Living life coming and going: migratory cycles of Argentine forestry workers

ALFONSINA VERÓNICA ALBERTÍ

Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Laborales-Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, (CEIL-Conicet), Argentina

[email protected]

Abstract. This article deals with forestry workers from the province of Misiones (northeast Argentina) who migrate to find temporary employment in other provinces. Our objective is to understand the link between spatial mobility and access to employment. Based on a qualitative methodology, we reconstruct the annual migratory cycles of workers, taking into account the variety of spatial paths and temporalities involved in migration and analyzing how these characteristics vary according to each worker’s attributes, household strategies, and networks of access to employment.

Keywords: Forestry workers; labor migration; migrant labor; forestry work; temporary employment; forest productivity; Argentina

Introduction

In the current stage of agrarian capitalism, labor must engage in increasingly complex patterns of movement on varying spatial scales (internal and international migrations) and different temporalities, giving rise to situations of migrant or semi-migrant labor (Pedreño, 1999; Lara Flores, 2010; Bendini, Steimbreger, & Radonich, 2012). In the case of Argentina, Rau (2009) notes that the registry of rural workers and dockers attests to between 1.3 and 1.5 million people, of whom half, 650,000, are not registered; in turn, 40% of this figure is made up of temporary migrants, amounting to a workforce of 260,000.

Our empirical reference in this study is a group of forestry workers who, after losing their logging jobs in their home province of Misiones in the 1980s, resorted to temporary migration to find work in the industry in other Argentine provinces. By and large, they headed to the northeastern part of Entre Ríos province, a journey of more than 800 kilometers. The temporary character of migration in the forestry industry is not conditioned by a seasonality linked to the natural cycles, but by the way in which plantations are managed, with companies’ deciding on the time when exploitation will take place (Bardomás & Díaz, 2005).

Misiones is a province with a history of training labor specializing in timber production, a complex activity requiring considerable physical dexterity. This makes Misiones workers attractive to companies in Entre Ríos, which send independent “contractors”1 to Misiones to recruit labor, and in some cases, ask the workers themselves to recruit among neighbors, friends, and family. Access to work is sustained in turn by social networks, whether vertical (between employers and workers), or horizontal (between workers and their peers).

The objective of this article is to understand how spatial mobility is articulated with access to work along the labor paths followed by these forestry workers. To do so, first, we characterize the context in which these agents perform, taking into account the forestry sector in the province of Misiones, where the workers originate, and Entre Ríos, to where they migrate temporarily; second, we reconstruct the annual migration cycle, taking into account certain worker-specific attributes such as age and position in the family unit, participation in social networks associated with access to work, and the social reproduction strategy in which their household engages (that is, whether it practices small-scale subsistence agriculture and whether it sells surplus products).

We describe three types of migration cycles in the context of the workers’ itineraries: a) cycles of forestry alone, constructed outside Misiones; b) forestry cycles alternated with subsistence agriculture; and c) forestry cycles combined with waged agricultural and non-agricultural activities in different spaces. Migration cycles represent different patterns of spatial circulation; while the first two types are pendular (that is, they involve spatial movement between two areas), the third is circular, in reference to the different spaces in which the migrants circulate before returning home.

The first type of cycle, which presents a pendular pattern, is that of the forestry cycle pursued entirely outside the province of Misiones. In this case, workers are employed year-round in forestry in other provinces, chiefly the northeast of Entre Ríos and the south of Corrientes. In temporal terms, these migrations are characterized by their regularity. Trips to the forestry camps occur throughout the year, with stays running from 35 to 40 days, followed by short break periods of between eight and ten days at home in Misiones. This regularity is linked to employment with the major forestry companies, which impose the labor cycle in the absence of any production-related reasons for doing so. Indeed, workers retain their registered status only if they abide by the schedules stipulated by the company. Most are heads of household with children and work as chainsaw operators, while some are machine operators, and others play the role of contractors.

In the second pendular migration cycle, in which forestry work outside Misiones is articulated with agricultural activity in the province, workers alternate self-employment on their agricultural plots with forestry work in other provinces. The temporal pattern of this form of migration is irregular. The frequency of travel varies according to the workers’ agricultural activities and family arrangements. Stays at the forestry camp can last between 30 and 90 days, and it is common for these workers to remain in Misiones in May and June in order to harvest and prepare their land. They also tend to stay at home in January and February when forestry yields are low, since the timber is difficult to strip during these warmer months.

Finally, the solitary circular cycle is that in which forestry work is articulated with other waged activities inside and outside Misiones. This spatial pattern of mobility is circular in that workers combine jobs in different geographical spaces (different provinces, and in some cases, southern Brazil) before returning to their place of origin. Migration is irregular in frequency and involves long periods away from home – of between one and nine months – alternated with lengthy idle spells in Misiones. Generally, these workers are young, single men assigned to specific activities, such as chainsaw operation or bark stripping, the latter being the least skilled and most poorly paid.

1.Methodology

We conducted the fieldwork for this study, which yielded our primary data, between June 2009 and January 2013 in two different geographical spaces. In the first stage, we concentrated on two forestry camps located in the northeast of Entre Ríos; then, we turned our attention to the rural part of Bernardo de Irigoyen municipality, in Misiones. We decided that our focus would be on the perspective of the protagonists in migratory processes, the caveat being that, in reality, this perspective is subject to the interpretation of the researcher, and the subjects’ discourses must be placed in the context of the positions of power they occupy within the social fabric (Guber, 2004).

