Resources and restructuring in the international solid wood products industry

Graham, Julie; Martin, Kevin St.

doi:10.1016/0016-7185(90)90012-u

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Moreover, very little work has been done applying the notions of Fordism or post-Fordism to the forest industry. Although Graham and St. Martin (1989) examine restructuring in the global solid-wood-products industry, they focus largely on the dynamics of changing resource availability, regional specialization, and product differentiation. There has been some research on industrial restructuring and the pursuit of various forms of flexible production in the Canadian forest products sector (see Barnes and Hayter, 1992;Hayter and Barnes, 1997;Holmes, 1997;Norcliffe and Bates, 1997).…”

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confidence: 99%

Downsizing Nature: Managing Risk and Knowledge Economies through Production Subcontracting in the Oregon Logging Sector

Prudham

2002

Environ Plan A

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Oregon's logging sector is characterized by extensive subcontracting between wood commodity manufacturing firms and independent logging contractors. Why is this so? Considerable recent scholarship has examined the dynamics of flexible production systems, including regional contractor networks, as prominent aspects of late capitalism. Although useful, existing accounts of flexibility are inadequate to explain why logging in particular would be subject to contract production relations. A second literature emphasizes the "difference" of nature-centered sectors, particularly industrial agriculture. I argue that a similar logic applies to logging. That is, natural sources of unpredictable variation and extensive, inconstant geographies restrict the predictability and calculability of production, and the imposition of labor monitoring and discipline. Contracts are a strategy for firms to displace resulting risks and costs onto contractors, while at the same time inducing expert-based rationalization of production. Repeat contracting provides a means of capturing expert knowledge among reliable contractors with knowledge of the parent firm's lands and mills. This is a particularly appealing strategy for vertically and horizontally integrated firms with complex operational portfolios. However, though contracting is one flexibility strategy, Weyerhaeuser's Competitive Logging Program featuring restructured wage relations provides an alternate path to more flexible production, one that further illuminates some of the problems of nature-based production.Key words: production subcontracting, logging, nature, organized labor, flexible specialization "Bring me Some Whistle Punks…."In the state of Oregon, most logging is accomplished via the practice of subcontracting. This involves wood commodity manufacturing firms tendering contracts to quasi-independent logging contractors -referred to in the industry as "gyppos"-to secure logging services. Although some wood products mills continue to run their own logging crews (referred to in the industry as logging "sides"), subcontracting has increasingly become the dominant form of industrial relation linking the factory floor to the woods during the post-World War II period. Given that the industry is not otherwise characterized by the existence of contract production networks (reforestation notwithstanding), why is contract logging so prevalent?In this paper, I explore why many wood products firms undertake logging by means of relatively arms-length industrial relations. I explain the incentive to contract out and to pursue other alternatives to fixed hourly wage relations as strategies for achieving production flexibilities in response to the nature-centered character of production in the logging sector. Specifically, I argue that variability, risk and uncertainty associated with the "in situ" character of logging production -i.e. the intimate engagement of social and natural production -creates an incentive for firms to minimize their exposure to these risks and uncertain...

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confidence: 99%

Downsizing Nature: Managing Risk and Knowledge Economies through Production Subcontracting in the Oregon Logging Sector

Prudham

2002

Environ Plan A

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“…In addition, as Japan's economy entered a recessionary phase, environmental constraints in the PNW reduced the allowable level of timber to be cut in all three states and provinces (Mutton, 1994;Northwest Policy Center, 1991a;1991b). Consequently, concern grew that, if the PNW could not shift through the value-added production chain to maintain its competitive advantage (for example, with increased sales of added-vatue wood products such as higher quality structural timbers as well as finished goods such as doors, windows, cabinets, mouldings, and so on), then the region might not be able to maintain its overall high standard of living, particularly in rural timber-dependent communities (Graham and St Martin, 1990;Jcnson International, 1991;Northwest Policy Center, 1991a;Parfitt, 1993). (5) In Japan the policy environment also shifted to favor the import of more added-valuc wood products from North America, Acute shortages of skilled carpenters and high domestic labor costs, combined with recession-driven requirements for lower cost housing, fueled demand for imported building products (Toyama, 1993),^ For both the US and Canadian federal and state/provincial governments, increasing added-value exports to Japan has been an important trade priority (DFAIT, 1996;Dobson and Sato, 1996).…”

