FC Forest Workers: Conditions of Service
This Forestry Commission paper is courtesy of Dave Stewart whose father George was a forester for many years in the Forestry Commission. The origin of the booklet was an international course on Work Study in Forestry held in Wymondham and Newton Rigg Colleges in 1971 and for which a series of papers were prepared. These papers were compiled into Bulletin 47 in 1973.
This paper by P J Clarke gives an insight into the conditions of service of the Forestry Commission industrial workers or forest workers as at 1972 under the headings of:
Pay
Hours of Work
Overtime
Piecework
Time lost to Bad Weather
Special Leave with Pay
Payment of wages during Sickness
Travelling
The initial section highlights the fall in forest worker numbers in GB from the high point in 1954 through to mid 1971 as dropping from 13620 down to around 6900 and explains the reasons for the fall. There is a mention that 300 workers had been paid off through grounds of redundancy but the vast majority through natural wastage. There is also a description of ‘Established employees’.
Please see attched PDF for full paper.