The techniques we employed for primary data construction were structured interviews, semi-structured interviews, and informal conversations. We recorded the interviews using a digital recorder. According to Sautu (2005), structured interviews entail a question guide with open questions, while semi-structured interviews are based on a topic guide. We complemented the interviews with written transcripts of the conversations, since, according to Guber (2004), on some occasions the interviewee can become uncomfortable in the presence of a recorder and only “starts talking” once the device is turned off. We also supported the interviews with observations, a technique that involves systematic and careful consideration of how social life unfolds. We used field notes to record the general information obtained in this way, thus enriching the information collected in the interviews.

We carried out the first stage of the fieldwork at camps operated by a forestry company and during exploitation activities by a private producer, in the departments of Concordia and Colón, respectively, in Entre Ríos province. The central objective of this stage was to establish the sociodemographic profile of the workers and find out about the places they came from. In addition, we observed their living and working conditions in the forestry camps.

Thereafter, we carried out the second stage in the rural part of the municipality of Bernardo de Irigoyen, where the workers we interviewed originated. Our household selection criteria was intended to capture the heterogeneity of the situations to the broadest possible degree, encompassing households with and without agricultural plots; those with male heads of household and those with female heads; different family structures; and different stages in the domestic cycle (that is, whether the family units were at the stage of expansion or fragmentation). We started by interviewing the family members of two of the workers with whom we had established contact in Entre Ríos; then, we used the snowball technique to select the remaining households, thus ensuring a heterogeneous sample.

The purpose of these interviews with migrant workers in their domestic contexts was to reconstruct the labor migration cycles in which they participated in 2011. Our reconstruction of their itineraries was not intended to be exhaustive, but to identify the changes and continuities in their working lives during the 2011 cycle. As such, the interviews contained questions related to the subjects’ work itineraries, such as the age at which they started migrating, whether or not their work was articulated with other migrant jobs, and working and living conditions in the camps. We also enquired into the ways in which workers accessed information about prospective employers and the areas worth migrating to.

2.Theoretical notions and concepts for the analysis

Labor migration cannot be understood without considering the notions of social network, territory, and temporality. Migrant workers form networks for relocating, seeking work, and keeping in touch with their places of origin; this fabric of relationships helps to convert the space in which they are active into a territory, and to construct migratory temporalities that vary based on the strategies pursued by the workers and their families.

The concept of “network” is a valuable instrument for studying social action: the network of relationships can be seen in terms of the constraints that it places upon behavior, or in terms of how each actor uses these relationships as an instrument for achieving their own ends. Moreover, in the sphere of labor migration (Benencia & Geymonat, 2005; Benencia, 2007), networks account for the importance of non-economic factors in the functioning of job markets, such as ties of family, friendship, and cronyism.

In turn, it is worth noting that some authors (Tilly, 1990; Pedone, 2003, 2010) caution against overstating the importance of network solidarity and reciprocity. In this regard, they make a distinction between horizontal relations (which imply links of solidarity) and vertical relations (which imply links of exploitation). This imbalance in power relations can mean that not everyone has equal access to the information, symbolic goods, and materials available.

Meanwhile, the paradigm of migratory circulation, which has dominated French studies in the field since the 1990s, has given rise to several concepts with which to reflect on the categories of space and time. The term “migratory circulation” emerged in France in the 1980s as part of the analysis of mobility in dynamic terms, going beyond the origin/destination dichotomy in order to understand the dynamic between labor markets and the set of flows – of materials and ideals – prompted by the circulation of people (Cortes & Faret, 2009).

Along these lines, the term “migratory territory” coined by Faret (2001) breaks with the origin/destination dichotomy – as if these were isolated spaces – to understand how the different places through which migrants transit are articulated by way of a logic that integrates them and gives them meanings. Another term devised to capture the complexity of spatial movement is “circulatory territory,” which refers to territories embraced by population networks driven by “circular know-how.” The notion of circulatory territory confirms the socialization of spaces according to logics of mobility (Tarrius, 2000).

As to the notion of “circulation,” Cortes (2009) argues that it involves the following: a) the spatial organization dynamics produced and defined by circulation (formation of migratory poles, nodes, interfaces, and routes) in relation to migrants’ lives; b) the specific forms of displacement of both migrant and associated (non-migrant) actors; and c) circular power and know-how, that is, all of the “circulatory resources” that make displacement possible: financial resources, mobilization of a social capital, use of networks, media, and circulation of information.

Meanwhile, the category of “time,” according to Tarrius (2000), organizes space, and the use of space is linked to lifestyle-related itineraries. Temporalities, for their part, articulate different types of mobilities between territorial levels. For Canales (1999), the relationship between migration and temporality is founded on the construction of migratory temporality as mediation; that is, as a sphere in which the migratory process is articulated with other social and demographic phenomena. Thus, the temporal form of migration is shaped by gender dynamics, generational differences, and the place occupied by the individual migrant in the family structure.

