# Retro wages WTF!!!!



## Tree Sling'r (Apr 17, 2009)

I was just told that when I go back to work the NEW rates are $250 payroll or $340 running my own numbers.
I was making $250 payroll in 1997.

I can do two saws a week and draw unemployment and make the same money with no expenses.

Hurry up fire season.


----------



## Jacob J. (Apr 17, 2009)

I'm hearing the same story from timber faller buddies up here. I'm heading back to my government job soon but I was offered a fill-in cutting assignment in front of a feller-buncher on a unit not far from the house. The feller-buncher owner offered me $220/day on his payroll. I told him to go suck on his own hydraulic lines. :censored:


----------



## forestryworks (Apr 17, 2009)

it wouldn't surprise me if this latest economy dump changes our standard of living, thus changing everything else.

not supporting the lower wages thing (especially for woods workers, where wages have been stagnant for the last 20+ yrs.)

just thinking outloud. don't mind me.


----------



## Tree Sling'r (Apr 17, 2009)

Jacob J. said:


> I'm hearing the same story from timber faller buddies up here. I'm heading back to my government job soon but I was offered a fill-in cutting assignment in front of a feller-buncher on a unit not far from the house. The feller-buncher owner offered me $220/day on his payroll. I told him to go suck on his own hydraulic lines. :censored:



Yeah, I was wondering about USFS, but I could not afford to start at the bottom. A friend of mine just got hired on a engine as a GS5, that would be nice.
But then again I like contract work on fires and winters off too. I think cutting logs for a living is history.


----------



## trimmmed (Apr 18, 2009)

Jeez that sounds like construction pricing I'm seeing. I'm sure Pelousy will get some of her south of the borer amigos to do it if you don't want to.


----------



## Burvol (Apr 18, 2009)

Tree Sling'r said:


> Yeah, I was wondering about USFS, but I could not afford to start at the bottom. A friend of mine just got hired on a engine as a GS5, that would be nice.
> But then again I like contract work on fires and winters off too. I think cutting logs for a living is history.



I hate to say your probably right. The export market kept me busy, but our local yard now has a two load a day restriction (time to go gypo loggin') and nobody that's not totally desperate (or tiny) are working. 

As much as it sucks to not cut saw logs, thinning contracts are looking better and better for me. Hopefully I have a couple of decent ones I bid on.


----------



## Gologit (Apr 18, 2009)

Same thing down here. The mills at Sonora and Camino are going on indefinite shutdown and the small log mill at Quincy will shut down when they get the deck cut out. 

The only actual logging around here right now is burn salvage from last year's fires and there's not much of that.

There's quite a bit of chipping going on but that's all mechanical. I don't know what day money is like for fallers in this area...there aren't enough of them working to find out.

I wish I could put a crew together just from the guys I know that are out of work...some of the best I've ever seen and they're just not able to find anything.


----------



## sbhooper (Apr 18, 2009)

It seems to me that at some point-slow economy or not-that there is going to be a demand for wood. They are still building some houses around the country and the remodelers seem to be staying busy. I don't think the industry is flooded with logging outfits and it just makes no sense to me that the wood dropped off so bad. Go figure.


----------



## slowp (Apr 18, 2009)

Tree Sling'r said:


> Yeah, I was wondering about USFS, but I could not afford to start at the bottom. A friend of mine just got hired on a engine as a GS5, that would be nice.
> But then again I like contract work on fires and winters off too. I think cutting logs for a living is history.




I've been helping a guy who is trying to get on permanent. He's a logger and sold some of his equipment. If he gets on, I'm thinking he meets the GS-9 qualifications, but it'll probably be an 8. ($42,000) The job goes up to a 10--$63,000 or so. You don't necessarily have to start out at the bottom, the FS has had problems filling some jobs so has been hiring "off the streets" if folks meet the qualifications. Most people don't want to work in timber and they don't want to leave the office, so I really hope he gets that position.

I told him if he does, he has to send us an autographed photo of him in the "pickle suit."

I'm like Gologit. I'd like to put all the good, unemployed loggers to work and get the roads fixed and hazard trees cut--and the woods cleaned up like they should be. There's some really really good people unemployed...makes me sick. 

