Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ruth Milkman is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of Gender at Work: The Dynamics of Job Segregation by Sex during World War II (1987).

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"A profound exploration into the decline of factory labor in the U.S. . . . Hers is one of those rare books that brilliantly illuminates current transformations in the organization of work and work lives."--Fred Block, author of Postindustrial Possibilities

"Part ethnography and part contemporary labor history, Milkman's wonderful book will be required reading for anyone concerned with the transformation American industry has undergone in the past twenty years and what this transformation has meant for American workers."--David Brody, author of Workers in Industrial America

"Behind all of the statistics on downsizing, the shrinking of our industrial base, and the folly of short-sighted management is the human drama of working women and men and their unions, struggling for dignity, fairness, and security. In Farewell to the Factory, Ruth Milkman tells us the stories of workers in a New Jersey auto plant. Milkman's scholarship makes a valuable contribution to the national conversation on restoring the American Dream for working families."--John J. Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO

"A fascinating case study of deindustrialization and restructuring by one of the leading social historians of the auto industry. The book is a great read and should be widely adopted in the classroom."--Michael Burawoy, University of California, Berkeley

"Milkman's impressive study probes the contemporary meaning of work, freedom and dignity in a fashion both sociologically rigorous and culturally evocative. Avoiding liberal nostalgia over the demise of industial America, Milkman deploys a magnificantly textured set of interviews to demonstrate that auto workers hated the chronic stress and humiliation of factory work even as they clung to its high pay and good benefits."--Nelson Lichtenstein, author of The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor

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Farewell to the Factory

University of California Press

As advanced capitalist economies shift away from manufacturing, and as the manufacturing that remains is radically restructured, what is happening to industrial workers and their way of life? This book explores that broad question through a narrow lens, focusing on the recent experiences of workers from a single factory: the General Motors (GM) automobile assembly plant in Linden, New Jersey. First opened in 1937, GM-Linden was at the core of the mass production economy that flourished over the next several decades. Like the luxury Cadillacs it built during the postwar boom, this plant was a top-of-the-line operation, with high wages, excellent fringe benefits, and a strong union—the best America had to offer to unskilled, uneducated industrial workers. The system began to unravel in the 1980s, however, as GM struggled to meet the challenge of intensified international competition. Management introduced robots and other new technologies at Linden, and began reorganizing the work process as well. The plant also shifted to small car production, and all these changes combined to generate sharp employment cutbacks. In the mid-1980s, GM negotiated with the United Auto Workers' union (UAW) to establish a buyout program offering cash payments to production workers who agreed to give up their jobs—an option that proved very popular at Linden. The pages that follow assess these unsettling developments from the perspective of the workers involved—both those who accepted the buyout and left the plant, and those who are still employed there. Their stories reveal a great deal about the dilemmas industrial workers face in the postindustrial age.

Edward Salerno (not his real name)1 went to work as an assembler at Linden when he finished high school. His father, a lifelong GM employee, got him the job—a common arrangement in the days before the auto industry started shedding old workers rather than hiring new ones. Salerno worked at the Linden plant for eight years until he accepted the buyout in 1987. Even before that, he was restless. "Let's face it, auto workers are not in the most intelligent occupation in the world," he said, "and you kind of get hung up in that type of lifestyle." The main thing that had kept him at GM was the high pay. "You come right out of high school, and all of a sudden you're making this big money!"

A couple of years before he left, when he learned that the plant was going to be modernized, Salerno had signed up for an electronics training course, hoping it would help him get a better job. He was laid off during the year-long plant changeover, and GM paid for his training under a union-negotiated tuition reimbursement program. "After I graduated, then they started calling us back, and my mind was pretty much made up: if I didn't get a job in the computer end, fixing the new robotics and all, I was going to leave." When it became clear that he could only return to GM as a production worker, and with his job security uncertain because of his relatively low seniority, Salerno decided to take the buyout, receiving about a year's pay, or $30,000. He got a job installing business telephone systems, but after a few months, he was laid off. So he went back to school again, this time to learn computer programming, and that led to a job in the payroll department of a large insurance company, where he works now.

The pay is less than at GM, but there is an excellent benefit package; and overall Salerno is much happier. "The working conditions and the atmosphere and the people—it's nice. It's such a great change for me, [better] than working on a line like that." He has no regrets about leaving GM:

I'm thrilled that I'm out of there what can I say? The place was a hellhole. I really hated it. It was very belittling. It seemed like they were always trying to play games with you, always trying to degrade you. And there was always that struggle between management and union: we're enemies. You know, it was constantly that. Each side played [its] little games. They didn't likeyou; they were going to do what they could to get you. Where I am now, there's never any yelling or threatening or anything like [there] was at General Motors. The relationship is better. I get along fine with my managers, and there just isn't the need for that kind of nonsense like at GM. As far as my foremen or any of my bosses there, I can't say I hated them, but I've never been brought to such anger in all my life [as] I was at that place. The things that some of the guys would try to do! It's incredible!

Salerno knew when he left GM that the auto industry's glory days were over. Only a generation before, an auto worker could make a decent living. "You could buy a house and raise a family like my father did. Now, forget it. If you're working there, your wife has to work." GM, and with it the UAW, had gone downhill in the 1980s:

Let's face it, the auto workers just aren't what they used to be. They just don't have the power they used to, because there's not as many workers and there's always that threat, well, they can just pack up and leave—which is what they're doing. No one is listening to the union anymore. What are they going to do? They have no recourse. So, I saw all that coming, and I said, "I just don't want to be a part of this anymore."

I think if the unions want to stay, they are going to have to start infiltrating the white-collar jobs, because manufacturing in this country is just going down the drain. I think that if it ever did happen, they could probably become strong again, because in this type of deal, where I work now, you could strike and you don't have to worry, about picketing—because who's going to go in there and do your job? You're the one that knows what is going on. Nobody is going to walk in and take over your work, because they don't know what you're doing. In that respect it would be very easy. But where I work, you even mention the union, and they call you a communist. You start talking about that, and they get rid of you quick. But I'll tell you, I think that's their only hope for right now. I don't think that factory jobs will be around much longer.

Even though he's a lot happier now than when he worked at GM, Salerno is still keeping his eyes open for something better. "Most of the promotions come within the first two or three years over here, and then you kind of level off. I'm not learning anything new now, either." He's going to school again at night, with his employer paying the bill, working for an associate's degree in computer science. "If something else came along, I would take it."

Dan Cooper took the buyout too. He worked at GM-Linden forten years, although he never liked it much, and like Salerno, he had not really intended to stay as long as he did. He was twenty when he was hired. "I was working at a warehouse making, I think, $5.00 or $5.25 an hour," he recalled. "They were starting up a second shift at General Motors and I heard guys talking about it and it was a lot more money. I didn't think I wanted to be an automaker, but while I was deciding what I wanted to do, I could make more money at it. I went there, and when I first got there, I started thinking about maybe going for a foreman or trying to work up the ladder, but then I got turned off...