Moraes Silva (2010) analyzes labor migrations from the northeast of Brazil to the sites of sugar and alcohol production in the state of São Pablo, denominating the migratory circulation space as “permanently temporary” migratory territories; in this way, he articulates the notions of time and space to explain how workers and their families organize their social reproduction in different geographical spaces for different periods of time.

For the case of northern Nicaragua, Prunier (2011) describes the migratory trajectories of campesinos, affirming that the various social and economic spaces established as the loci of reproduction for rural families articulate both short and long migrations, combining cross-border and internal movements. These complex migratory models interweave domestic agriculture with waged employment outside the locality.

Looking at Mexico, Lara, Sánchez & Saldaña (2014) analyze the labor migration and settlement processes of agricultural workers in the states of Morelos, where small farmers predominate, and Sinaloa, the site of several large intensive agricultural firms, to explain the complexity of spatial mobility in the social reproduction strategies of these collectives.

Meanwhile, Gadea, Ramírez & Sánchez (2014) analyze the phenomenon of migration from agricultural enclaves in Spain and various parts of Latin America, showing how the agri-food restructuring processes have modified day laborers’ profiles and forms of circulation, resulting in increasingly complex processes of mobility that challenge the traditional ways of understanding migration and settlement.

In the case of Argentina, numerous studies conducted by researchers from the Department of Geography and Agricultural Social Studies at the Universidad de Comahue analyze the links between social reproduction strategies and migratory territorialities, with specific reference to seasonal migrant workers from the Patagonia region (Radonich, 2001; Bendini & Steimberger, 2010; Bendini et al., 2011; Bendini, 2011). In turn, Quaranta (2014) examines how the state, through public policies, influences the reproduction strategies of families participating in migrant labor linked to the olive oil industry in northern Argentina, thereby transforming migratory circuits.

Finally, we wish to refer to “migratory cycle” as a term that captures the notions of territory, time, and social reproduction strategy. The annual cycle of temporary migrant work forms part of the social reproduction strategies of families, which in turn comprise all labor relations established by migrant workers throughout the year (Carambula Pareja, 2009).

The displacements between workers’ places of residence and the different sites where they find employment gradually form the labor cycles of each of them. Such workers cannot be considered migrants due to their habitual places of residence alone, but because of their incorporation and participation in job markets in other provinces or regions. “[…] the emphasis is not placed on the transient character of their residences or stays, but on the recurrent and permanent transit from one space to another” 2 (Canales, 1999, p. 17).

Moreover, the displacements can create different spatial patterns. Pendular migrations are those in which workers leave their places of origin for the workplace and then return, while circular migrations involve the transit of each migrant through different jobs located in different domestic and/or international spaces (Lara Flores, 2006).

3.From the native forest of Misiones to the forestry camps of Entre Ríos

Forestry activity in the province of Misiones can be grouped into two types: exploitation of native forests, and exploitation of tree plantations. In the northeastern part of the province, the exploitation of natural forests stretches back to the time of the Jesuits; while in the northwest, on the banks of the Paraná River (the departments of El Dorado, Iguazú and Montecarlo, and to a lesser extent San Ignacio and Oberá), planted forests only began to be exploited starting in the 1970s (Kostlin, 2005) and is geared towards the international market (Krautstofl, 1991).

The various studies on the organization of labor and working conditions in the native or planted forests throughout Misiones (Flood, Baudron, Giarraca, & Soverna, 1974; Mastrangelo, Scalerandi, & Figueroa, 2011; Krautstofl, 1991) are in agreement that this is a highly precarious form of work characterized by instability, labor intermediation, lack of security and hygiene in the camps, and weak unionization.

In the 1980s, when the economic crisis put an end to forestry subsidies, Argentina started to import timber on a large scale from Chile, Brazil, and Paraguay. During this period, native forest exploitation in northern Misiones was plunged into crisis. One study focusing on San Pedro (a department located in the northeast of the province) describes how, following the timber crisis of that decade, many of the forestry workers laid off by companies stayed on in the area and formed a kind of labor pool that contractors could access when they needed manpower familiar with this line of work (Kostlin, 2005).

On the other hand, Gómez Lende (2012) points out that the 1990s marked the start of a new stage in which provincial forestry activity was integrated into the logic of the global economy through the privatization of state-owned firms, now in the hands of Argentine-based groups. During this stage, the sector, revived by planted exploitation in the northwest of Misiones, started to adopt the “paradigm of quality,” leading to implementation of global certifications. This had a bearing on local work, in that quality-oriented work is safe work, and safety is associated with productivity. Moreover, professional certification systems began to be implemented, which required the technical training of workers in the sector (Mastrangelo et al., 2011).

It should be noted that the workers displaced by the crisis of native forestry had difficulty finding work in the dynamic planted sector in northwestern Misiones. This new stage of integration into the global forestry sector prompted changes in the organization of production, which had consequences for the labor employed in the northwest. Starting in 1996, the sale of the biggest employer (Alto Paraná S. A.) to a Chilean group extended the industry’s characteristic labor outsourcing process, impacting woodcutters and chainsaw operators. The introduction of mechanized cutting (through processing machines), safety requirements, categorization, and the requirement that workers complete full secondary education (Schiavoni, Albertí, & Bardomás, 2012) were the main changes that curtailed access to forestry work in the sector.

