Retro wages WTF!!!!

[Tree Sling'r]

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.]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

 

[Gologit]

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....

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.]

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]

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]

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.]

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]

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.