A Comparison of Accommodation Types for Tree
Planting Employment
Many planters argue about
what type of work is better: planting
where you’re living in a tent in a bush camp, or planting where you’re living
in a motel. I’m not going to say which
is better, because it depends entirely upon the individual. I do both types of work every year, with
approximately three months doing work in a tent camp in the Interior, and
approximately three months (spring/fall) doing planting on Vancouver Island’s
north coast. Admittedly, I stay in a half-condemned
camper trailer when I’m in a tent camp, but let’s overlook that luxury for
now. There are pros and cons to both
situations, so let me try to illustrate the differences.
There are three main areas
on which to compare the two situations:
planting earnings, cost of living, and miscellaneous non-financial
considerations. Planting earnings are
highly variable, and depend on the person.
This is where the majority of dissent and even outrage from readers will
be generated, from people who don’t agree with my opinions. However, when it comes to Cost of Living and
Miscellaneous Non-Financial Considerations, the facts are pretty
straightforward, and hard to argue.
Let’s get the most contentious part out of the way first then.
Planting Earnings
This is going to be the
most contentious section of this post.
Most planters tend to defend the regions that they’re working on,
because they don’t like to believe/admit that they’re not getting a good deal
for themselves. Many planters also
criticize people planting for other companies and/or in other parts of western
Canada, without a full understanding of how a particular company operates or
what current conditions are on a particular contract. Some companies improve, others become less
professional over time, or start making mistakes that will ultimately have a
negative effect upon their reputation as a good company to work for.
A lot of planters look at
the western Canadian planting industry in a very simplistic sense, of north vs.
south. I’ve seen hundreds of people
commenting over the years about “how it is” in the industry, and many of these
people have only ever worked for one or two companies. I’m
not sure how these people can consider themselves to be experts. Look at me:
I spend a few months each summer supervising for a large northern
company, working in northern BC and Alberta, and I also spend a few months each
year doing coastal planting, typically spring and fall work on the north
Island. I’ve also worked for about
fifteen different companies during my career.
Despite all this, I don’t even consider myself to be an expert! I don’t think anyone can be. Having said that, I’m going to give you my
reasoned opinions on everything.
I’ve tracked my earnings
as a planter for more than a decade, at a number of companies, and dozens of
contracts, in varied regions and under a huge diversity of planting styles and
contract specs. To be fair, when I’m
planting for the company that I also work as a camp supervisor for, I don’t
typically get a lot of planting days in a season; typically only about ten to
sixteen days. Sometimes this is an extra
small contract in August that a half dozen of us do together. Sometimes it is a few days of planting here
and there in my own camp, on days off and when special missions need to be
done. For those projects, I need to make
adjustments to ignore the part days (because my supervising responsibilities
take priority), and I usually only consider full days, to get less biased
data. Also, if I’m planting during the
season, I rarely plant full days on a regular block; that just doesn’t make
sense. If I do plant during my regular
season, it’s usually because I’m dealing with scraps, holes, problems, or
special missions. So most of my planting
data at that company comes from August projects, because I’ve been able to
plant full-time on five the last six of those projects).
Here’s the part that will
probably cause a lot of people to start arguing: I make more money planting per day at my
northern rookie mill company than I do planting on a good contact on the coast.
Now, before everyone
starts screaming in disbelief, let me remind you that this statement is based
upon years of spreadsheet data that I’ve collected. My typical daily earnings on the coast are
around $330 per day. My typical daily
planting earnings at the northern company are around $370 per full day. And the interesting thing is that these
numbers have been very consistent from season to season over the past
decade. I’m past the point of improving
my production due to additional experience.
If that’s happening, it’s being offset by the fact that I’ve planted for
so long I don’t care about numbers anymore.
Now to be fair, we usually plant for an hour longer per day up north, so
my average planting time works out to about 8.5 hours per day on the coast, and
up north works out to about 9.5 hours per day.
When you break my daily averages out on a hourly basis, they are almost
exactly the same, no matter where I work ($38.80 to $38.90). Even more interesting, I consistently find
that I earn almost exactly the same amount per hour whether I’m planting 20 cent trees
on the coast, 30 cent trees on the coast, 45 cent trees on the coast, or 11
cent trees in northern Alberta.
Please note that this is all based on data from 2010-2018 inclusive, a period of relatively stagnant earnings. These numbers may seem outdated to readers a few years from now, if prices and earnings actually start to rise significantly with the expected demand for planting labour in 2019-2021.
Based upon my personal
experience, and based upon discussions with dozens of planters, foremen, and
supervisors at twenty other companies over the past few years, this is my gut
feeling about prices throughout western Canada:
Northern BC & Alberta: Earnings are
decent for a planter with a few years of experience, albeit living conditions
are tough. This area takes the most
criticism (sometimes deserved, sometimes not) but probably gets more than it
deserves. A lot of 5-10 year vets who
move to other areas say that they made terrible money when they planted up
north. Well of course they did. If they started between 2007 and 2012, the
money WAS terrible, as the economic recession hit this region much harder than
the others. And they were much less
skilled planters than they are now.
