Worker Displacement and Corporate Restructuring: A Policy-Conscious Appraisal

Abstract

This article examines the problem of worker displacement from the perspective of non-traditional corporate strategies. Fundamentally different types of corporate strategies, reflecting different production contexts, such as Fordist and other modes of production, require different policy responses. In the past, policies addressing worker displacement have been post hoc, focusing principally on groups of unemployed people. New forms of work organization and management resilience offer the promise of developing policies that affect corporate strategy. Accordingly, policy may be designed to prevent worker displacement through constructive, not coercive, public- private sector coordination. Three representative types of non-traditional corporate strategies are identified and discussed in terms of their implications for policy. The concluding section discusses the geographic implications of people-targeted policies in terms of the geography of urban labor markets in the contemporary U.S. industrial environment.