Huehuetenango, Guatemala November 17, 2007
While investigating the coercive tactics of the US forestry companies (actually, the subcontractors the companies hire to recruit the guest workers) Global Workers learned first hand of the particularly exploitative conditions under which these Guatemalans labor legally in the US. Although illegal under US and Guatemalan law, the Guatemalan workers are required to pay upfront all of their transportation and visa fees to go to the US through the guest worker program. Borrowing typically US$1,500 (almost one year salary for a subsistence farmer) from private unregulated lenders who charge 10-20% interest per month, these workers arrive in the USA deeply in debt and desperate to work to pay off the loans. Earning $150-$350 (way under the minimum wage for a 60 hour work week) a week after taxes, housing and food costs, many workers complained to us that they do not earn enough to even pay off the loans.
Why then do the pine tree workers return year after year? The answer lays in the fraud that is rampant in the whole guest worker system. Many forestry companies request visas for double the length of the actual work then allow the worker to go “free”, that is go work illegally for another company. It is the unauthorized work where they make enough money to justify the return year after year. But, if one can’t find work off the books or some tragedy befalls a worker, then the debt spirals out of control putting the small land holder in Guatemala at risk of losing the only thing he has—his land. As we write this, a mother of two in Guatemala is considering migrating illegally to the US because her husband died while planting pine trees in the US leaving her with a crushing debt that rises dramatically every month. What option does she have but to abandon her small children to seek work in the US in order to keep a roof over her children’s heads? As currently structured, the US guest worker program fosters exploitation and is truly a shameful regime.