Category: Kiruna

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Kiruna Storyteller Worker

Storyteller #36 – ears, eyes, chest

Next storyteller works underground and in a conversation (from 2015) with us asks about our ‘bodily’ experiences from being underground.

I can imagine for you guys, when you got back up, did you felt swollen? Did you feel something like that? Like heavy, as if your head is full of cotton and…

We were down for three hours and we were in the works for four hours yesterday. It’s our experiences from the mine so far.

Well, you get a pain in your eyes and you feel like a pressure. And I know when I go down, and I’ve heard this from several others, when we go below, well, what should I say, somewhere around 1170 [level, underground], it’s also along road 22, when you get down then it starts to crack a little more in your ears, down there. Then a bit more pressure starts building up, and then you get tired, and swollen fingers, and sometimes I can actually feel a bit in the chest, the heart and the like, but not anymore.

Does it let go as soon as you get up? Do you have to move around or does it stay?

No, it’s usually eases off when you’ve been down there for a while, but it’s just when you go down. Once you’ve been there, it passes, it’s not something you even think about. When it pinches you, you feel ‘well okay’. Then sometimes you get a terrible headache, but that also depends on how much gas there is down there.

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Article Kiruna Researcher

A major revision

More academic publishing: first nothing, then two ‘Decision from the editor’ in a matter of days. This time concerning our paper on the Kiruna case.

This time we knew we weren’t desk rejected, but sent out for a triple-blind review. The letter says: “The reviewers and assigned Associate Editor have recommended major revisions before publication could be considered.” In other words: the foot is in the door! Two reviews are short and one is a bit longer; all raise good points so we’ll see. We’ll give it our best shot.

As this post is very short, we extend it somewhat by telling briefly about the picture heading the post. The sign is of a “kick”, used as means of transportation during Winter. It was more common when we were young, but you still see them now and then, and they are very handy when the snow and the ice have landed. During our last visit to Kiruna, however, it was evident, the kicking season is over!

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Art Kiruna LKAB

Not all about mining…

Did you know, it’s not all about mining? It’s also about mushrooms, gardening and art.

* Since the 1980s, in an abandoned part of the mine on level 540, the mushroom shiitake is cultivated. The temperature is very even, no insects, basically a sterlie environment, which make the conditions perfect for the mushrooms.

* There used to be a garden inside the gates where “they grew tomatoes, grapes, melons and other fruits and vegetables that were exotic for the climate. Gardener Einar Eng worked in the garden for 49 years.” (The Book of LKAB, 2015: 155)

* LKAB has Sweden’s largest corporate art collection.

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Kiruna LKAB Luleå Storyteller Union Worker

Storyteller #35 – the union and the Summerbirds

Every Summer, LKAB hires several hundreds of so-called “Summerbirds”; people – often young persons who have a break from their studies – that come in to work for a couple of months when ordinary staff are on vacation. As the trend of temporary workers is on the rise in general (although LKAB today work towards decreasing the use of ‘foreign services’), it is interesting to also turn the attention to the response from the unions on this issue. Talking to a Summerbird about this:

When I recently started working at SSAB [the steel plant in Luleå, as Summerbird], than we had a lecture. A person from the union came and talked [to us]. But we never had that at LKAB. Never. Not heard anything about it, not even mentioned to me…

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Kiruna Management Storyteller

Storyteller #34 – Kiruna/Sweden/Others?

Another recurrent theme is where the profits from the mining ends up. A common position that we meet is that too little of the surplus is re-invested in the local community and that the owner in the capital Stockholm, the State, grabs too much (and put it to use in the Stockholm area). A manager reflects upon this in a conversation with us:

These urban transformations [of Kiruna and Malmberget] cost a lot of money, which means that a lot of money stays in this region. But then there are those who doesn’t have a full understanding of everything. I mean, a company is owned by someone, and they demand a return on investments, that’s how it is, nothing strange with that. Then you can think about whether or not the state should drain everything out because… But what I’m saying is that it is much better that we, Swedish citizens, receives that money than that a Canadian company filling its pockets, or an Australian company filling its pockets. Isn’t better that we get a subway or some link in Stockholm for that money or if we get a Bothnia-railway [plans for a railway along the coast from Umeå to the border to Finland]?

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Kiruna Storyteller Supplier Union

Storyteller #33 – work vs community?

Next storyteller is one of the ombudsmen inside the gates, reflecting on the recurrent theme of people doing work in the Kiruna mine but living (and paying taxes) elsewhere:

It would be better if they move up, then there might have been more lively here [as in more pulse in the local community]. And there would also be more tax money in this town. This depletes… But if you get an assignment to work in Kiruna for four years, why bring the family here if you perhaps already is a worker who moves around? Those who were here and built our new main level [at 1365 meters below ground] are such people.

