Book Reviews
| Date | 01 March 1999 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8543.00122 |
| Published date | 01 March 1999 |
BOOK REVIEWS
Farewell to the Factory: Auto Workers in the Late Twentieth Century by Ruth
Milkman. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997, xiii + 234 pp., ISBN 0±
520±20678±9, $14.95 paper.
`I hated working for GM. The way they were running the plant. [GM worker]'
(p. 110).
The late twentieth century has seen a dramatic decline in the number and
proportions of workers employed in manufacturing in the OECD states. This
process of deindustrialization has been most acute in the USA and the UK, where
millions of workers have lost their jobs as factories have closed or `down-sized'. In
response to these changes, academic research has highlighted the, often cata-
strophic, impact of these closures on the old industrial areas. Little has been said,
however, about the employment trajectory of the discarded workers, and less still on
the perplexing question of why many of these had voted for and accepted `voluntary
redundancy' (in the UK) and `buy-out' (in the USA). Other research has focused
upon the factories that remain. Much of this has been managerial in emphasis and
optimistic in tone. As such, it has become commonplace to read of `lean production'
and `team-working' heralding in a new phase of capitalist expansion based upon the
co-operation and participation of the whole workforce which developed new kinds
of skills and responsibility. Here, too, the voices of the workers have been largely
silent.
These absences are directly addressed in Ruth Milkman's important book, which
seeks `to put workers' own experiences and voices at the centre' (p. 191). Set in the
context of GM's Linden plant in New Jersey, it examines the impact of a joint
union±management plan to restructure the factory around a new model, new
technology and a more participatory approach. The plan also provided an
innovative retraining and income protection scheme (the Job Opportunity Bank
Ð Security: JOBS) and a buy-out package equivalent to about a year's salary.
Milkman's ®nal text is written with commendable care and clarity, and as an account
of the case is entirely convincing.
Through established contacts with the UAW, Milkman was able to obtain the
approval and ®nancial support of the union and the company. She recognizes that
`few researchers can' (p. 192), and in a rewarding and perceptive appendix she
re¯ects on the unexpected ambiguities she encountered. Subsequently (and after
her move from New York to Los Angeles) Milkman continued with the study,
collecting historical documents and conducting much more lengthy and detailed
British Journal of Industrial Relations
37:1 March 1999 0007±1080 pp. 141±165
#Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 1999. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
interviews with a smaller group of leavers and stayers. She `came to feel that these
interviews constituted the most valuable data I was able to obtain' (p. 199). She
quotes extensively from them and constructs a sensitive account of the complexity
of these people's lives. The power of this narrative makes the absence of such voices
in earlier texts all the more galling.
GM-Linden was opened in 1937 in New Jersey and was `at the heart of the mass
production economy that ¯ourished over the next several decades'. Fully unionized
by the UAW, it represented `the best America could offer to unskilled, uneducated
industrial workers' (p. 1). Collective bargaining in the good times reduced
differentials between manual workers, produced a comprehensive package of
fringe bene®ts and established the primacy of seniority (hugely important in an
industry characterized by an intense work process and periodic layoffs). As one
worker re¯ected, `you could buy a house and raise a family like my father did. Now
forget it. Your wife has to work' (p. 3). Nevertheless, and in a theme that persists
throughout the book, Milkman is clear that `factory work in the golden age of mass
production was deeply problematic in its own right' (p. 12). She produces powerful
support for the view that many of its employees `hate GM'.
A strong sub-text criticizes corporate management and the union for the neglect
of issues associated with human dignity and development. At the end of the
twentieth century, in her view, both organizations were `rooted in the past'; deeply
distrusted and incapable of understanding the modern worker. This became clear at
Linden in the 1980s. A militant caucus (Linden Auto Workers) provided effective
oppositional leadership for a while, but its militancy could provide no effective
response to the threat of plant closures. One worker put it like this: `so we had a
Local. What could we really change?' (p. 88); and another: `[they] would promise
you the world, and then when GM leaves: what are you going to do?' (p. 89).
This forms the background to the decision by GM in 1985 to transform the
Linden plant into `a showcase of GM's progress toward state-of-the-art manufac-
turing technology' (p. 146). The workers were laid off, and 25 per cent of them
decided not to return, accepting the `buy out' instead. This group especially
interested Milkman, and in her most original chapter she identi®es the complex
interaction of internal and external social processes that affected their choices.
Broadly, the emphasis given to the role of seniority in the rehiring process biased
the group in favour of less senior people. The general lack of faith in management
and in the rules associated with JOBS (which included the possibility of a
compulsory transfer to Indiana) made the idea of retraining unattractive. When
these issues are discounted, three main themes dominated the reasons given for
choosing to leave: worry about future security, a general dislike of working for GM,
and the desire for self-employment.
Studies of automobile workers, most notably Chinoy's Automobile Workers and
the American Dream, have identi®ed a fantasy world with its strong emphasis upon
escape from the factory. Here, Milkman comments that `the phenomenon . . . has
become a reality rather than merely a dream for a signi®cant number of former auto
workers'. In her sample, about a third (three times the national average) worked for
themselves in what she describes as `micro-enterprises', employing no more than a
handful of people, often family members. They worked as chimney sweeps, illegal
bookmakers, home-repairers and owner-operators of construction machines. They
owned bars, video shops and gasoline franchises. They were ever present in a range
of service-sector locations that had low capital requirements. Many of them earned
more than they did at GM. While working longer hours, they were compensated by
#Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 1999.
142 British Journal of Industrial Relations
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