Getting thinning contracts sounds pretty hard to me. But I don't know much about that aspect of contracting. 

Oh, and if you are looking at FS jobs, there's a real site and a similarly named site that wants $50 to look. The real site is USAjobs.gov. The fake site has a 
.com after it. 

And you have to put up with all the male bovine excrement which can be absolutely maddening at times. 

But we do cuss, when conditions are safe to do so....


----------



## Meadow Beaver (Apr 18, 2009)

I'm not exactly up to snuff on the cutters wages out here but I don't think they make that much.


----------



## Gologit (Apr 18, 2009)

slowp said:


> I've been helping a guy who is trying to get on permanent. He's a logger and sold some of his equipment. If he gets on, I'm thinking he meets the GS-9 qualifications, but it'll probably be an 8. ($42,000) The job goes up to a 10--$63,000 or so. You don't necessarily have to start out at the bottom, the FS has had problems filling some jobs so has been hiring "off the streets" if folks meet the qualifications. Most people don't want to work in timber and they don't want to leave the office, so I really hope he gets that position.
> 
> I told him if he does, he has to send us an autographed photo of him in the "pickle suit."
> 
> ...



Lol...the being able to cuss part sounds good. But...at 62 years of age I'd have to work 'til I was 90 to qualify for retirement. I think I'll stay in the woods. I seem to be able to round up enough work to keep the wolf from the door but this year the wolf isn't too far away. 

Besides, I'd look silly in a Pickle Suit and all that marching, saluting, and singing Smokey the Bear songs might tend to make me grumpier than I already am.


----------



## slowp (Apr 18, 2009)

Don't forget the clean pickups too! By the way, if you are hired on now and it was AFTER I got on, the retirement is Social Security and a voluntary 401K type deal. The old Civil Service Retirement..which I got in on, is no more. I'm one of the last and I hope there's money left!
Job security is also a thing of the past. I've seen folks who wouldn't relocate choose to quit instead. Jobs are made and done away with depending on which way the political wind blows. This makes it hard to do much long term planning.

Another logger was inquiring and found out that the benefits are nothing like he imagined we get. But the vacation time, sick leave, and paid holidays are good. I'm just a small small molecule in the vast bureauocracy.


----------



## ak4195 (Apr 18, 2009)

sbhooper said:


> It seems to me that at some point-slow economy or not-that there is going to be a demand for wood. They are still building some houses around the country and the remodelers seem to be staying busy. I don't think the industry is flooded with logging outfits and it just makes no sense to me that the wood dropped off so bad. Go figure.



If it doesnt make sense,than think it thru.Alot of the demand BESIDES the largest spec bubble in the known galaxy(that would be housing) was from the iraqi rebuilding project,you know that unfinished project over there in the desert?
After that failed waste,and the implosion of the whole housing finance shebang,MILLIONS of unsold units on the market nationwide,whats not clear?
No shortage of logs from BC south and east all the way to georgia.
I guess you could say "from sea to shining sea."
I remember back in the day,as the late great "Cowboy" used to say"Guess I'll go fishing till Im broke."
I winter fished hook n line for the first 10 yrs of my career.Several times was offshore,risking my life for crumbs,mere wages would have been a gift from the sea-gods,heck sometimes making expenses was just a dream.
Last time I went to the Bering sea was in the winter of '03,barely broke even after 4 months hard work 18hrs/day FEb-May.Working the grounds from Adak to Amchitka pass.Still went in the hole at home -$6k because of monthly bills.

$250/day?,shoot sounds good to me,Id jump,not that I have your skill level to be sure.Things appear to have leveled out by some measures,best hope it doesnt get any worse.
--- Man up lads,or get a new horse,theres no reason to be a deer in the headlights.--- ak4195


----------



## Metals406 (Apr 18, 2009)

Jasha, what is your commitment for that $250.00 a day? Your saws/gas/oil/etc, plus a certain tree count? Or is it by the cut?.. As in, 2-3 cuts per tree, and the boss requires X amount of cuts a day?


