Former miners and metallurgists can now get involved in research. Sociologists from the University of Ostrava are collecting their stories

How former miners and metallurgists manage to find a place in the labour market is being investigated by sociologists Nicole Horáková and Dawn Norris in a large-scale sociological research. They focus on the subjective perceptions of former workers in heavy industry, which is closely linked to the Moravian-Silesian region.

“My US colleague Dawn Norris and I are now reaching out to miners and smelters, as well as other people who have worked in associated production, both women and men, to share their experiences. Our research should be about a basic understanding of how these people subjectively perceive or have perceived their situation,” says sociologist Dr Nicole Horakova, who has long been involved in the sociology of work.

The decline of the coal and steel industry is part of the transformation process of the Moravian-Silesian region, which is now looking for new ways to develop itself in an economically and environmentally sustainable way. There are tens of thousands of people in the region who have had to leave industrial enterprises over the last thirty years. In their research, the researchers want to focus on the life experiences of former miners and metallurgists, how they manage or have managed to cope with the loss of their jobs, how they have been able to adapt to new conditions and what life strategies they choose.

Research can help people at risk of losing their jobs

“We want to find out how this occupational group is coping with this transformation, and in doing so we would like to help other professions threatened by changes in the labour market that are affected by automation or artificial intelligence. People will have to be able to adapt to these changes. We would like to offer some strategies to help these people, because there is no literature on this topic yet,” Horáková explains the main aim of the research.

Sociologist Dawn Norris has experience with similar research in the US, where she has looked at the ability of so-called “white collar” workers to cope not only with job loss but also with the accompanying stress. “After coming to the Czech Republic, I researched how people coped with social changes after the Velvet Revolution, especially what the change or loss of a job meant to them,” Norris explains.

The researchers now want to reach out to as many people as possible who have worked or are working in these manually demanding professions to interview them. “We want to go as in-depth as possible in our interviews with miners and metallurgists. We are interested in their stories. Even the literature on the transformation is mostly concerned with unemployment statistics, but no one is looking at what happened to people who worked in the coal and steel industry, and that is what we want to find out,” concludes Nicole Horáková.

The research is being carried out thanks to the REFRESH project.

• Have you worked in the coal or steel industry?
• Are you interested in sharing your story and your professional experience?
• Let us know about yourself at: nicole.horakova@osu.cz