Section: Strategies For Promoting Added-value Wood-product Exports Anmentioning

confidence: 98%

‘Getting Tough’ and ‘Getting Smart’: Politics of the North American — Japan Wood-Products Trade

Hayter

Edgington

1999

Environ Plann C Gov Policy

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The authors compare the Canadian and the US approaches to developing exports in the wood-products sector. They focus specifically on exports of sawn lumber and adtlcd-valuc wood products from the Pacific Northwest region (PNW), comprising the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC), and the US states of Washington and Oregon. Conceptually, a 'get tough-get smart' dichotomy for evaluating export-stimulation policies is outlined and elaborated on in the context of the PNW wood-products trade with Japan. The authors show that Canada and BC favored predominantly 'get-smart* strategics in the wood-products trade with Japan whereas the United States and Washington/Oregon preferred mainly 'get-tough* strategics. However, the authors conclude by pointing to the need for both styles in order to be successful in the difficult Japanese market. These two approaches arc not mutually exclusive and both generate external economy effects that cannot be limited to one national or regional territory. Nevertheless, the 'get-tough-get-smart* continuum is an effective starting point for classifying US and Canadian positions, respectively, and for raising policy and research questions about their relative roles and the underlying bargaining and learning processes which arc involved.

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“…Wary of the legacy of environmental determinism in the discipline, geographers have often avoided seeking explanations for changes in resource use in the dynamics of the physical resource itself (Graham and St. Martin 1990). The same i s true of writers in the tradition of staple theory, who have focused on staple industries' technological imperatives (Hayter 1996), rigidities of production (Drache 1982), demand for capital, and failure to generate spread effects (Watkins 1963) to explain regional stagnation and failure to diversify beyond resource industries.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Resource Cycle in Forestry and Fishing

Clapp

1998

Canadian Geographies / Géographies canadiennes

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While renewable resources appear to be the ideal basis for sustainable development, such development assumes that extraction can be restricted to the rate of natural increase in an intact ecosystem. The long record of failure to sustain the yield of biological resources suggests that such restriction is possible only in theory. While fish and timber are renewable, in practice they have not been sustainable. Although both may remain abundant, or at least stable, on a national basis, aggregate data disguise a sequence of regional cycles of boom and collapse, in which the market shares of regions in decline are taken by other regions which have not yet reached the point of crisis. Sustainability in regional resource extraction is achieved only in the chastening aftermath of resource collapse, and usually at levels significantly below those theoretically attainable from the productivity of the original ecosystem. This paper reviews the multiple, and mutually reinforcing, causes of the cycle of overexploitation and collapse, termed the resource cycle. It closes by considering the limitations that the resource cycle imposes on public policy, and their implications for the recovery of depleted resources. Bien que les ressources renouvelables apparaissent idéales pour le soutien du développement durable, un tel développement implique que l'extraction puisse être restreinte au niveau du taux de croissance naturel d'un écosystème intact. La longue liste d'échecs visant à soutenir la production de ressources biologiques semble indiquer qu'une telle restriction n'est possible qu'en théorie. Malgré le fait que le poisson et le bois constituent des ressources renouvelables, en pratique, elles ne sont pas encore durables. Bien que les deux demeurent abondantes, ou du moins stables, à l'échelle nationale, les données agrégées camouflent une séquence de cycles régionaux de croissance et d'effondrement. Ainsi, les parts de marché des régions en déclin sont soutenues par d'autres régions n'ayant pas encore atteint l'état de crise. Le développement durable de l'extraction des ressources régionales s'effectue donc seulement en réponse à l'effondrement de ressources, et généralement à des niveaux nettement plus bas que ceux théoriquement accessibles selon la productivité de l'écosystème d'origine. Cet article examine les causes multiples et mutuellement renforcées du cycle de surexploitation et d'effondrement, que l'on nomme le cycle des ressources. L'article conclue en considérant les limites qu'impose le cycle des ressources sur les politiques gouvernementales ainsi que sur leurs implications pour le recouvrement de ressources épuisées.

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Resources and restructuring in the international solid wood products industry

Cited by 9 publications

References 9 publications

Downsizing Nature: Managing Risk and Knowledge Economies through Production Subcontracting in the Oregon Logging Sector

Downsizing Nature: Managing Risk and Knowledge Economies through Production Subcontracting in the Oregon Logging Sector

‘Getting Tough’ and ‘Getting Smart’: Politics of the North American — Japan Wood-Products Trade

The Resource Cycle in Forestry and Fishing

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