Industrial Closures Research Articles

Gender and the Displaced Worker in Contemporary France: Women, Mobility, and Economic Restructuring Beyond the Industrial Heartlands

AbstractA considerable proportion of the research conducted within the developing field of deindustrialisation studies has focused on the loss of work in industrial closures, and on the attachments that long-serving workers feel to their former workplace. This article focuses instead on the phenomenon of constrained mobility which often occurs as companies restructure and workers are offered a choice between redundancy or relocation to another site. Steven High (2003) has examined the ‘transplanted identities’ of male workers who had moved repeatedly as plants downsized and closed across the American rust belt, highlighting a group who styled themselves as the ‘I-75 gypsies’ (after the interstate highway that runs through Michigan and Ohio). Forging a new identity articulated in terms of mobility rather than place, these men constructed a new version of heroic working-class masculinity as they moved from site to site. This article draws on a case study of the Moulinex domestic appliance company in north western France to examine how such mobility has been experienced by women workers in a region beyond the industrial heartlands. In doing so, it considers the particular relationship to place that was constructed as companies like Moulinex established factories in rural regions of France after the Second World War and the implications of this for work-based identities. The article highlights the intersecting effects of age and gender, the significance of the gendered division of labour for women's experiences of mobility, and the extent to which identities were reshaped as women moved to stay in work.

Returning to Nature

While industrial closures in past decades were legitimized through an emphasis on economic motives, current closures are often framed within an emphasis on ‘green transition’, that is, through prefigurative discourses about post-carbon futures. This article discusses how the prefigurative transition framework reshapes the industrialization narrative, seeking to bridge the anthropology of energy and theories of performance. By paying attention to how ‘proclaimed transition’ is envisioned, narrated, and performed, the article explores the ways in which transition in Svalbard is spectacularly dramatized by the dismantling of the Svea coal mines, accompanied by the ‘returning to nature’ of the area. The article analyzes this ‘returning’ as a social drama of our anthropogenic times, demonstrating how landscape and nature are made key entities in performances of post-carbon utopia(s).

MACROECONOMİC EFFECTS OF COVİD-19 ON TURKİSH REAL ESTATE MARKET

This study assesses the economic situation of the real estate market, which is the second most important sector for investment in the Republic of Turkey. The purpose of the study is to investigate macroeconomic effects on the Turkish real estate market during COVID-19. Meanwhile, entire or partial lockdowns, industrial closures, travel bans, and border closures are among the harshest policies that have nearly paralyzed production and consumption, contributing to the economic crisis during the event window. This study examines the macroeconomic effects of COVID-19 on the Turkish Real Estate Market. These macroeconomic variables include the house interest rate and aggregate exports on real estate house sales. This study employs a monthly dataset that extends from January 2018 to September 2021. The data were divided into two models before and during COVID-19. The regression assessment will be done using a multiple linear regression model (MLR). According to the findings, exports are positively associated with home sales in both models. On the other hand, interest is negatively related to house sales. The positive effect of exports is decreasing in the model that includes the COVID-19 period. Likewise, the negative effect of real interest rates increased in the COVID-19 period. Therefore, both hypotheses were accepted.

IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON THE INDUSTRIAL SECTOR: IMPLICATIONS FOR ECONOMIC POLICY

The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on the economy around the world, damaging many areas of daily life. The industrial sector has been affected by the effects of industrial closures, reduced economic activity, and disruptions in logistics and transportation. The damage caused by the crisis has not yet been specifically assessed, as the industrial sector was not the most affected by the pandemic compared to other sectors of the economy. The subject of the study is the industrial sector of Ukraine and the EU. The aim of the article is to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on industrial development in Ukraine and the EU, as well as to propose economic policy measures to achieve stabilization in the industrial sector. Since industry is the foundation of economic growth and development, it is necessary to assess the depth of its decline and find possible solutions to get out of the recession. The theoretical analysis of the article is based on recent work by scientists in the field of industrial development, as well as on the authors' developments assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy. The COVID-19 pandemic created the following problems for Ukraine's economy and industry: a decrease in aggregate global demand and a decline in business activity, which led to lower prices on world commodity markets; strengthening of government regulation; raw-material orientation of Ukraine's exports and the significant dependence of industrial enterprises on world prices for raw materials; transport and logistics problems with raw material supply chains; lower business expectations and reduced investment due to significant uncertainty. The findings showed that the coronavirus crisis hit the industrial sectors mainly in April 2020, leading to a 16.1% decline in industrial production in Ukraine and an 18.6% decline in the EU. Such industries as automobile manufacturing, leather manufacturing, light industry, furniture manufacturing, coal mining, oil and gas extraction were hit the hardest. The following measures to stabilize the industrial sector are proposed: support for domestic demand for the products of industries, namely metallurgy, machine building, and chemical industry, which are mainly export-oriented and very sensitive to changes in global demand; stimulation and development of high value-added production; acceleration of the digitalization process within national borders; support for the industrial sector in its pursuit of environmentally friendly production, and others.

