“There’s No Such Thing as Job Security Anymore”

Abstract

Throughout the interviews, the former employees of International Harvester and Johnson Controls shared stories about what their experiences have meant to them. They examined what they learned from their work in the factories and from the closings of their plants and insisted on sharing these lessons with the interviewers and the absent but imagined larger audience. A number of dominant and interconnected themes about lessons learned weave through their narratives. The first and most prevailing was a loss of trust. These narrators have lost trust in the government, their companies, workplaces in general, and management. In particular, employees from International Harvester and Johnson Controls have come to see companies as unstable and managers and executives as out for themselves. These narrators repeatedly stressed that the people in charge of these companies care only for themselves and their bottom lines—not for their employees.