----------



## Tree Sling'r (Apr 18, 2009)

Metals406 said:


> Jasha, what is your commitment for that $250.00 a day? Your saws/gas/oil/etc, plus a certain tree count? Or is it by the cut?.. As in, 2-3 cuts per tree, and the boss requires X amount of cuts a day?



Hourly, responsible for own equipment and gas and oil. I will wait and see, I don't wanna work that cheap because then they have you right where they want you, I would rather hold out until fire season and stay proud.


----------



## Jacob J. (Apr 18, 2009)

Tree Sling'r said:


> Hourly, responsible for own equipment and gas and oil. I will wait and see, I don't wanna work that cheap because then they have you right where they want you, I would rather hold out until fire season and stay proud.



That's what drove wages down in the early 90's, a bunch of crackheads and pot smokers working for cheap because they didn't want the responsibility of running numbers. That led to a culture of logging company owners expecting to get logs cut for next to nothing.


----------



## Metals406 (Apr 18, 2009)

Tree Sling'r said:


> Hourly, responsible for own equipment and gas and oil. I will wait and see, I don't wanna work that cheap because then they have you right where they want you, I would rather hold out until fire season and stay proud.



Tell him you'll fall for 6 hard hours a day... That's over 40 an hour.


----------



## Metals406 (Apr 18, 2009)

Jacob J. said:


> That's what drove wages down in the early 90's, a bunch of crackheads and pot smokers working for cheap because they didn't want the responsibility of running numbers. That led to a culture of logging company owners expecting to get logs cut for next to nothing.



Jacob... What's 'running your own numbers'?


----------



## Jacob J. (Apr 18, 2009)

Metals406 said:


> Jacob... What's 'running your own numbers'?



Forming your own company, buying a broadform (liability), doing your own payroll taxes, buying a comp account (OSHA), etc. Either making yourself into a corporation or an LLC. That takes the payroll burden off a logging contractor, which is a good thing since comp is so expensive for loggers and fallers anymore. 

Anyways, someone like Sling'r shouldn't be working as an employee for $250/day. There's a lot of things that go into cutting, and that $250 gets eaten up real quick. I was getting $220-240/day as an employee in the late 90's. Going broke so you can do a job you like is just plain stupid.


----------



## Tree Sling'r (Apr 18, 2009)

Metals406 said:


> Tell him you'll fall for 6 hard hours a day... That's over 40 an hour.



I normally do that for $475 on my own numbers or $345 employee. $40 an hour is crap, may sound like a lot, but unless you have fallen timber for a living you have no idea what the expense is like.


----------



## Metals406 (Apr 18, 2009)

Jacob J. said:


> Forming your own company, buying a broadform (liability), doing your own payroll taxes, buying a comp account (OSHA), etc. Either making yourself into a corporation or an LLC. That takes the payroll burden off a logging contractor, which is a good thing since comp is so expensive for loggers and fallers anymore.
> 
> Anyways, someone like Sling'r shouldn't be working as an employee for $250/day. There's a lot of things that go into cutting, and that $250 gets eaten up real quick. I was getting $220-240/day as an employee in the late 90's. Going broke so you can do a job you like is just plain stupid.



Here, you can run as a sole proprietor, and the "owner" doesn't have to have workers comp... Unless it's required by another contractor you're subbing to. State or Fed work may require it of everyone?.. I don't know?

What's a fair days wage for a faller using all his own equipment, but working under another companies liability?


----------



## Metals406 (Apr 18, 2009)

Tree Sling'r said:


> I normally do that for $475 on my own numbers or $345 employee. $40 an hour is crap, may sound like a lot, but unless you have fallen timber for a living you have no idea what the expense is like.



I never did fall for a living... Just worked in the rigging, and fell when it was needed around the landing, etc.

I almost got an apprenticeship under a faller (oldest brother in the family business), but he talked me out'a working in the woods all together.

So are you saying it's $345 for a 6 hour day?.. And a guy can make bills with a little left over?


----------



## Tree Sling'r (Apr 18, 2009)

Metals406 said:


> I never did fall for a living... Just worked in the rigging, and fell when it was needed around the landing, etc.
> 
> I almost got an apprenticeship under a faller (oldest brother in the family business), but he talked me out'a working in the woods all together.
> 
> So are you saying it's $345 for a 6 hour day?.. And a guy can make bills with a little left over?



