Workers’ Views on Plant Closures: The Global Context of Production

• In Event: 036 - Section on Labor and Labor Movements Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 04. Changing Employment Structrues and the Impacts on Workers

Abstract

In December 2013, workers at a food processing plant in London, Ontario were called in to attend a special meeting where they learned that the plant would close in 2014. The region had been hit by numerous closures in both heavy and light manufacturing, despite access to major transportation routes, to the Canada-U.S. border and to a limitless number of trained workers who readily embraced opportunities to work in production and live the “working-class dream”⎯marked by decent wages, relatively secure (unionized) employment, benefits and a modest pension. This paper examines the workers’ views on their plant’s closure within the context of global production and the ways in which they construct a “discourse of deindustrialization.” We conclude that while workers may be involved in the minutia of the production process, many are attentive to the global context of their jobs, keeping a keen eye on domestic and international market forces and structural conditions that may affect their job security. While most workers are unable to emphatically discuss the ways in which processes of globalization have contributed to the plant closure and ultimately their futures as production workers, they mainly discuss one or more causal factors for their factory’s demise but do not develop a systematic understanding of economic globalization and corporate restructuring. Despite individual and collective attempts to buffer the harsh realities of market forces, most understand and accept their powerlessness and reluctantly see themselves as one paycheque away from an endless cycle of joblessness and a lifetime of insecurity.

Authors

• Norene Pupo, York University

• Hart Walker