06-05-22 Miguel Ibanez moves pallets at American Pallet Inc. on Thursday (By JOHN HOLLAND)

Miguel Cadenas supports the economy, literally, with the work he does at a company in Oakdale.

He makes pallets, used by businesses to stack everything from canned tomatoes and sacks of fertilizer to television sets and cartons of soap.

It's noisy, physical work where safety training is vital, but Cadenas, a 14-year employee of American Pallet Inc., said he likes it.

"It's not too hard," he said Thursday as power saws roared and hammers pounded in the large shed where he works. "I like my job. Everything's OK."

About 20 companies make or repair pallets in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. Most pallets are the basic type — a pair of studs crossed by several thinner boards — but some are custom made for various needs.

Despite its importance to the world's commerce, the pallet industry itself has had a low profile.

"It's really underestimated," said Darrell Roberson, a partner in United Pallet Services on Crows Landing Road. "Any time you see freight moving across the United States, you can almost bet it's on a wooden pallet."

The industry came under a spotlight late last month, when federal immigration agents arrested nearly 1,200 employees of IFCO Systems, a giant in the business, on suspicion of being in the country illegally. IFCO has numerous plants in the United States and abroad, but none in the Northern San Joaquin Valley.

Roberson and John Fauria, co-owner of American Pallet, said immigrants are a big part of their work force but must have documentation.

"We follow the letter of the law," Fauria said. "They have to fill out the I-9's (a federal form) and have the proper identification or they don't work."

Roberson said he hired a human resources officer to keep track of the documentation for his staff, which hits 150 during the summer when food processing is in full swing.

Pallet industry people across the nation said increased immigration enforcement could reduce the labor supply and drive up costs, squeezing already-thin profit margins.

"It's a real concern in this industry what's going to happen to the immigrants because they are so widely employed," said Ed Brindley, publisher of Pallet Enterprise, a trade magazine. "I know most of the pallet people, and most of them consider labor to be their biggest problem."

Whatever the outcome of the IFCO case — and of legislation that could legalize millions of workers in many industries — it's hard to imagine life going on without pallets. An estimated 2 billion of them are in circulation at any time, some used over and over by the same company, some shipped off and forgotten. They cost from about $3 for a basic one to $30 for some of the specialty pallets.

Started in WWII

Roberson said pallets got their start in World War II, when huge amounts of material had to be moved quickly. They emerged hand in hand with forklifts, which are designed to grab and hoist the pallets without damaging the merchandise resting on them.

The valley manufacturers make plenty of pallets for use in harvesting and processing farm products. They also supply retailers and other companies that need to store bulky items.

At American Pallet, up to 20 people put them together, depending on demand. As many as 1,500 pallets are turned out per day.

Much of the work is done by machines that cut and position the wooden pieces and drive several nails at a time. But there's also manual labor, with workers wielding hammers or nail guns or feeding wood into the machines.

Cadenas, a legal U.S. resident who left Mexico 17 years ago, operates one of the machines. He and the other employees move quickly, but he said the work is safe because they keep the area clean and follow the rules. They wear earplugs and eye protection, but gloves are optional.

Fauria said his employees make $13 to $15 an hour when incentives for piecework are included.

The lumber for pallets is generally lower-cost types such as fir and pine, from several Western states and Canada. Plywood also is used for some. Fauria pointed to a stack of pallets made with extra-smooth plywood tops because the buyer wants wine boxes to slide off them easily.

Some companies make plastic pallets, but Roberson said they pose little threat to the good old wooden kind.

"Plastic is oil-based, and it's volatile in price," he said, "so they haven't made many inroads with the plastic pallets."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Bee staff writer John Holland can be reached at 578-2385 or jholland@modbee.com.