Transformations of the Labour Process and Ecology in Industrial Forestry
The Swedish forestry workers’ union describes strong downward pressure on working conditions in the industry due to fierce international competition and increased demands on profit distribution. The labour process of industrial forestry has undergone significant mechanisation and routinisation. Until the late 1970’s, the labour process included all parts of the life cycle of a planted tree – from plantation, grubbing and thinning, to the final cut. Today, these tasks are performed by different work teams and organisations. This division of labour reflects a segmentation of the internal labour market in forestry – with machine drivers permanently employed by the forestry companies, grubbing and thinning subcontracted to local operators, and plantation organised as seasonal labour carried out by migrant workers. Meanwhile, the dominance of clear-felling and the production rate of industrial forestry are increasingly being questioned. Environmental movements and researchers draw attention how the Swedish forestry model threatens biological diversity and the forest’s capacity as a carbon sink.
The paper presents findings from an ongoing PhD-project that examines the life histories of forestry workers in Sweden and how socio-ecological conflicts are interpreted by trade unions. Data consists of focus groups and life history interviews with forestry workers, and semi-structured interviews with representatives from trade unions. Following Barca’s (2014) call to centre the labour process as a socio-ecological process, the contribution addresses what interlinkages can be discerned between changes in the labour process and the environmental impact of industrial forestry, and vice versa, how climate change impacts work. It also explores how alienation impinges the possibilities to politicise the labour process and forestry’s operations from the vantage point of labour.