Thus, the processes that took place in the Misiones forestry sector triggered the migration of workers, largely to the northeast of Entre Ríos.3 There, in the department of Concordia, 60,000 hectares of eucalyptus had been planted in the late 1970s as part of a tax relief system. According to one of the interviewees, this occurred in an “entirely citrus-growing and livestock area” where “forestry activity was largely abandoned, which also meant that there was no labor of this type” (contractor, Entre Ríos, 43 years old).

Thus began development of an industry without precedent in the region, which required the establishment of a job market and the presence of companies to process the raw material. The large volumes of timber bound for export required an adequate supply of labor with knowledge of the activity and a willingness to work under precarious conditions. And, in contrast to workers from Entre Ríos, those from Misiones presented advantages given the longevity of extractive forestry there, in addition to the presence of contractors who provided services to the large companies (Schiavoni & Albertí, 2013).

Although some local labor has been employed over the years, the key respondents we consulted estimated that between 70% and 80% of the workers active in the Entre Ríos plantations came from Misiones. The prospects – however scarce – of employment in other activities where conditions are less harsh than forestry, such as citrus production, poultry farming, construction, or sawmill work, added to the reluctance on the part of local manpower to engage in forestry activities (Bardomás & Albertí, 2011; Albertí, Bardomás, & Schiavoni, 2015).

Entre Ríos has a forested area of 122,681 hectares, the third-largest in Argentina behind Misiones and Corrientes. In addition, it has 121 sawmills (89%), 13 treatment plants (10%), and two fiberboard manufacturers (Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria, INTA, 2009). Meanwhile, Entre Ríos is the second-largest producer of willow, after Buenos Aires, and of eucalyptus: the most prevalent species grown.

The plantations located along the banks of the Uruguay River pertain to the departments of Federación, Concordia, Colón, Uruguay, Gualeguaychu, and Islas del Ibicuy. Meanwhile, the departments on the banks of the Paraná River with the largest numbers of planted forests are La Paz and Paraná (INTA, 2009).

Mechanized harvesting in the region is restricted to companies that control large planted areas, necessary for profitability given the high costs of equipment, replacements, and maintenance. Eighty-two percent of exploitations are below 100 hectares, accounting for 30% of the forested area in the region (INTA, 2009).

Bardomás and Díaz (2005) estimate that in the departments of Colón, Concordia, and Federación alone, forestry activity in 2004 accounted for 313,266 workdays, equivalent to 1,450 jobs. Labor is completely outsourced, and contractors from Misiones were the first to organize the displacement of workers to Concordia from Bernardo de Irigoyen, in Misiones. Initially, the migrations were carried out en masse by truck. But other contractors emerged over the years, and the workers themselves gradually constructed a network connecting their places of origin with work destinations:

With exportation is when people started to come from Misiones […] With the timber exportation, they began to look into who provided the service in the native forests and it was only the Misioneros. Many people came, 100, 150 people, they came in trucks and buses. They didn’t work with Santiagueños or Chaqueños [workers from the provinces of Santiago del Estero and Chaco] any longer; they got going with Misioneros, since a lot of labor was needed (timber-loading contractor, Entre Ríos, 38 years old).4

Migrant workers are assigned tasks corresponding to the harvesting stage, such as stripping the bark, felling, removing the felled trees, and loading the timber by tractor. Generally, the chainsaw operators and the timber loaders receive the highest pay.

The organization of this regional labor market is the product of decentralized forms of intermediation. Through interpersonal relationships, the contractors and chainsaw operators shape a universe of networks. This intermediation chain is driven by the contractors, who delegate the task of attracting new recruits to the labor force. The contractors provide the equipment and tools, as well as food for the workers during their stay at the camp (Albertí et al., 2015).

On the formation of the labor market, one contractor observed that:

It gradually takes shape on its own. The chainsaw operator is the one who earns the most, and a chainsaw operator on a eucalyptus plantation cuts for four people. The four guys who strip the bark for those chainsaw operators are also thinking of buying a chainsaw. The chainsaw operator comes up and says to me: “So-and-so, who’s my bark stripper, is going to buy a chainsaw, I’d like permission to bring along four people.” So I said to him: Bring two. […] I told him to bring along two, because if there are four, for as useless as they’d be when it comes to production, they’d have to bring along Schwarzenegger and Superman (contractor, Entre Ríos, 38 years old).

Pay operates on a piecework basis (that is, on the basis of individual output) and working days can last up to ten hours, since the workers’ distance from their home spurs them on to reach maximum yields. One worker commented:

If I sit down and rest, I lose money, it’s not worth my while, nobody travels such a long way, far from their family, far from everything, to do nothing. You work and work, non-stop, and that’s in your best interest. That’s how you can make a difference, otherwise there’s no point going off to work so far away (forestry worker, Misiones, 29 years old).

The workers generally live in forestry camps, far away from the urban centers; the security and hygiene conditions vary according to the type of company that runs the site. While the larger-scale enterprises can offer relatively comfortable living conditions (with bathrooms, albeit in insufficient numbers for the number of workers, container dormitories, dining rooms), as well as safety wear for each worker (hardhat, boots), at smaller plantations, workers sleep in tents, do not have access to bathrooms, and are not given protective clothing.