Chemical Exposures, Health, and Environmental Justice in Communities Living on the Fenceline of Industry.

Polluting industries are more likely to be located in low-income communities of color who also experience greater social stressors that may make them more vulnerable than others to the health impacts of toxic chemical exposures. We describe recent developments in assessing pollutant exposures and health threats posed by industrial facilities using or releasing synthetic chemicals to nearby communities in the U.S. More people are living near oil and gas development due to the expansion of unconventional extraction techniques as well as near industrial animal operations, both with suggestive evidence of increased exposure to hazardous pollutants and adverse health effects. Legacy contamination continues to adversely impact a new generation of residents in fenceline communities, with recent studies documenting exposures to toxic metals and poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). Researchers are also giving consideration to acute exposures resulting from inadvertent industrial chemical releases, including those resulting from extreme weather events linked to climate change. Natural experiments of industrial closures or cleanups provide compelling evidence that exposures from industry harm the health of nearby residents. New and legacy industries, coupled with climate change, present unique health risks to communities living near industry due to the release of toxic chemicals. Cumulative impacts from multiple stressors faced by environmental justice communities may amplify these adverse effects.

Closing Moulinex: Thoughts on the Visibility and Invisibility of Industrial Labour in Contemporary France

This article explores some of the ways in which deindustrialisation and factory closures are figured in contemporary French cultural production. In doing so, it reflects on the visibility and invisibility of industrial workers and their work in representations of the social world. Having noted a significant preoccupation with these issues in French cultural production since the 1990s, the discussion focuses particularly on the closure of the well-known domestic appliance company, Moulinex, in September 2001. It contrasts the dominant media discourse on industrial closures with the literary narrative offered by Franck Magloire (son of a Moulinex worker) in Ouvrière (2003).

Struggles Over Legitimacy in Global Organizational Restructuring: A Rhetorical Perspective on Legitimation Strategies and Dynamics in a Shutdown Case

Critical organization scholars have focused increasing attention on industrial and organizational restructurings such as shutdown decisions. However, little is known about the rhetorical strategies used to legitimate or resist plant closures in organizational negotiations. In this article, we draw from New Rhetoric to analyze rhetorical struggles, strategies and dynamics in unfolding organizational negotiations. We focus on the shutdown of the bus body unit of the Sweden-based Volvo Bus Corporation in Finland. We distinguish five types of rhetorical legitimation strategies and dynamics. These include the three classical dynamics of logos (rational arguments), pathos (emotional moral arguments), and ethos (authority-based arguments), but also autopoiesis (autopoietic narratives), and cosmos (cosmological constructions). Our analysis contributes to previous studies on organizational restructuring by providing a more nuanced understanding of how contemporary industrial closures are legitimated and resisted in organizational negotiations. This study also increases theoretical understanding of the role of rhetoric in legitimation more generally.

Consuming Nature–Producing Heritage: Aspects on Conservation, Economical Growth and Community Participation in a Forested, Sparsely Populated Area in Sweden

The nature conservation and heritage management policies of Sweden are moving towards integration. They are also promoting the increased public use of natural and heritage resources, and greater participation by local citizens in their management. In forested, sparsely populated areas, authorities are promoting tourism, especially nature and heritage tourism, to create growth and replace jobs lost in industrial closures and in the heavily mechanised forestry industry. In the area discussed in this article, northern Värmland, Sweden, the local population did not find it attractive to work in touristic jobs. Most of the small‐scale tourist entrepreneurs are also ‘immigrants’ who often found it hard to achieve success in business. Heritage productions, however, have emerged as meeting places for local citizens, and as sources of community pride. To achieve development in forested, sparsely populated areas, there is a need for a broader approach, which relies less on tourism, and is more in harmony with the lifestyles of the local population.

