Between 2000 and 2011, the United States suffered the loss of manufacturing jobs 6 times faster than the rate in the 20 years prior. North Carolina ranked first in manufacturing employment in 1992; however, in 2012 it ranked fourth. The loss of manufacturing jobs created a trend away from manufacturing industries to services industries. The purpose of this study was to explore strategies that nonmanufacturing managers use to facilitate the transferable skills of displaced manufacturing workers to nonmanufacturing industries. To address the problem, a purposeful sample of 3 nonmanufacturing managers in service industries was obtained from a major manufacturing city in North Carolina. The human capital theory was used as a conceptual framework. Data for this case study were collected from face-to-face, semistructured interviews and review of company documents. Data were coded and analyzed using a qualitative analysis software to identify recurring themes. The 4 prominent themes that emerged were: (a) characteristics that displaced manufacturing workers possessed for employment in service industries, (b) workers' willingness to obtain training and education, (c) managers' specific strategies, skills, and experience for hiring displaced manufacturing workers, and (d) workers' transferable skills. The findings from this study could contribute to social change by defining strategies nonmanufacturing leaders could use to identify and transfer skills from displaced manufacturing workers to nonmanufacturing labor sectors, thereby introducing transferable skills for diverse labor sectors for increasing employment and increasing the standards of living for employees and families.

Ce mémoire illustre l'évolution de la stratégie du syndicat des TCA-Québec, unité locale 728 représentant les employés de l'usine Kenworth de Sainte-Thérèse, de la fermeture de l'usine en 1996 jusqu'à sa réouverture en 1999. La littérature démontre que la mondialisation des marchés économiques oblige les syndicats à revoir leur stratégie lors de négociations collectives. Parfois, leur survie en dépend. Les résultats de notre étude de cas permettent de déterminer cinq événements clés où le syndicat local revoit sa stratégie pendant ce conflit de travail médiatisé : la négociation collective, l'échec de la négociation menant à une grève générale, la fermeture de l'usine, l'annonce de la réouverture de l'usine ainsi que sa réouverture. L'ensemble des résultats présentés en corrélation avec le modèle d’analyse de David Weil (1994) présente la planification stratégique de ces cinq événements à partir d’un processus intégré qui peut être décomposé en trois principales étapes : la formulation de la stratégie, sa mise en œuvre et son évaluation. Les faits sont colligés chronologiquement en exposant les transformations de la stratégie du syndicat local par l'identification d'indicateurs conçus à partir des facteurs externes évoqués dans le modèle de Weil (1994), à savoir l'analyse de l'environnement technologique, législatif et social, les priorités dictées par les membres, l'allocation des ressources du syndicat, ainsi que l'analyse de l'évaluation avantage coûts versus bénéfices. / This thesis illustrates the evolution of the strategy used by the TCA-Québec Union, local unit 728 representing the employees of Kenworth in Sainte-Thérèse, from the plant shutdown in 1996 to its reopening in 1999. The literature shows that the economic market globalisation has forced the trade unions to reconsider their strategic approach in the collective bargaining process. In some cases, their survival depends on it. The case study presented in this work identifies five key events when strategic adjustments were made by the trade union during this highly mediatised conflict: the collective bargaining, the failure of these negotiations which led to a general strike, the plant shutdown, the announcement of the plant’s reopening as well as its actual reopening. The results presented in correlation to the David Weil Model (1994) detail the strategic planning of these five key events using an integrated process which is composed of three major steps: formulating, implementing and evaluating the strategy. The facts are assembled chronologically while exposing the modifications to the local union`s strategy using indicators developed with Weil’s model external factors (1994) such as the technological, legal and social environments, the member-led priorities, the distribution of the union’s resources as well as the cost-benefit advantages.