4.The migration cycles of the workers

In order to reconstruct the migratory cycles of the 21 workers interviewed, we took into account the work they engage in (forestry, agricultural, and non-agricultural activities), the geographical spaces they go to in search of work, their frequency of travel throughout the year, the duration of their stay in each destination, and the length of their rest periods at home. We also made an attempt to establish the ruptures or inflections that arise during these labor circuits, such as spells of unemployment, breaks during the journey to the worksite, and/or changes in working role, etc.

To gain a dynamic understanding of these cycles, we enquired into the workers’ itineraries, taking into consideration the way in which they entered the working world for the first time and the paths they had taken previous to the interviews.

Moreover, we describe the profile of the workers, taking into account their current age, level of education, the age at which they began migrating, type of family unit (nuclear, extended, or multi-nuclear5), the place they occupy therein (child, head of household, or sibling of the head of household); as well as social origins (child of producers only, producers/wage earners, or wage earners only). For those cases in which workers’ families hold agricultural plots, we consider whether they do so as tenants; this usually corresponds to plots of less than 100 hectares and a lack of access to sufficient technology for anything other than subsistence farming and the sale of surpluses.

With respect to age, the oldest interviewee was 58 and the youngest was 16, while the average age was 29. As to social origins, the most frequent response (in 11 cases) was wage earners and producers; that is, their parents engaged in agricultural work alternated with waged labor. Only six of the respondents answered that their parents worked in agricultural production alone, while those of another four were solely wage earners.

Their level of education was low: of the 21 workers, only nine had completed primary school, while the remainder had not done so (one respondent had never even attended school). Those who completed primary education were the youngest of the sample, aged less than 30. In the case of union membership, only two respondents (pertaining to the cycle of migrants who engaged only in forestry outside Misiones), were members of the Argentine Union of Rural Workers and Dockers (Unión Argentina de Trabajadores Rurales y Estibadores).

In most cases, the workers started migrating for work between the age of 15 and 16. As regards family units, 11 of the migrants came from nuclear families (migrants from families going through the expansion stage tended to be heads of household, while those from families in the fragmentation stage were usually the children); four workers were from extended families (three were children, while the fourth was the head of household); and finally, of the six workers who came from multi-family units, only one was a household head.

4.1Cycles of forestry alone, exclusively constructed outside Misiones

Of the 21 workers interviewed, nine engaged in a cycle devoted solely to forestry in 2011. Eight were heads of household and came from nuclear family units, while one was the brother of a head and came from an extended family. The average age of the workers was 35.4 years of age, with the youngest being 25 and the oldest, 58.

In the case of social origins, of these nine workers, the parents of five were wage earners and producers, those of three were producers alone, while one had parents who were solely wage earners. In all cases, the wage-earning activity of the workers’ parents was related to the forestry sector. This means that the workers possess the cultural capital necessary to acquire “know-how” related to forestry activities, which in turn availed them of extensive social capital with which to find work in the sector, as well as participation in effective job access networks throughout the year.

Most of these workers were employed in forestry all year round, although some may have worked briefly in other agricultural or non-agricultural activities (such as in construction, or as private-hire drivers). Generally speaking, they were chainsaw operators, although some of them also operated the tractors used for loading timber.

Although most of the workers began to migrate at a young age, between 14 and 16, a trend is beginning to emerge of later entry into migration: over the age of 18. This is explained in part by a school investment strategy for the youngest, as well as the fact that this group has more access to work at large companies, which are subject to more state regulation and tend to hire slightly older workers.

This type of migratory cycle is more stable in labor terms. Migrants work outside Misiones all year round, the temporality of migration is regular, and the workers comply with the travel schedule stipulated by the companies, based on working periods of 45 days and rest periods at home totaling no more than ten days. The condition for registered status is strict adherence to the attendance rates demanded by the company; failure to do so results, as the workers put it, in “the loss of registration.” This means that they automatically cease to be registered, but not usually that they have been dismissed per se.

The work cycles coincide with displacements to other provinces; this can be seen as a construction that results from the migratory practice itself. Some interviewees stated that they worked in the forestry sector in northwestern Misiones, before being laid off due to the mechanization of timber cutting by way of processing machines. They also attested to having received training in chainsaw usage from a company in Alto Paraná (northwestern Misiones). Moreover, the workers believed that more money could be made from logging in other provinces than in Misiones, since pay is piecework-based. According to one worker:

Here in Misiones there is no work that is going to pay well; here you don’t earn as much as in the Entre Ríos, Corrientes area. But there you earn; it’s not that you make much, but the advantage we have there is that we work for 25 or 45 days, we earn a certain amount and put a bit away. The extra cash we make, we bring it back here to do up the house, do something. On the other hand, if we work here, we don’t earn anything because of the shortage there is. […] In Alto Paraná you take away half as much cash as you take away in Entre Ríos. There you make between 4,000 and 5,000 pesos (worker, Misiones, 37 years old).

These workers participate in networks that are effective in providing access to work, affording them room for maneuver with which to change employers without running the risk of lengthy spells of unemployment. Moreover, this group exhibits the greatest degree of labor stability (each had spent more than one year working for a single employer), as well as the largest number of registered workers. One of the workers spoke of his strategy for finding work:

Interviewer: Do you change companies frequently?

