From the early nineteenth century through World War II Springfield, Massachusetts was one of the world's preeminent metalworking centers. On the eve of the Second World War hundreds of firms and thousands of skilled machinists produced machine tools, fixtures, castings, forgings, and precision components for the nation's automobile, electrical appliance, steel, and aircraft industries. However, by the mid-1950s Springfield industry commenced an inexorable decline, interrupted briefly by Vietnam War defense spending. Firms were purchased by outside investors and work moved, while foreign firms gained market share from local companies. Springfield's fall from manufacturing prominence mirrors events elsewhere in the industrial Northeast and is important to understand. The decline is examined mainly through a history of the American Bosch Company, its workers, and their union. Established in 1911, unionized in 1936, Bosch specialized in the design and manufacture of precision diesel fuel injections components. During World War II it employed thousands of skilled machinists. After the war it was purchased by Wall Street investors and in the early 1950s became part of a small corporation headquartered in New York City. By the early 1960s it had become the most profitable firm in the diesel products division of a Fortune 500 corporation. By the time it closed in 1986 Bosch was an aging plant with a few hundred workers owned by a Fortune 100 corporation. From 1950 forward management attempted to implement numerous strategies to reduce costs and maintain market share, including the construction of a low-wage plant in Mississippi, the acquisition of overseas factories, and in-plant schemes to streamline production. The union resisted in-plant restructuring efforts, but offered token opposition to the company's world-wide maneuvers. Throughout, unionists believed their machining skills coupled with their knowledge of the products being produced were assets the company needed to succeed. The company never shared this perspective, and unresolved, this disjuncture contributed to the closing of the plant. It is argued here that management's efforts failed because workers were treated as appendages of their machines.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-8997 |
| Date | 01 January 1994 |
| Creators | Forrant, Robert F |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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