Reading a report about the mining industry from 2015, written by the central organisation of the union IF Metall (with sections in Malmberget, Svappavaara and Kiruna), it is stated that:

Overall, the mining industry has had a larger share of entrepreneurs compared to many other industries. In 2013 the companies reported that entrepreneurs represented about 45 percent of the working time. Maintenance and repair as well as drilling and loading are often contracted out. (page 42; our translation) 

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Aboriginals Kiruna LKAB Management Music

New music video!

When we first arrived in Kiruna, early 2015, the downturn of the market was making its impact, inside and outside the gates. The mood in general seemed rather low. This song, “Stänger alla kranar” (in Swedish, roughly translated into “Closing all taps”), came out of how different people talked about the on-going and planned cost reductions in the company, but ended in a bricolage of more than just this. So, no one-liner about what it is about.

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Kiruna LKAB Storyteller

Storyteller #32 – next level in the mine?

Just recently, top management has expressed itself in positive terms regarding plans for a new level in the Kiruna mine. The latest one, at 1365 meters below ground, has just recently been completed (although in use for some years already). Expected to last for about 15-20 years, it looks as if the Kirunavaara mine will continue to go deeper, although much is still uncertain. We recalled a discussion with a middle manager inside the gates that we had early on in the project, asking if a new main level is probable:

Yes, I think there’ll be a new level, in one way or another. It’s not sure it’ll look like the one on 1365 because 1365 is a luxury build. We got almost everything. Then it depends a bit on the conditions of the mountain down there. But the type of spaces we’ve done at 1365, I doubt that we’ll get them, for mountain mechanical reasons, on 1770 or something. But there might be other… I hope that in about ten years, then you’ll have other technological solutions for how to lift rocks, well, to solve rocks. Whatever those might be.

[we talk about zero-entry mining, no hands in the mine]

Yes, I’ve been involved in that a bit and there are many of these future projects that you: “Well, well, but just as long as he [sic!] doesn’t put up a tight time limit”, then I think we’ll get there soon, but…

[we talk about automation]

But we could have more robots, for sure. And I hope it will happen, partly to save people, not just in numbers but also their physics. We still have some risky jobs… [inaudible] It doesn’t matter if it falls down on a robot or if it gets the stone on top of it. There is no “ouch!”, just pull it out, repair it and then in with it again. So for that sake, I hope for zero entry.

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Kiruna Storyteller Union

Storyteller #31 – the role of the union

Next storyteller is one of the local ombudsmen for one of the unions. Our conversation is about how he keeps in contact with the members and what they are interested in. Below, he talks about how members tend to enrol the union in a rather short-sighted way:

The members are active when there is a wage movement. Or when jobs are threatened. Then they come. […] Very seldom do they come and say ‘what if we did it like this’, ‘what if we should start working with this instead’, you know, more forward-looking ideas. It just doesn’t work. Take an issue like their pensions. If I go and talk about pensions and the future, talking to a 25-years old, well, first, he hasn’t even heard of co-workers retiring. It’s so far away. They’re not interested in these issues. Those who are interested are those about to retire, but for them it is too late.

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Article Kiruna Researcher

The process of writing a paper…

We’re writing a paper on the Kiruna case. We’ve been going at it for quite some time and although we’re nudging it forward, we never seem to remember that each paper is a quagmire.

And, as soon as we’re writing, we don’t blog. Why? Because you wouldn’t be interested in the writing process perhaps. Or perhaps we don’t know how to write about our own writing process…

One try: we start with an original idea (from our point of view), carefully drafted, and planned out on a hand-sketched piece of paper. Then, off we go to writing! But then, always, a quagmire and a computer hard drive full of ‘previous versions’. It is as if nothing good could come out of a smooth and rational writing process, and that we never seem to learn and just surrender to this fact. Writing is art, writing is struggle, writing is never smooth, writing is pain and pleasure, and it always, always, always becomes something else!

We could probably apply the same conceptual and methodological ideas going in to the paper on the Kiruna case (inspired by some writings on Actor-Network Theory) on our own writing process. The paper, this singular paper, to paraphrase Annemarie Mol (2002), will be more than one but less than many, full of difference but in some way or another it hangs together.

Present state of the paper: version 27, and counting. We’ll be back.

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Kiruna

Visiting Kiruna again

Its been a while since we were in Kiruna and although in a writing-up phase, Johan went up there earlier this week, meeting with some of those we’ve talked to over the years (and some new ones!) as well as experiencing first hand how the movement of the city centre due to the expanding mine is progressing.

