work.

[TripleS]

I wonder how this will affect the planting side of things. It would be interesting to hear from folks who work there this year after having worked there last year.
I couldn't agree more with the OP more about solid experienced planters leaving rookie mills ASAP. Without solid vets, the rookie mills would have an incredibly difficult time remaining viable, which in theory should open up more opportunities for contractors who actually value the hard work of their employees and prove it with decent prices. I know it's difficult moving on from friends, I was guilty of giving too much of my time to a rookie mill in my younger days, but with the information available to planters these days, it's certainly easier to move up the ladder of respectability when it comes to planting companies. If you are a good planter, you deserve a raise, so look for a company that will give you one.

[Scooter]

To be fair, some of the rookie mills have improved their operations tremendously over the past five years or so. But there are still some terrible companies out there too.

I also wonder about what will happen to the overall labour market in the next few years. The rookie mills are getting better at getting the work done with an inexperienced work force. So if thousands of "experienced" planters (I say that with some irony, considering that most of the planter at many of those companies have less than three years of experience) suddenly flood down to the smaller companies in the southern Interior and on the coast, what happens? The labour glut simply encourages contractors to pay lower prices at those companies. Or if not at all of them, at least at some of them, which is enough to ruin the market for the rest.

You can say that it wouldn't happen, but we've already seen it happen on the coast. Ten years ago, very few people knew about coastal planting, and it was all word-of-mouth. The internet and sites like Replant and facebook destroyed that anonymity, and now everyone and their dog wants to plant on the coast. And prices have been hurt badly. There was at least one company paying sixteen cents for ground on the coast last year, because they could get away with it and lots of people wanted to work.

[TripleS]

I first noticed prices dropping 10 years ago too, but on a Summer plant with Zbar. They dropped prices by 15% and the mantra became you should all be happy to have work given how competitive Summer trees have become. I just moved to their work in the East Koots since it was still good. Who wants to deal with the bugs and humidity in Quesnel for low prices anyway? I was somewhat insulated from the changes on the Coast since I was fortunate enough to work for an outstanding contractor. A couple of years later though, we lost our Fall plant, as other contractors could do it for less, and had the workforce that were more than happy to plant for much less than we were paid. I tried a couple of other supposedly decent companies for a couple Falls after that, but they were garbage. Most planters weren't even making 2 bills, so I haven't bothered with Fall plants since.
Anyway, Summer and Fall were particularly susceptible to the effects of a labour glut given the low number of trees that are planted at these times. However, in May and June there are so many trees going in that planters can be more discerning in who they work for. As it stands right now, multiple large, traditionally northern companies are working in the southern interior driving prices down and paying less than more respectable companies, so there is certainly room for a shift in experienced labour from some of these larger companies. I don't think it has to be thousands of planters moving to have a positive effect either. If a few mega companies were to retreat from the South, it would allow for better prices again.
16 cents on the Coast? That contractor should be embarassed and so should anyone who worked for them. I pay more for creamy trenches FFS!