Interviewee: [...] sometimes you change, a short while ago I spent four years with a company, then I was two years with another; last year I was with another company and now I’ve been two months at the same company where I was for four years in a row. They took me on again for a second time, the thing is that they know me by now, a whole lifetime going to those jobs, I’m never stuck without (worker, Misiones, 38 years old).

Most workers started out as bark strippers and then graduated on to chainsaw operation. In some cases, they also act as labor contractors for the company. In one case, the manager lent a truck to a worker so that he could take his workmates to the forestry camps in Entre Ríos or Corrientes. The wife of one worker told of her husband’s activities:

This year he started out as supervisor again. He was working well and since the manager got sick, they made him supervisor. He does the same as before, works with a chainsaw, but I think he has more work now because he has to make sure his workmates do the work well and bring them goods. This year the manager gave him a truck to take people to Concordia (wife of forestry worker, Entre Ríos, 37 years old).

During the periods of labor, displacements are recurrent. The only major disruption came during the crisis of 2002-2004, when the forestry sector was seriously affected by the change in the exchange rate. At this critical moment, many households came to depend on the Plan Jefes y Jefas program.6 One worker spoke of how he got through the crisis:

And since she [his wife] had one of those 150-peso plans, with that we had to make adjustments. We had to rear a chicken to eat an egg, plant [...] I had to adapt as best I could, that’s how it had to be. There weren’t even any odd jobs (worker, Misiones, 38 years old).

Another worker explained how his dense network of contacts gives him steady access to forestry work, a continuity that was nonetheless affected by the Argentine crisis at the start of the 2000s.

Interviewer: If you change contractors, will you still have the chance to go back?

Interviewee: Yes, because they keep calling me. If one doesn’t call me, another will, and if not, some relative or friend tells you about work. They already know, they know you, and you also have the phone numbers of several managers.

Interviewer: Have you ever had periods without work?

Interviewee: Yes, at the time of the corralito.7 I was out of work for more than two months. That was the only time. But since then I’ve always been on the move, I live coming and going. If you stay put you’re not going to get work, I always go to where the work is, that’s how it is here, the ones who stay put don’t have a chance (worker, Misiones, 28 years old).

Moreover, these workers, given the form of employment, enjoy better living and working conditions in the forestry camps. One worker noted that:

They give you everything they have to: special shoes, hard hat, all the clothes, and we’re good. Before, in a different era, they went out in tents in the middle of the forest, now we have a bed, bathroom. It got a lot better […] it’s that there are controls, so they have to have everything in order (worker, Entre Ríos, 25 years old).

However, although the companies take on workers on a registered basis, this is not to say that they do not also hire labor under any other kinds of arrangements. One of the workers interviewed noted that a major forestry company in Concordia employed black economy workers:

Interviewer: Do you know of anyone who has worked in the black economy?

Interviewee: Yes, loads. At Forestal Argentina there was also black economy work. Many work in the black economy there for many reasons, actually they work like that for the contractor and the company doesn’t know about it. Forestal Argentina have a lot of regulations, they’re very straight, but within that straightness there are always some who try to take advantage. So the contractors take along and sign up ten people and two are black economy; they try to pass the black economy ones off as if they were by the book. There, the big fish have a lot of say, the manager is there, then the site supervisor, all of them are there and that’s where the money operates, because registering a worker means a lot of money (forestry worker, Misiones, 37 years old).

The workers maintain their families by sending frequent remissions. These households conform to traditional patterns in which the husband and father is the main breadwinner. Earnings not only cover a family’s basic needs, but are sufficient to enable limited savings. This is reflected in home improvements, especially the replacement of sheet-metal or wooden housing with cement structures.

4.2Forestry cycles alternated with agricultural work

Out of all the workers, in 2011, six completed a migration cycle that involved a combination of forestry work outside their home province with tending family plots in their place of origin. Of these, only one occupied the role of household head. These were young workers with relatively little work experience (less than ten years); the youngest generally worked as bark strippers, while those with more experience in logging were usually deployed as chainsaw operators. The average age of these workers was 25.5 year of age, while the oldest was 38 and the youngest, 16.

As to social origins, the parents of most migrants in this group were or had been wage earners and producers at the same time. Only two workers had parents who were engaged solely in agriculture; Employment histories were varied: many alternated forestry work with activities associated with the production of yerba mate and tobacco.

All of these workers came from multinuclear domestic units, made up of several nuclear or extended families that live in neighboring dwellings and share a single agricultural plot. Their members are bound by direct family ties and participate in production and social reproduction tasks in different ways. Family organization in these units can take multiple forms: some plots, for instance, are worked by parents and children, but participation tends to be uneven: the father, who no longer migrates or does so only occasionally, is usually in overall charge of the plot, while the children tend to lend their labor when needed at critical times of the year or, in other cases, only contribute financially.

Agricultural activity, in many cases, is restricted to the growth of crops for self-consumption, while in others, small areas are set aside to produce crops or animals intended for the market. Although possession of a plot does not preclude the need to migrate, it makes it possible to do so with less frequency.

