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URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:25-opus-29244
URL: http://www.freidok.uni-freiburg.de/volltexte/2924/

Westermayer, Till
Weitere Beteiligte (Hrsg. etc.): Lewark, Siegried ; Westermayer, Till

Out-sourcing of work in Germany’s forestry : rural social structure and identity in transformation

Kurzfassung in Englisch

Beginning in the 1920s, work in Germany’s forests was re-organized following the principles of Taylor and of modern industrial work. The main type of work since then was the employed, wage-earning forestry worker, organized in a union and hierarchically controlled. Selfemployed forestry contracting and timber harvesting as part-time occupation of farmers only played a minor. This situation changed in the 1990s with a steady increase in the out-sourcing of forestry work and the drastic reduction of wage-earning personnel in the state forests. As reasons for this development, the “neo-liberal turn”, the decentralization of work and a stronger market orientation of politics (and also of the state-owned forests) as well as new technical developments all can be named. Nowadays, owners and employees of small forestry contracting enterprises account for at least a quarter of the work force in Germany’s forestry. These enterprises are increasingly becoming professionalized and losing their links to agriculture and small-scale forestry, which is exemplary for a rural identity in transformation. As part of the BMBF funded project WALD (Wald / Arbeit / Land / Dienstleistung – Forests / Work / Rural Areas / Services), the working and living conditions in these micro-enterprises as well as the context in which they work were studied, combining in-depth qualitative interviews with statistical data. Inter alia, findings include a turn from social and regional integration of the work to a growing importance of market relations, a market position between forest owners and wood and paper industries resulting in an often exploitative situation, and, last but not least, the diffusion of sub-contracting even into small family enterprises. On the other hand, rural traditions of work still resonate with these enterprises.