ABSTRACT
Logging and reforestation share the distinction of being the only segments of the forest industry in which production takes place in the woods. In the Douglasfir region, it is also common for logging and reforestation to be conducted as separate operations, with arms-length, contract relations of production connecting the mills to work crews in the woods. This is true even of some of the industry’s largest and otherwise most vertically and horizontally integrated firms, including Weyerhaeuser and Willamette Industries (now combined). In this chapter, focusing specifically on the state of Oregon, I explore why logging and reforestation are so often pursued by means of relatively arms-length industrial labor relations. Drawing on agrarian political economy, and specifically Ted Benton’s notion of the ”ecoregulation” of labor processes in nature-centered activities, 1 I examine alternatives to fixed hourly wage relations as strategies for achieving production flexibilities inspired by the “in situ” character of production in logging and reforestation. Specifically, I argue that variability, risk, and uncertainty associated with the intimate engagement of social and ecological production in logging and reforestation create problems in predicting and rationalizing rates of production in these sectors, prompting capital to seek ways to displace risks and uncertainties while inducing rationalized production.