However, this frequency is not evenly spaced throughout the year: in May and June (the harvest and planting period) and January and February (when the heat makes bark stripping difficult and production dwindles as a result) migrants tend to stay on their land. In turn, the greater or lesser frequency of travel depends on the arrangements that the migrants have made with their families for tending the plot. These can range from situations that call for migration two or three times per year, to those requiring journeys throughout the year, save for the aforementioned periods when forestry work is not practicable.

The temporality of these cycles is dependent on contingencies linked to agriculture, in that the workers alternate between independent farm work and forestry migration based on circumstances that arise during their labor itineraries. One worker, who lived with his parents, related how he alternated between the two activities according to the varying prospects and restrictions that marked his particular itinerary:

I started migrating from a young age. From then, I went for nine years running, until I was able to start farming a plot. I suffered a lot. I saved up little by little until I reached a certain level with some pigs; I put up a solar panel […], then there was a drought. Around 2008 I think it was, and then we lost too much, and again I went back to Concordia and stayed for about six months. I would send a few pesos to my folks, because at that time they didn’t get any kind of pension. […] Later, well, once I got back on my feet I suffered a serious burglary, they beat up my folks, It was very violent. Then, my folks, my brother who lives with his wife and the boys, we all moved in for a while with my sister who lives in the village. And again I left for Concordia and stayed for around 45 days. I came back, stayed for a while, then left again. […] Now, a short time ago, in November last year, I had an accident: a trunk fell on my leg. I was in quite a bad way, so last month I went back to the plot with my folks, and with my brother who works along with me. For the moment we’re selling pigs, I’m only working on the plot and every so often my brother goes to the forests of Entre Ríos and brings back the extra money (forestry worker, Misiones, 32 years old).

In general, workers travel with greater frequency while they are single, and as they establish their own homes and families, they begin to space out their journeys in order to work for longer periods at home on their plots.

The migrants in this group usually work as bark strippers or chainsaw operators. Rotation is high, with workers changing companies several times per year. Two of the workers in this category had, at some point in their labor history, worked temporarily in other agricultural activities, such as blueberry production in Entre Ríos and tomatoes in southern Brazil.

Work is generally undocumented, since the big companies that comply with labor laws do not allow workers to stay at home for more than ten consecutive days, and require them to travel out to the camps throughout the year. Rather, the irregular, fragmented temporality that characterizes this group is linked to employers on a smaller scale, generally medium-sized and small producers. While some workers stated that they sustained this migratory temporality in order to continue with independent agriculture on their plots, others reported that they did not have access to the large forestry companies that offered better pay and conditions, and so had to engage in agricultural production to mitigate their labor instability. One worker stated the following:

I don’t plan to stop working on the plot, or I’ll die of hunger. So at least the family can eat, you sell some beans, a pig and you get by. It’s true that you can go to Entre Ríos and bring back a fair bit of extra money, but there are times when you don’t have the chance to go, and sometimes the manager screws you over and doesn’t pay you what he promised. And there are some that don’t pay you at all (forestry worker, Entre Ríos, 31 years old).

This testimony gives an indication of how difficult it can be to access paid work, as well as the appalling conditions of their employment, in which workers can be left exposed to fraudulent actions by their employers. This explains the ubiquity of small-scale crop and livestock farming, resorted to as a means of subsistence for workers and their family units.

4.3Forestry cycles combined with waged agricultural and non-agricultural activities, in different spaces (inside and outside the province)

Over the course of their working lives as migrants and wage earners, another six workers engaged in different forms of work in a variety of places. They were all single, without any dependents. The average age of these workers was 22, while the oldest was 33 and the youngest was 16.

Of these workers, half were from extended families, and the other half belonged to nuclear families at the fragmentation stage. The parents of two of them were wage earners only – forestry workers – while the remaining four came from families who combined independent production with wage earning. The paid work in these cases was associated with both agricultural (yerba mate production) and non-agricultural (construction) employment.

Unlike in the other cases, their migration in 2011 did not follow a pendular pattern. The workers circulated through different types of agricultural and non-agricultural work in different provinces, and even combined interprovincial migration with migration to Brazil, where work is available harvesting onions for small-scale exporters in the south, and on tomato plantations. They can also access non-agricultural work, such as in construction.

The positions they occupy in the forestry sector are, in most cases, those of bark stripper and/or loader, and many are untrained in chainsaw operation. Their migration temporality is irregular and can involve long periods away from home (up to six months), as well as protracted idle spells at home in Misiones. It is a labor cycle that involves considerable uncertainty and instability for the workers concerned.

The labor access networks are fragile, and are not ready sources of documented employment. This is partly reflected in the irregularity of stays at forestry camps – up to 90 consecutive days. When the migrants do find work, the uncertainty surrounding labor conditions, and the form and rate of payment, is considerable. Moreover, instances of fraud or breach of pay agreements by employers are commonplace. The mother of one of the workers provided the following account of how her son found work in the forestry industry outside Misiones:

He [her son] heads off with the first one who comes looking for him: word goes around that there is a contractor looking for people and right away he gets roped in, he doesn’t even ask if he’ll be in the black economy, the white [economy], if they’re going to pay him, how much they’re going to pay him […]. It makes me mad because then they swindle him, they cheat him. He has no idea what he’s getting into each time he goes to Entre Ríos (mother of forestry worker, Misiones, 59 years old).