Northern Coastal work: Earnings are
decent, albeit you need quite a few years of experience to get a job. Planting is very difficult, but you don’t
have to stay in a camp. If you can get
remote work with one of the top companies (Rainforest, Stephen, some of the
other small operators), earnings can be stellar.
South/Central Island Coastal: Prices have
been under a LOT of pressure over the past decade. My daily earnings always drop when I get down
to Campbell River, Courtney, Comox, or further south. This may be due to a large number of planters
who live at home in those areas. Labour
supply goes up, prices decrease. This is
probably the worst area to work.
Southern Interior BC: Prices at most
of the smaller companies are quite good.
There’s still great money to be made here. Living in motels is great, especially once
you’ve been planting for several years and the tenting lifestyle no longer
appeals to you. The only real drawback
(which is not a drawback to some people) is that the seasons down there are
much shorter than northern BC or Alberta.
Of course, all of the
above considerations are very general observations. Certainly, experiences can vary tremendously
from company to company, and from contract to contract.
It always amuses me to
hear 20-year coastal vets saying that they don’t like working up north because
they don’t want to have to bend over 3000 times in a day. I can respect that. But then I hear dozens of 2nd and
3rd year vets, who have only ever worked at one or two companies,
parroting the same line. Personally, I
don’t mind bending over 3000 (or 4000) times in a day. What I hate is climbing up steep hills and
over giant carpets of slash. I’m not
saying that someone who doesn’t like bending over 3000 times is wrong. I’m just saying that everyone can have their
own opinion that matches what their body prefers. There is no right or wrong. If some of those northern planters spent a
day on some of the tough coastal blocks that I’ve worked on, they might quickly
run back to their Alberta farm fields.
I’ve worked on many coastal blocks where I’ve thought how much easier it
would be to plant five Alberta trees at 11 cents each than it would be to plant
one coastal tree at 35 cents.
Anyway, the point of this
section is that planting earnings can vary widely depending on where you’re
working. Prices are generally much
higher in the Southern Interior and on the coast than they are in northern BC or
in Alberta. Despite this, higher prices
do not necessarily translate to higher earnings. In the end, it is my daily earnings that
matter the most to me. I do believe that
earnings can generally be higher in the Southern Interior than in northern BC
or Alberta. But I also believe that most
people need at least four to five years of experience before they’re truly
ready for the more technical ground that many small Southern Interior companies
specialize in.
Cost of Living
I’ve addressed this issue
before, in other discussions on Replant, but it’s an important
consideration. In a camp, you typically
pay camp costs of $25 per day (usually $27 to $34 per day if you work in
Alberta). You usually only pay those on
planting days, when meals are provided.
On days off, you are responsible for feeding yourself, in town, at your
own expense.
When working on a motel
contract, you typically pay $25 per day in ‘camp costs’ to cover a portion of
the cost of your motel room (the employer subsidizes the rest). This cost is incurred every night, regardless
of whether or not it is a work day. In
addition, you have to pay for your own food.
My experience, based upon a decade of tracking personal food costs for groceries
while working on the coast, has been that I need to budget about $20/day to
feed myself (that’s under a cost-conscious regime where I don’t eat fast food
or eat meals at restaurants). That
expense, naturally, also needs to be paid regardless of whether or not it is a
work day.
Let’s compare these costs
under the assumption of a 3&1 shift schedule. In a bush camp in BC, you’d pay $25/day for
three days (camp costs) and $20/day on the fourth day (food in town), which
works out to a total of about $95 for the shift. This breaks down to $23.75 per calendar day
for living expenses. If you wisely
account for this against your planting earnings, this cost of $95/shift, set
against three days of planting, means that the first $31.67 of each day’s
planting earnings go towards your cost of living.
In a motel, you’ll be
paying $45 per day for the first three days ($25 motel plus $20 food), and then
exactly the same thing on the day off.
The total is therefore $180 for the shift. This breaks down to $45.00 per calendar day
for living expenses (as opposed to $23.75 in a camp). If you wisely account for this against your
planting earnings, this cost of $180/shift, set against your three days of
planting, means that the first $60.00 of each day’s planting earnings go
towards your cost of living (as opposed to $31.67 in a camp).
Obviously, surrendering
your first $60.00 of each day’s earnings to your cost of living is a pretty
steep price to pay for being a tree planter.
By living in a camp, you can save yourself approximately $28.33 per
day. This is one reason why daily
earnings MUST be higher for motel jobs; because your cost of living is also
higher.
In this analysis, I’ve
neglected the impact of income taxes.
Your planting earnings are taxed, but your food and camp cost
expenditures are deducted from after-tax income, which skews the numbers even
more in favor of tent camps and against motel accommodations. Luckily, in some cases, planters are able to
used T2200’s or Remote Work Allowance (RWA) to negate the taxation
implications.
