Plant Closings and Control Over the Workplace

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Abstract
There is growing literature focusing on the effects of plant closings on displaced workers. Although the gist of this literature is that plant closings have substantial negative economic, social/psychological, and physical health effects on workers, this “social problems” approach, by not placing capital mobility in the larger politicaleconomic context, is far too restrictive. We contend that plant closings need to be seen as playing an important role in the struggle between labor and management for control in the workplace. We examine this notion by analyzing the 1980-1981 relocation of GM's Corvette plant from St. Louis to Bowling Green, Kentucky. By analyzing interviews with relocated workers and company and union officials, along with various company and union documents, we trace the role that this relocation had in restructuring labor-management relations. In our concluding section, we note the implications of this both for the study of plant closings and for the study of the workplace struggle between capital and labor.

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