Do planters and tree planters have Stockholm syndrome?

Portrait of Treeplanting industry

Formerly a way to live a respectable and dignified life, the Treeplanting is more than a place to live a lifestyle against-cultural and vagrants wandering between and among students seeking an alternative to the minimum wage. Today, the possibility of exceeding the threshold of poverty is reserved only best-es of us who make a very long season in west of the country. There is no confusion. Salaries have not increased for a long time. When asked why, the answer is always the same : there is not enough money, or it is simply saying to close.

The ultras competitive industry practices are to blame. All these years, companies have fiercely maintained their market share at the expense of our salaries. They often leave on the table several thousand dollars to make a submission. That is to say, the amount of money that separates the low bid of its nearest competitor. And if other companies that pay at the industry standard has not found it possible to bid as low, so where did they cut? In our security? In the kitchen budget? In our salaries?

In all of this, we do not have our say. It is important not to give our opinion on the practices of the industry or our company that. Production must continue, but production for which? "If you're not happy, if you're not happy, find another job "… A reality that is crystallized in the figure of the foreman who consistently called for nominations having "good attitude".

They and they especially want to hear more we complain of excessively low wages for a disproportionately work difficult. They and they do not want to listen to our complaints, and while they do nothing for us. And do nothing! However, paying the price for their irresponsibility and their endless greed? It's us, because our salaries are the biggest operating costs. Lower wages that results in more business and more money for them and they. More, also by more precarious for us; more injuries because we always feel more pressure to perform to make sure we pay our rent, our food, our school, our leisure ... Whose prices are increasing every year! But the ball does not stop there. They and they "forget" to put our sometimes hours of transport in our total hours worked, intimidate us when we want to take our CSST (WCB), we are working for free when it apart and reassemble camp, let the showers abandoned, do not provide a sufficient budget to the kitchen ... and the height, we have to pay 25$ day to shit in the toilet that we, ourselves, excavated.

Le syndrome de Stockholm

More, we are also to blame. Car, each passing day, we continue to dance but were afraid to put our foot terr. We prefer to look at all day our comrades when they plant trees and have tendinitis. Sometimes even to the point of having both wrists. We do not want to see ourselves reflected in them and they, but rather the contestants. When a person is forced to work injured, because intimidated or because they have been denied a form of compensation, it's all of us who pay the price. Have you ever survived a season without tendonitis in your camp? It will be your turn soon and you will likely have no help or compensation. If it has not already happened. This is the most common injury, but there are also infections unhygienic because the showers do not work. There lumbar sprains and sprained ankles. then finally, when it comes time to pull our reverence, there are chronic tendonitis and knee smashed. Sometimes, it is also pneumonia that spread or some unknown virus and food poisoning. Besides harassment and assault, us and by employers, which is never discussed and yet each was rampant.

Despite all this, we are not content to observe indifferently our collective agony. We have completely adopted the discourse of our bosses who tell us to always work harder. There is competition between us. We put pressure us. More police needs in the camp, we are our own police. this reality, it is found in the emblematic figure of highballer. Whoever represents the highest degree of achievement of the social ladder in Treeplanting. Sometimes, same legends are formed around these figures. and yet, the value of these people did as ever in their production and in their individuality. For antagonistic effect, we do we perceive only through the prism of production. A reality that employers are glad.

All this and we toast no problem with our boss. We assure them that and they're our friends. That experience Treeplanting might not be the same without them and they. Effectively, it would be much better! More, I can not help but feel a bitter taste ... friend-es? How can we reconcile friendship and abuse, except that we have no respect for ourselves? We who share the same conditions, the same problems. Our bosses are hypocrites. This love-hate relationship that we develop with our employment, it is not difficult to understand. We like camp life, unforgettable evenings, woven friendships, the stars in the sky, afternoon on the beach ... We hate free work, insults, the wounds, psychological crises, pressure, the days and weeks will end more ... It's not them and they which our unforgettable seasons, but you. How many of you have ever fantasized, several hours, thousand and one ways to torture your foreman? They and they do nothing but force us to experience the suffering and indignity. Things that help to knit us more, but that is not our pleasure in itself.

Supervisors are not our allies are. They and they are agents in the pay of companies. The compensation system based on the production of growers and compliance with production targets is only acting as an incentive to our operating. The widespread myth that the foremen take more care of us when they are paid and well-es is something that continues to repeat. More, is it really reality? The inequitable distribution of land, abusive warnings when production is too low, the pressure to exceed our physical and mental limits seem to show otherwise. If this is simply not a rush job while we pay their salaries. Do not forget that supervisors are not working for us, but it is we who work for them and they.

Now what?

We must stop complaining each one on our side. This allows us to comfort us as we always chutons to hell.

The two most often do we bring solutions lead nowhere. The first wants the companies to join a discussion table to agree on minimum prices for the industry, below which they would not compete. Both remain in passivity and pray that our money grows trees. The alternative would be to form a cooperative. In this model, We actually would have control of our working conditions, but we would still be subject to market dynamics. The price of the tree will remain competitive for us to obtain contracts. These cooperatives will remain very small, since they can not gain a foothold in the market. So what about the vast majority of the workforce that remains a prisoner of rookie mills?

The organization is the key

We still have a solution : the Solidarity unionism. The only way to improve our working conditions, it is by building a balance of power in our favor. For that, must be integral to abuse employer. The greatest objection to the arrival of a union is that it does not understand the reality of our work and our needs. We'd only pay dues to a union that does not represent us. Our report to unionism has been perverted by the trade union confederations, which now appear to act more as a weapon of employers that as the weapon of the working class. and yet, unionism is a form of control. A practice that can be horizontal and without representation other than ourselves. We can lead this struggle and make the gains we choose collectively: l'IWW, it is the union then. Workers who have chosen to come together, regardless of industry to organize their workplace with a model of unionism that would not escape their control. We will be our union and nobody else.

Our insecurity is greatest from season to season, we must act now! This text will not be unanimity in the community, as all publications on the King Kong Group Re-forestation denouncing our conditions. Some want to and some we regurgitate their worship highballer. But would it not the sign of a deep malaise? Let's get together now to arrange the response. Those who wish to organize, please contact with us!

 

Solidarity,

X377547

 

In english.

 

cover photo credit: http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/into-the-wild/

source image 1 : http://www.replant.ca/phpBB3/viewtopic.phpf=27&t=66036&p=86600&remote = graphic # p86600

source image 2 : http://www.replant.ca/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=66856

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