ABSTRACT
The wooden furniture industry is engaged in the manufacturing of objects ‘designed to increase the comfort, utility or beauty of human habitation’ (Hayward 1974a:362). The furniture industry is substantial: in the current taxonomy of more than eighty industries in the European Union (EU), furniture production is presently the eighth largest, employing approximately half a million people (COM 1995).1 The industry has not only maintained its employment in recent decades, but has even experienced a slight growth since 1987, while six out of every seven European industries suffered major job losses (COM 1995).