Falling wages are based on a 6 hour day, $345 payroll is good, no complaints there.
But $250 is a slap in the face, and after buying gas and oil for your saw, chains, wear and tear, gas in the vehicle and then getting taxed you are brining home about $130 a day for a skilled trade that very few can do, yet alone produce in.


----------



## Metals406 (Apr 18, 2009)

Tree Sling'r said:


> Falling wages are based on a 6 hour day, $345 payroll is good, no complaints there.
> But $250 is a slap in the face, and after buying gas and oil for your saw, chains, wear and tear, gas in the vehicle and then getting taxed you are brining home about $130 a day for a skilled trade that very few can do, yet alone produce in.



Well, tell the guy he can get 4 hours and 20 minutes for $250! LOL

It really pisses me off what happening to our timber industry... Makes me want to puke.


----------



## RandyMac (Apr 18, 2009)

$250.00!!?? what an insult. Back in the late 70s, if I was offered that, they would have been told to find a place where the sun never shines, to put their offer.

Slinger, play with chainsaws, fish the Klamath, have some fun, see what fire season brings, I'm betting it's going to be a dandy. I loved the type of forestry work I did, in some ways, it was better than some of the logging I did.


----------



## Gologit (Apr 18, 2009)

Tree Sling'r said:


> Falling wages are based on a 6 hour day, $345 payroll is good, no complaints there.
> But $250 is a slap in the face, and after buying gas and oil for your saw, chains, wear and tear, gas in the vehicle and then getting taxed you are brining home about $130 a day for a skilled trade that very few can do, yet alone produce in.



Well said. Don't forget living expenses when you're away from home...which is almost always these days. 
And down time...for which you get nothing. One job ends and another one isn't ready yet? Too bad. If you can't pick up some day work you just sit...with no income at all.
And that six hour day? I wonder how many guys realize just how many hours you put in to get that six hours a day. A two hour drive to work isn't even worth mentioning...and two hours back, also. Working on your saws at night, grinding chains, chasing parts and gear, working on the pickup...it all adds up in money and time.
Bringing home 130 bucks a day might be aiming too high. Some days you're lucky to break even.


----------



## Meadow Beaver (Apr 18, 2009)

Tree Sling'r said:


> Falling wages are based on a 6 hour day, $345 payroll is good, no complaints there.
> But $250 is a slap in the face, and after buying gas and oil for your saw, chains, wear and tear, gas in the vehicle and then getting taxed you are brining home about $130 a day for a skilled trade that very few can do, yet alone produce in.



It is an insult, people don't think about all the other places your money goes. It seems like for a lot of fellas drives to work are longer, sawchain, chainsaws and other falling equipment are a lot more expensive now. Since you (fallers
) do this work more than your backyard Joe your equipment doesn't last as long either. And it seems like most fallers like to have the best, or atleast what lasts.

So $250 would be a kick in the nads.


----------



## Burvol (Apr 18, 2009)

I know I have said it before, but a friend of mine said they were pulling 600 a day busheling back in the mid eighties. The wood was right for it, but they still had an oppourtunity to go flat produce and make some money. Everybody happy.


----------



## Jacob J. (Apr 18, 2009)

Metals406 said:


> Well, tell the guy he can get 4 hours and 20 minutes for $250! LOL



I know guys that can cut as much in 4 hours than most guys can in 6. So typically what they do is work 4.5 hour days, 7 days a week. These are contractors paid by the load (which is the only way to do it.)

You don't want to run in the woods as a sole proprietor, the liability is too great. All it takes is one forester who misses a unit boundary, you cut over and boom! you're liable for triple stumpage.



RandyMac said:


> $250.00!!?? what an insult. Back in the late 70s, if I was offered that, they would have been told to find a place where the sun never shines, to put their offer.
> 
> Slinger, play with chainsaws, fish the Klamath, have some fun, see what fire season brings, I'm betting it's going to be a dandy. I loved the type of forestry work I did, in some ways, it was better than some of the logging I did.



