Workplace tentativity: biophysical environmental impacts on outdoor work

ABSTRACT

Drawing from data gathered for two ethnographic case studies within the U.S. Forest Service, we develop the concept of workplace tentativity to describe the ways that the biophysical environment influences organizational workplace routines. We find that outdoor labor, routines, and plans adjust to biophysical change and uncertainty, and we examine the resulting organizational and micro-interactional dynamics when such instances occur. Under conditions of workplace tentativity, employees frame workplace activities as tentative and subject to change with limited notice, impacting daily work plans, organizationally planned activities, the utilization of materials, and preparation for and response to accidents and injuries. Attention to the impact of the biophysical environment on workplace structures, patterns, practices, and norms is essential in an era of climate crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• Workplace tentativity
• biophysical environment
• ethnography
• work
• U.S. Forest Service
• organizations
• labor processes

Acknowledgments

De’Arman thanks the USFS trail crews she worked with, especially the insight and openness of the 2017 crew members that helped inform this paper.

Cordner expresses her deepest thanks to the firefighters, fire managers, and community leaders who shared their time and wisdom during her research, especially the leadership and crews of the Cascade National Forest fire management organization who were so welcoming.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Other wildland firefighters include employees of other federal or state agencies, employees of private contractors, local firefighters who may be paid or volunteers, and members of rangeland fire protection associations; the distinctions between these many types of fire personnel is beyond the scope of this paper.

2. This warning is issued by the National Weather Services based on the cumulation of biophysical changes (low humidity, warm temperature, high wind, etc.) producing increased risk of fire danger.

3. First-year firefighters (GS-3 pay scale) earn less than $14 an hour following the federal pay scale (although a temporary pay increase was included in the 2022 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law [USFS 2022]), while an engine captain (GS-8) earns a little over $20 an hour, for physically and mentally demanding and dangerous work (OPM 2021).

4. This tentativity may be more pronounced for firefighters working for for-profit, private contractors (Heidi et al. 2019). Unlike firefighters employed as full-time employees by the USFS or other similar agencies, private contractors hire firefighters as call-when-needed resources and typically require them to be able to report to a central location within as little as two hours’ notice. This is an extreme form of the precarious work under capitalism described byLoustaunau et al. (2021) and others.

5. When trail employees work fire operations, they enter a different pay-code that counts overtime work for fire as time and a half and provides that extra pay in the bi-weekly paychecks.

Additional information

Funding

Cordner received funding from Whitman College’s sabbatical program for their research.

Notes on contributors

Kindra Jesse De’Arman

Kindra De’Arman is an assistant professor at Western Colorado University. Her research focuses on the intersection of social and environmental decision-making, organization, and labor in federal lands management.

Alissa Cordner

Alissa Cordner is an associate professor and Paul Garrett Fellow at Whitman College. Her research focuses on environmental sociology, the sociology of risk and disasters, environmental health and justice, and public engagement in science and policy making. She is the author of Toxic Safety: Flame Retardants, Chemical Controversies, and Environmental Health (2016, Columbia University Press), and the co-author of The Civic Imagination: Making a Difference in American Political Life (2014, Paradigm Publishers).

Jill Ann Harrison

Jill Harrison is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Oregon. Her research focuses on the local effects of globalization, deindustrialization, and environmental change. She is the author of Buoyancy on the Bayou: Shrimpers Face the Rising Tide of Globalization (2012,ILR Press).