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Working at the mill had been a family affair for generations of Sturgeon Falls’ mill workers, as young men followed their fathers, uncles, older brothers, and occasionally mothers, into the Northern Ontario mill – the town’s largest employer for more than a century. The mill’s workforce was overwhelmingly white and male, with a historic linguistic divide between largely English-speaking managers and mainly French-speaking production workers. This linguistic division of labour and the near total exclusion of Aboriginal people were remnants of industrial colonialism in the region. Within a year of the mill’s December 2002 closure, I began interviewing the former employees about their experiences and these interviews continued for the next two years. During that time, efforts to reopen the mill fizzled out and it was demolished by the departing company. Work-life oral histories offer us a way into the shifting sands of culture and economy in this former mill town. This article explores the shifting sense of temporal and spatial proximity or distance in the plant shutdown stories told by 37 former mill workers. Several dimensions of proximity are explored such as the temporal proximity of the interview to the events being recounted, the perceived social proximity that prevailed before the mill closing, the remembered physical proximity of the mill in the narrated lives of residents, and, now, after the mill’s closure, the spectre of forced relocation or distant daily commutes to new jobs in other towns and cities. For long-service workers, employment mobility or permanent relocation was understood to be a last resort. These interviews make clear that forced employment mobility was a core concern to everyone we interviewed, not just those who actually relocated or commuted to jobs found elsewhere.
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There's a pervasive sense of betrayal in areas scarred by mine, mill and factory closures. [This book] delves into the long history of deindustrialization in the paper-making town of Sturgeon Falls, Ontario, located on Canada's resource periphery. Much like hundreds of other towns and cities across North America and Europe, Sturgeon Falls has lost their primary source of industry, resulting in the displacement of workers and their families. One Job Town takes us into the making of a culture of industrialism and the significance of industrial work for mill-working families. One Job Town approaches deindustrialization as a long term, economic, political, and cultural process, which did not begin and simply end with the closure of the local mill in 2002. High examines the work-life histories of fifty paper mill workers and managers, as well as city officials, to gain an in-depth understanding of the impact of the formation and dissolution of a culture of industrialism. Oral history and memory are at the heart of One Job Town, challenging us to rethink the relationship between the past and the present in what was formerly known as the industrialized world. --Publisher's description.
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Since the 1970s, the closure of mines, mills, and factories has marked a rupture in working-class lives. The Deindustrialized World interrogates the process of industrial ruination, from the first impact of layoffs in metropolitan cities, suburban areas, and single-industry towns to the shock waves that rippled outward, affecting entire regions, countries, and beyond. Seeking to hear the “roar ... on the other side of the silence,” scholars from France, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States share their own stories of ruin and ruination and ask others what it means to be working class in a postindustrial world. In Part 1, they explore the ruination of former workplaces and the damaged health and injured bodies of industrial workers. Part 2 brings to light disparities of experiences between rural resource towns and cities, where hipster revitalization often overshadows industrial loss. Part 3 reveals the ongoing impact of deindustrialization on working people and their place in the new global economy. Together, the chapters open a window on the lived experiences of people living at ground zero of deindustrialization, revealing its layered impacts and examining how workers, environmentalists, activists, and the state have responded to its challenges. --Publisher's description
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