Closure of an automotive plant: transformation of a work-based ‘community’

This paper is an exploration of one aspect of ‘community’ impacts of retrenchment, namely, what happens for a work-based ‘community’ when capitalist production decisions result in redundancies from a South Australian-based manufacturing plant. This work draws on longitudinal data and uses Ferdinand Tonnies’ conceptualisation of types of social relations as a reference point in analysis. Accounts of retrenched workers suggest Gemeinschaft-type relations in the workplace that had developed and deepened over time. These connections, described repeatedly as like ‘family relationships’, had tentacles extending outside the workplace. With retrenchment many respondents identified a rupturing of valued social connections that had, for some, not re-formed beyond common employment. These social changes have been associated with loss and grief. Given the health-enhancing factors attributed to social connectivity and the evidence that disenfranchised grief is associated with psychosocial health issues, policy attention to ‘community’ impacts of retrenchments, including the transformation of work-based communities, seems warranted.