ABSTRACT
From the 1950s through the Bosch’s 1986 shutdown, unionists sought to engage
in production-related decision making in an effort to save jobs in the city.
Nonetheless, after the Second World War, wild employment gyrations and
increasingly acrimonious labor relations characterized factory life. Bosch
management made investments in new factories outside of Springfield and
also invested in technologies that could replace the skilled workforce. At the
same time, management discouraged workers from applying their production
knowledge to lower manufacturing costs and improve quality. Workers were
treated as a homogenous factor of production, with their skills viewed as
replaceable by high-tech machinery at low-wage production sites.
