Condensed Capitalism

Daniel Sidorick

Description

Corporations often move factories to areas where production costs, notably labor, taxes, and regulations, are sharply lower than in the original company hometowns. Not every company, however, followed this trend. One of America's most iconic firms, the Campbell Soup Company, was one such exception: it found ways to achieve low-cost production while staying in its original location, Camden, New Jersey, until 1990.The first in-depth history of the Campbell Soup Company and its workers, Condensed Capitalism is also a broader exploration of strategies that companies have used to keep costs down besides relocating to cheap labor havens: lean production, flexible labor sourcing, and uncompromising antiunionism. Daniel Sidorick's study of a classic firm that used these methods for over a century has, therefore, special relevance in current debates about capital mobility and the shifting powers of capital and labor.Sidorick focuses on the engine of the Campbell empire: the soup plants in Camden where millions of cans of food products rolled off the production line daily. It was here that management undertook massive efforts to drive down costs so that the marketing and distribution functions of the company could rely on a limitless supply of products to sell at rock-bottom prices. It was also here that thousands of soup makers struggled to gain some control over their working lives and livelihoods, countering company power with their own strong union local. Campbell's low-cost strategies and the remarkable responses these elicited from its workers tell a story vital to understanding today's global economy. Condensed Capitalism reveals these strategies and their consequences through a narrative that shows the mark of great economic and social forces on the very human stories of the people who spent their lives filling those familiar red-and-white cans.

Sujets

• New Jersey
• 20th century
• Economic history
• Nueva Jersey

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 février 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501707438
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 13 Mo

Extrait

  CONDENSED CAPITALISM

CONDENSED CAPITALISM CAMPBE L L SOUP n AND T HE PURSUI T OF CHE AP PRODUCT I ON I N T HE T WE NT I E T H CE NT URY

D a n i e l S i d o r i c k

ILR Press an imprint of CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2009 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the pub lisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2009 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Sidorick, Daniel.  Condensed capitalism : Campbell Soup and the pursuit of cheap production in the twentieth century / Daniel Sidorick.  p. cm.  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 9780801447266 (cloth : alk. paper)  1. Campbell Soup Company—History. 2. Soup industry—New Jersey—Camden—History. 3. Soup industry—Employees—Labor unions—New Jersey— Camden—History. 4. Industrial relations—New Jersey—Camden—History. 5. Production management— New Jersey—Camden—History. I. Title.

HD9330.S624C367 331.88'164—dc22

2009  2008043693

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Cloth printing

10 98 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my mother and in memory of my father and for Sharon

  Co nt e nt s

Introduction: Global Strategies, Hometown Factories 1. Making Campbell’s Soup: Camden, 1869–1935 2. Bedaux, Discipline, and Radical Unions 3. World War II and the Transformation of the Workforce 4. The Fight to Save Local 80, 1946–1953 5. The UPWA’s Social Unionism versus William Beverly Murphy 6. 1968: The Strike for Unity 7. Waiting for the End 8. Legacies

Notes 251 Note on Sources 279 Bibliography 281 Acknowledgments 289 Index 291

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13 42

68 110

145 177 210 241

  CONDENSED CAPITALISM