People tell me I'm crazy, but I can remember my dad saying he was making $260/270 a day in 1975 on the big wood jobs for Crown Pacific and Medco as a contractor. I remember when he was grossing the price of a new pickup almost every month.



Burvol said:


> I know I have said it before, but a friend of mine said they were pulling 600 a day busheling back in the mid eighties. The wood was right for it, but they still had an oppourtunity to go flat produce and make some money. Everybody happy.



I know a few old boys that were doing that- Mostly in Federal old-growth shelterwood sites that were cat-logged. One of them told me that they were trying to get wood out so fast that the cat skinners would be less than a tree length away on the entire job.


----------



## Metals406 (Apr 18, 2009)

Jacob J. said:


> I know guys that can cut as much in 4 hours than most guys can in 6. So typically what they do is work 4.5 hour days, 7 days a week. These are contractors paid by the load (which is the only way to do it.)
> 
> You don't want to run in the woods as a sole proprietor, the liability is too great. All it takes is one forester who misses a unit boundary, you cut over and boom! you're liable for triple stumpage.



Our fallers did 6 a day... Not counting the couple hour drive there and home. Forestryworks was telling me that guy in Colorado wanted him to do 10's. 

You're absolutely right about sole proprietor and boundary lines... My bro-in-law cut two trees just over his really vague property line... The landowner saw the stumps, and made him pay $700 a tree. Guess it pays to know where your property lines are huh?

In a totally unrelated cost comparison (about the only one I can make)... When I had my fab shop, and did a big structural job, my comp (had to have it on that job, required by the contractor) cost me 3000.00, and 1800 more for liability insurance. Not sure if it's much more for a faller?


----------



## tlandrum (Apr 19, 2009)

i have my own logging company here in tn and i would be tickled friggin pink if i could get back to clearing 250 a day. i spend,spend,spend for very little return.i sent the nicest hard maple i have ever fell to the mill this week and got 500 a 1000 for it.this was veneer logs that i expected to see 3-5000 per 1000 on. i thought i was going to make real bank, not piggy bank. i am at the end of my rope. i am thinking about shutting my gig down and falling for someone else. i cant take much more of this 5 out 1 in crap. i am on an 85 acre boundry that i am considering pulling out on and taking my equiptment home before i literally have to start paying to go to work. good luck to us all that call ourselves loggers in these poor times.


----------



## hammerlogging (Apr 19, 2009)

Ya'lls rates are much higher out west. Does it have something to do with seasonality? Do you cut year round? Or is it just cause you'r running 30,000 ft per acre instead of 5000 ft per acre?

Day rate falling $300/day is the best I've found. "bushelling", you can make or break, depending on the timber you're in, but the prescription can kill you too- we're often working muti- age class timber. Sometimes its easy to cut 18,000ft plus, sometimes its hard to sneak out 12 mbf in a day. The day rate ain't bad because it avarages out the good days and bad days.

But yes, a very expensive job. But I love it.


----------



## sILlogger (Apr 19, 2009)

Tree Sling'r said:


> I normally do that for $475 on my own numbers or $345 employee. $40 an hour is crap, may sound like a lot, but unless you have fallen timber for a living you have no idea what the expense is like.



HAHAHA!! a cutter is lucky to get $20 an hour our here!! i make my best money cutting by the bushel.


----------



## Meadow Beaver (Apr 19, 2009)

You fellas who are taking hourly rate are getting jacked up. Getting payed by what you cut is the best way, Caleb your getting :censored:.


----------



## sILlogger (Apr 19, 2009)

MMFaller39 said:


> You fellas who are taking hourly rate are getting jacked up. Getting payed by what you cut is the best way, Caleb your getting :censored:.



and that is y i cut by the bushel. it is funny as hell.. people won't pay you much by the foot because they think it is alot....but if you do it by the foot and put the wood on the ground you end up making more than the $20 and hr they were gonna pay you. it just doesn't make sense


----------



## Metals406 (Apr 19, 2009)

Some of the best rates for making money up here was piece work. How many trees times X dollars per tree... Or some guys got payed by the cut. One to three cuts per tree, times X amount per cut. That's what the fallers told me anyway.


----------

