Commercial forests owned by both the state and private players employed a big number of workers during the first decade of independence. Forestry Commission, a state owned entity, owned the highest number of estates in Manicaland province and the country at large. This therefore means that, the Forestry Commission was one of largest employers. It is therefore the focus of this treatise to explore the nature of labour and relationship between labour and state in the forestry sector. It is worth mentioning that, a lot of primary sources provided were on state owned forests, whilst a small number focused on Border Timbers and the Wattle Company, all which were owned by private players. In exploring the subject of labour in the forestry sector the following issues comes into light; workers grievances, labour conflict dispute resolution mechanisms and general working conditions of the workers. This discussion explains the afore mentioned issues in detail. The exotic plantation forestry industry accounted for most of the 3% contributed by forestry sector to the GDP during the late 1980s. 1 Cumulatively, by 1988, the industry employed about 16000 people. 2 The industry is highly vertically integrated into timber production, processing, packaging and marketing. This meant that the forestry sector employed personnel with different skills, from professionals, technical, clerical and unskilled labour. Unskilled labour formed the bulk of the workforce. This group of workers formed the backbone of the forestry industry as they were deployed under the supervision of foresters to plant, prune and maintain the forests. The importance of the shop floor workers cannot be over emphasised. Any strike action by the shop floor workers paralysed the operations of the company, making it clear that indeed this category of workers were essential to in the survival of the company. In the execution of their various chores, the workers expressed dissatisfaction on how the management treated them in terms of their wages. In the period understudy, the major grievance 1 Enos M Shumba , Biodiversity and Planning Support Programme Zimbabwe Case Study, Paper prepared for an international workshop on "Integration of Biodiversity in National Forestry Planning Programme" held in CIFOR Headquarters, Bogor, Indonesia on 13-16 August 2001. 2 Ibid.