With respect to occurrences of fraud, in some cases, employers attempt to pay workers in kind. The following narrative provides an example:

The guy suddenly disappeared the day he was meant to pay me, he likewise didn’t pay other workers. When we say him, we complained and he wanted to pay me with a chainsaw. He’s crazy, with a chainsaw you can’t even buy food. So he agreed to pay me the next time I work for him. Now I’m waiting for him to come to Misiones, to settle up [...] And he owes me more than 3,000 pesos. If a go back to work for him, he has to pay me those 3,000 pesos plus whatever I make then.

Interviewer: And did you never think about reporting that employer?

Interviewee: Look, I prefer to keep clean. If you make a complaint, word gets around and then none of them want to hire you. So you end up without work. I don’t want any trouble, I prefer not to do anything so that next time they give me work. […] They talk among themselves and if you make a fuss, they find out and none of them take you on (worker, Entre Ríos, 33 years old).

In these cases, migration functions as an aid to the family unit and serves for paying off credit accounts, but it does not amount to a sizable income, and remissions are not usually sent. These young workers can spend long periods without returning home to help their families economically.

One of the workers was in the habit of migrating to the forestry sector in Entre Ríos for almost a year, alternating between this and employment in citrus and blueberry production. He would go back to Misiones only for the holidays at the end of the year, during which time he contributed economically to his family.

The thing [is] that you leave because there you earn a few extra coins. Also, here [Misiones] you’ve got to go out and chase after a job [...] like one or two months until you get lucky and they take you on; there [Entre Ríos], no way. Instead you go away, ask around and find something [...] that’s where I am and when I start to get bored or I don’t see them [his family] and miss them, I come back. You can spend a year there […] When you’re there, there you don’t work for two, three days; you spend fifty and you know you’ll make it back the next day [...] But around here, you come and what you spend you don’t make back (worker, Misiones, 21 years old).

Five of the six workers interviewed stated that at some point in their lives they had gone to Brazil to work in agricultural activities such as onion harvesting or tomato production, or in construction. Depending on currency fluctuations between the peso and the Brazilian real, workers scale down or step up their labor migrations to the neighboring country. One spoke of his experience:

Last year I spent a few months working in Concordia for a plantation owner as a bark stripper. The guy paid reasonably well, but by the time the work came to an end with this man, I must have been here in Missiones from July till maybe September, and then I realized that it was worth my while to go to Brazil. And I went for around 20 days, breaking rocks I was, as a builder’s helper. Imagine, lots of people work in the trees, as they say, and they sell reales on the border, Brazil is doing good (worker, Misiones, 21 years old).

The mobility of these workers is erratic and diversified, resulting in simultaneous employment across precarious jobs. The fact they do not have families to support affords them more flexibility, making them more willing to travel to more distant places about which they often know little. Moreover, they engage in longer occupational cycles and do the least qualified work (thinning, bark stripping, loading).

Analysis of these migratory cycles shows how spatial mobility is structured through the articulation of several dimensions (worker’s position in the household, household attributes, household characteristics, household resources, etc.) that make up specific spatial and temporal circuits, linked to different types of access to work.

Conclusions

In the current stage of agrarian capitalism, temporary migration of labor is a phenomenon with common characteristics in several parts of the world. The restructuring of agriculture, characterized by the criteria of production quality, was not accompanied by similar improvements in the quality of employment conditions. The case studied here facilitates an understanding of how spatial mobility further exacerbates the social vulnerability faced by workers, who are compelled to continually organize spatial transfers to find employment, transforming their lives into experiences of constant coming and going and uprooting from friends and families.

In this article we analyzed how structural questions – changes in the agricultural labor market – organize and condition the practices and experiences of the agents. The incorporation of Argentina’s forestry sector into the global market, marked by the adoption of mechanization and certification under the “paradigm of quality,” created barriers to access to work – the sole exception being the younger, certified workers – and triggered the temporary migration of workers to forestry production sites in other provinces. In this context, neoliberal ideology impinges on the perspective of the migrants themselves, who argue that spatial mobility, imposed by the logic of capital, is a problem at the level of the individual, a responsibility on the part of the worker to find employment: “If you don’t move, you won’t find work.”

The various forms of spatial mobility, crystallized as “migratory cycles,” is associated with unequal access to work. To ensure year-round forestry work outside Misiones, the migrants need sufficient social capital, including contacts in the place of origin – to which not all workers have equal access. In addition, working for the large forestry companies, which offer the best labor conditions in the sector, requires cultural capital linked to the use of tools such as chainsaws or tractors; thus, while some workers gained certification at the companies as chainsaw operators, others took to using these machines of their own volition, without awareness or adoption of any safety measures, while still other forestry workers did not even know how to operate them.

In sum, we analyzed spatial mobility by configuring the workers’ “migratory cycles,” mindful that these workers form part of a reproduction strategy arising from their households of origin, which varies according to family structure and the individual’s position therein. A more detailed exploration of the household processes and dynamics that ensue while migrants are absent remains for future research. Moreover, although here we have touched upon the social networks used to access work, there is a need for more thorough analysis in this area.

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