In this analysis, I’ve
neglected the impact of slightly higher camp costs in Alberta (which are due to
food costs being higher in Alberta). Of
course, some of the companies working in Alberta are more likely to have
4&1 work shifts, which counterbalances the higher camp costs. Also, my daily food costs may be higher or
lower than your own circumstances. I
admittedly do eat a lot, but again, I stay away from restaurants and other
high-cost food items in order to stretch my food budget. Rice and pasta help in that respect.
Bottom line, anyone reading
this that wants more accurate numbers could re-do my calculations based upon
the precise camp costs at your own company, based upon your own eating/cooking
habits, and based upon your personal tax situation.
Sample Analysis Assessing Earnings and
Cost of Living
Now that you have an
understanding of how earnings and cost of living can vary, let’s do a sample
analysis. Let’s say that you’re a
moderately decent third-year planter, working for a northern BC company, and
you usually average about $275/day in a 66 day season, with shifts of
4&1. Let’s say that you think you
could average $350 per day if you worked for a high-end Southern Interior
company for their spring season, but you’d be living in a motel and working
3&1’s. You expect that you’d get about
44 planting days at that company (because they start April 26th and
have work until June 21st, which is common for those companies).
Northern Company:
66 Planting Days @ $275 =
$18,150
Less
Camp Costs of 66 Planting Days @ $25 = -$1,650
Less
Food on Days off (24 @ $20) = -$480
(allowing for some extra days off on camp moves)
Total NET earnings for Season: $16,020
Southern Company:
44
Planting Days @ $350 = $15,400
Less
Motel Costs of 58 Calendar Days @ $25 = -$1,450
Less
Food Costs for 58 Calendar Days @ $20 = -$1,160
Total NET earnings for Season: $12,790
In these two examples,
it’s obvious that although your average daily earnings are higher at the
Southern company, your total season earnings are higher at the Northern
company. This is common. However, this doesn’t factor in the
non-financial benefit of having five extra weeks off in late June and July. For university students, the total earnings
are usually the most important consideration.
For non-students, who often work in the early spring too, the appeal of
planting in July is not a big selling point.
Now that you have a good
understanding of how to consider all of the financial ramifications of various
options, let’s look at the non-financial considerations. For some planters, these are the points that
are the most important. It’s not always
all about the money, even though your earnings are important.
Miscellaneous Non-Financial
Considerations
For some people, money is
not the most important deciding factor.
If you’ve ever studied Organizational Behaviour (or a few dozen other
academic subjects), you’ve probably read about Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs. There are safety, behavioural,
self-esteem, and self-actualization needs that can be considered in your
decision:
Tent Camp Advantages
-
More active
social life
-
Having meals
cooked for you
-
Some people
really enjoy camping
-
Can sometimes be
situated quite close to the blocks (contract dependent)
-
Usually fairly good
gender balance
-
And as mentioned
above, lower cost of living and longer work days
Tent Camp
Disadvantages
-
Living in a tent
sucks during bad weather
-
Camp moves are
painful (although so are moves to a new motel)
-
Less privacy,
unless your tent is far away from everyone else
-
Hard to sleep on
the night off, if everyone is partying
-
Less likely to
shower on a daily basis
Motel
Advantages
-
Showering nightly,
with no lineup
-
Get to choose
your own diet
-
More privacy, and
easier to sleep on the night off
-
A dry bed during
poor weather conditions
-
And as mentioned
above, shorter work days
Motel
Disadvantages
-
Really sucks if
you don’t like to cook, or aren’t good at cooking
-
Drives to the
blocks tend to be longer, on average
-
Social activities
are unlikely to involve the whole crew
-
Gender balance
frequently skewed towards heavily male dominated
-
And as mentioned
above, you pay for your food and motel, 7 days per week
Conclusions
The strength of our
industry is the diversity. There is no
“best” type of accommodation or planting solution, otherwise, every single
company would adopt that. The industry
needs the high priced motel shows and highly technical planting that attract
highly experienced planters. The
industry needs the large tent camps full of planters with less than three or
four years of experience, who can quickly learn to plant well on easy
ground. The industry needs small
shoulder seasons of work in February/March/April and again in the fall on the
coast, to retain highly experienced planters in the industry. The industry needs the vast majority of the
work to be easier ground that falls into the May/June/July window, so it can be
performed by college and university students seeking temporary summer
employment, but who generally have no interest or desire in a long-term career
as a planter. In short, the industry
needs to have as much variety as possible, because tree planters’ needs and
motivations are so varied.
So there you have it. There is no universal “best situation” that
fits all users. Tree planters are
diverse, tree planting contracts are diverse, tree planting companies are diverse,
and peoples’ desires are diverse. You
should make a decision about what is best for you based on your own desires,
not based upon what other people tell you is best.
