The Politics of Industrial Closure

The Industrial Closure Initiative is examining the political economy of deindustrialization, its emerging geographies of rise and decline, and the political efforts to stop, manage, and prevent mine, mill and factory closures. Shopfloor resistance is being analysed as is employee, community and public ownership schemes, trade union negotiating tactics, as well as state planning. Among our key research questions are: How have working people, their unions and governments responded to industrial closures, and how has it changed over time? Where has it made a tangible difference and why? How have these responses changed over time and across the project’s six-country study area? What “lessons” have been learnt by the trade union movement?