ABSTRACT
The last decade has been a period of major industrial change for the chemical and clothing sectors on Teesside: processes of restructuring have involved a great number of local companies and redundancies have accompanied them. The current phase of economic instability has widely manifested the isolation facing local companies. The problem of corporate change is not separated from a company configuration of work practices, of internal relations, of technology, and of its market orientation, that is from its culture. From the end of the 1970s, the local labour market saw a growing number of workers expelled from production processes and, for those still at work, a reconfiguration of employment practices. The process of restructuring had a considerable impact on the level of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) employment in the UK. Service industries dominate employment opportunities for both men and women but through non-standard contracts.