Most of those whom Johan talks to are frustrated over the fact that the new city centre is dismantled while the new one only consists of a new city hall under construction. They’re anxious of the ‘in-between’ period. They share stories of people moving from Kiruna to the coast. On the other hand, there are also positive forces at play. On the day of Johan’s arrival there is a full day seminar with local people from different sectors that aims at triggering constructive processes and here the stories are more positive, more opportunity oriented. On the day, the annual book fair also has its first out of three evenings with nationally and internationally renowned authors, a very impressive event, drawing full house in the big auditorium in Folkets Hus. Kiruna lives.

The city-scape, however, has really changed in a rather short time. Although Johan, as an outsider, is not supposed to have the emotional ties that so many ‘Kirunaites’ have, it still hits him. The iconic clock tower of the city hall where we had our exhibition has been dismantled (re-located to the new city hall, see picture below, part of it stands on the right side) and this single act has a bigger effect on the landscape than can be anticipated. Not to overstate it, but it’s like removing the Eiffel Tower from Paris, at least.

The last of the houses on Ullspiran has been teared down (we’ve been filming the early phases of this processes, posted on the blog) and the Hjalmar Lundbohm house has been re-located (you see the house in its new location at the bottom-left of the picture below).

We hope for one more trip to Kiruna before the project ends at New Year.

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Aboriginals Cameco Canada Kiruna Management Storyteller Supplier Uranium

Storytellers #29 and #30 – using local contractors

The general trend in the mining industry is to increase the use of contractors in order to be more flexible, adaptable and cost-effective. Whether this is achieved can be debated, but the trend is clear and although the markets for iron ore (the Kiruna case) and uranium (the McArthur River/Key Lake case) are different, they are both nevertheless highly influenced by ‘boom and bust’, ‘feast and famine’. Walking the fine line between stability and adaptability is highlighted in northern Saskatchewan, where companies like Cameco has to engage local firms and workers as part of the regional agreements (written about earlier on this blog). Interestingly, in some of the conversations, this is lifted as a competitive advantage from both sides of the table, and although more complex than this, the arguments boil down to ‘local knowledge’ and to ‘loyalty’. The first quote below is from a contractor owned by an indigenous band from the north and the second quote is from a manager at Cameco.

companies like Cameco learn that we can deliver and can count on our loyalty to mobilise quickly and to do it quickly as well because we understand what it takes to get it up there. We get to know the local people, it’s easier to identify with the locals. So after a period of time companies like ours starting to have a clear returning in investment back to Cameco.

I would say that the work we do with the contractors has become more stable over the years because we have pushed to have more northern content in our contracts, for workers as well. I think things like that have made Cameco more stable, has made it more stable for the contractors.

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Cameco Canada Kiruna Storyteller Worker

Storyteller #28 – mining and community

Next storyteller is a man from Saskatchewan, Canada, living in a small town up north called La Ronge. He works at MCA. When reflecting over the challenges for northern communities where a large portion work for the mining industry, he praises Cameco, the company, for its efforts, but also emphasises the many challenges still to deal with. This quote about La Ronge comes to mind as we’re daily seeing pictures from Kiruna and the tearing down of houses due to the mine expanding (just recently, the old railway station):

when I was growing up we had movie theatres and pool halls, bowling alleys. We had a sport store for fishing gear and hockey equipment and all that stuff. None of that is there anymore, only Robertsons trading. There is a liquor store there and a few bars. That is not a good thing, because of the youth and those who are not working they tend to fall into the alcoholism and that’s bad for everybody. It starts fights and wreck families.

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Book Kiruna Management Researcher Worker

A unique workplace

Worker

They’re not easy to find and haven’t been re-issued, the 4×400 pages doctoral dissertation in economic history by Ulf Eriksson, entitled “Gruva och arbete. Kiirunavaara 1890-1990” (in Swedish, translated as “Mine and work. Kiirunavaara 1890-1990”). Published and defended in 1991 at Uppsala University, Eriksson (from Kiruna) presents an impressive, predominantly empirical, labour process history from inside the gates of the Kiruna mine.

We have once again got our hands on somebody else’s copies and couldn’t help translate a section since it triggers thoughts on the particular and peculiar workplace an underground mine constitutes. Let’s face it, a mine is not a clothing factory. Just think about going down the Kiruna mine and find yourself on a road linked to a road network of about 600 km, all underground. This presents a spatially interesting challenge to the organising of work and management control. Below, Eriksson reflects upon the difficulty of identifying any clear cause-and-effect relations between the introduction and development of new technology and the way work was organised, and argues that the mountain itself shouldn’t be underestimated:

“The perhaps single most important reason for the lack of immediate and direct causality-arrows between technology and organisation was that an adjustment always had to be done to the specific nature of the object of work, that is, to the limitations set by the mountain and the ore body’s geographic and structural peculiarities for the organisation of work. This, for example, was actualised in the case of management’s possibilities to in practice direct and control the work.” (Eriksson 1991, part III: 152)