Paper short abstract:

I explore two waves of deindustrialisation and undoing in the Estonian oil shale industry and -labour. Although both resulted in mine closures, workers reacted differently to the undoing of industrial labour during the postsocialist transition in 2010 and the Green transition in 2022-23.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores two waves of deindustrialisation and undoing in the Estonian oil shale industry and -labour. Although the volume of mining has continually been in decline since the 1980s in the Ida-Virumaa, there is a difference between the reactions, narratives and visions for the future linked to mine closures during the postsocialist transition I studied in 2010 and the Green transition in 2022-23. In 2010, the narratives of loss of respect, dignity, and regional and corporate autonomy were common as mines were being closed, management restructured, and workers laid off. When returning to the field in 2022 in the framework of the CINTRAN project on just transition in four European regions, I expected the earlier fear of unemployment and poverty, disillusionment with the state and a sense of victimhood to be dominant among the Russian-speaking mine workers.

The European decarbonisation policy and Green transition requiring the reduction of electricity production from polluting oil shale has indeed evoked narratives of a ‘social catastrophe’ but not necessarily workers but union representatives and local leaders. But among workers, whose fathers and themselves had already experienced crises of lay-offs and mine closures, Tallinn Anthropology MA student Arina Aleksejeva and I found individualistic narratives of resilience and plan B-s. Until the start of the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis, the latest undoing of the industrial way of life encouraged workers to try other professions and locations, some of which they were more satisfied with than their mining jobs.