Living Wage Likely to Raise Camping Fees

Hundreds of minimum-wage workers cleaning toilets, picking up trash and greeting vacationers at Forest Service campgrounds are about to get raises of between $1 and $5 per hour.

The pay increases follow Labor Department rejection of a Forest Service request for exemption from the 1965 McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act, which requires federal contractors to pay union-level wages to service workers.

Their employers aren’t happy, and chances are that many campers--overall, the sites get as many as 60 million visits each year--won’t be either.

Companies that run most of the Forest Service’s 4,000 or so campgrounds, mostly in the West, say they may have to boost overnight camping fees, which now range from $7 to $15.

The companies also say the higher wages could force reductions in campground services and the length of camping seasons, typically mid-May to mid-September.

“It will kill this industry relatively quickly,” said Pat O’Brien, executive director of the National Forest Recreation Assn., which represents campground concessionaires. “There’s not enough to pay these [wages]. It’s a very thin margin.”

The Forest Service agrees fees could increase and says the agency will take a considerable cut in its $2 million in annual camping revenues because of the change. That reduction, although only a fraction of the agency’s budget, could add to a forest maintenance backlog.

“It is a very big concern,” said Kenneth Karkula, concessions manager for the Forest Service.

The agency will begin putting the higher wages into effect in February as it renews contracts with concessionaires. But it will take about five years for the increase to reach all workers.

The agency’s own employees used to run its campgrounds. In the 1970s, as federal funding for forest recreation declined, the Forest Service began hiring concessionaires. Today, about 70% of the campgrounds are run by private companies.

The businesses generally pay their workers minimum wage or slightly more. But in 1995, while reviewing campground concessions, the Labor Department found that concessionaires should have been paying prevailing wages.

Forest Service officials had assumed that the campground workers were exempt from the McNamara-O’Hara Act. They viewed their contracts with concessionaires as leases, which don’t come under the act’s jurisdiction.

When told otherwise, Forest Service officials tried to get an exemption last year. The Labor Department already exempts concession contracts for lodging at national parks, they said, arguing that campgrounds should be considered lodging too.

Labor leaders cried foul when they caught wind of the exemption attempt.

“We don’t think the Forest Service ought to be racing to the bottom and exploiting workers,” said Denny Smith, field representative for the carpenters’ union in Portland.

Labor Department officials refused the exemption Nov. 23. They said campground workers who mainly collect fees, clean and do maintenance do not meet the exemption standard that applies to people who work at structural facilities such as motels and inns.

The change will hit some campground operators hard.

Minimum pay would go from $6.50 per hour to between $9 and $10 at CLM Services Corp., which is based in Palo Alto and hires about 350 workers each season.

Base pay will go from as low as $5.15 per hour to $10 or $11 an hour for the 500 workers at L&L; Inc., the largest Forest Service campground concessionaire, based in Orem, Utah.

“It would have very serious consequences,” said L&L; owner Dick Kemp. “It should be a concern to the camping public--the cost of inexpensive vacationing would be severely impacted.”

Concessionaires aren’t ready to say where they will need to raise fees or by how much.

The Recreation Roundtable, a group of chief executives for large recreation companies, wants Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman to appeal the Labor Department decision. Some concessionaires hope the Forest Service or Congress will act to exempt them.

But the Forest Service, which is part of the Agriculture Department, said it plans no appeals or congressional proposals. “We are going to heed what the Department of Labor told us . . . and that’s probably the end of the issue,” spokesman Chris Wood said.

On Capitol Hill, Republicans questioned whether the wage increase will affect agency estimates that recreation in national forests will contribute $98 billion to the economy by next year, compared with just $3.9 billion from logging.

“I had no idea that this economic juggernaut would have to be sustained on the backs of minimum-wage workers cleaning out Forest Service campgrounds,” Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) said in a statement.