ABSTRACT
It’s three p.m. My feet are killing me and my whole body aches. I am absolutely exhausted from being on my feet for eight hours in my new, stiff, unbearable steel-toed shoes. My hands feel dry and chapped. It’s the end of my first full day as a participant observer at Texco,1 a small, privately owned, nonunionized textile factory that makes specialized fabrics for a niche market around the world. The factory employs about 60 people. They’re a mix of men and women; long-term employees and those just out of school; people born in Canada along with immigrants from Portugal, Greece, India and South America. The work force is mostly White, with few people of color. On the plant floor, men hold the majority of the higher paying jobs.