The housing and neighbourhood impacts of knowledge-based economic development following industrial closure

Economic development initiatives following large-scale industrial closures often seek to regenerate the local economy through investment in technology and knowledge-intensive activities. The resulting changes in the make-up of the local workforce are in turn likely to generate new forms of demand for housing; demand that will not necessarily be met by the residential offer of the neighbourhoods worst affected by the initial closure. This paper explores these processes through a study of the proposals for a science park as a component of the programme to redevelop the Longbridge site in Birmingham in the UK, following the closure of the Rover automotive plant in 2005. The paper examines the capacity of local workers to take up the anticipated high-technology jobs; the likely configuration of an incoming workforce; and the fit between the housing requirements of these new workers and the residential offer of neighbourhoods in the Longbridge area. It concludes that there is likely to be a poor match between the housing and residential characteristics of neighbourhoods most closely associated with the plant closure and the requirements of an incoming high-tech workforce. This in turn raises a policy dilemma. On the one hand there is a necessity to secure economic diversification for the local economy as a whole, whilst on the other is the requirement to address the specific needs of the discrete neighbourhoods most affected by the closure and whose quality of place offer is often furthest from the requirements of the incoming workforce. A number of policy implications are discussed, drawing on the experience of recent housing and regeneration policy.

The post‐communist enigma: Ethnic mobilisation in Yugoslavia

Abstract Ethnic‐nationalist mobilisation is the dominant political factor of the Yugoslavian crisis. But a general ‘ethnification’ of the political process is a characteristic product of the socialist state system, rather than a perpetuation of past ethnic conflicts. Simultaneously, new ‘post‐communist’ popular movements and political parties are confronted with dilemmas similar to those faced by the dethroned socialist regimes, in a situation where radical economic reforms lead to impoverishment, to industrial closures and to increased unemployment. The article opposes the notion of a stark contrast between a democratic and liberal Yugoslavian ‘north’ and a despotic and still communist ‘south’. Even ruling post‐communist political coalitions in secessionist Slovenia and Croatia face the danger of lapsing into a new type of totalitarianism with incalculable human consequences.

Manufacturing-Plant Closures: A Dynamic Survival Model

In this paper the phenomenon of industrial closures among new plants which commenced production in Ireland between 1973 and 1981 is analysed. A major aim of the research is to develop a dynamic survival model of industrial plant closure which permits the introduction of time-constant and time-varying covariates. Results indicate that there is no duration-of-stay effect; that new British-owned branches are highly vulnerable; that grant aid reduces the chances of early closure; and that new clothing and footwear plants are more likely to close than are plants in other sectors.

Industrial closures in Ireland 1973–1981: Analysis and implications

O'Farrell P. N. and Crouchley R. (1983) Industrial closures in Ireland 1973–1981: analysis and implications, Reg. Studies 17, 411–427. This paper analyses industrial closures in Ireland over the period 1973–81. Evidence is presented concerning temporal trends in closure, annual closure rates by region, and the closure propensity of new plant openings. Hypothesized relationships between closure probability and age, size, sector, ownership, nationality, female intensity, grant aid, regional and town size location are examined within a logit model. Multinational branches display higher closure rates than Irish establishments and grant aid reduces the probability of closure.

An analysis of industrial closures: Irish experience 1960–1973

O'Farrell P. N. (1976) An analysis of industrial closures: Irish experience 1960–1973, Reg. Studies 10, 433–448. There has been a marked dearth of research concerned with systematically testing a series of hypotheses relating to the closure of an industrial plant. This paper attempts to fill this gap by analysing the closures of grant-aided establishments locating in Ireland under the Industrial Development Authority's New Industry scheme. It tests hypothesized relationships between, on the one hand, non-closure or closure, and on the other, age, size, sector, organisational type, nationality, regional and town size location. Of the postulated relationships, the findings that survival is independent of age and that the chance of survival is a linear function of size were the most significant.