Photo Essay: Factory Like A City <i>(cross-posted at <a href="http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2009/09/22/photo-essay-factory-like-a-city/">Feministe</a>)</i>

Run, don’t walk, to David Bacon’s photo essay, “Factory Like A City”, posted at Z magazine. It’s about Toyota’s announcement of the closing of the NUMMI plant in Fremont, California after General Motors announced it was withdrawing from the partnership. It’s a good illustration of the exponential effects of the demise of manufacturing in the United States. From the essay:

The plant employs 4,500 workers directly, and the jobs of another 30,000 throughout Northern California are dependent on its continued operation. Taking families into account, the threatened closure will eliminate the income of over 100,000 people.

Frankly, I think that’s a conservative estimate. It’s probably based on the immediate results. The long-term effects (absent a replacement plant of similar nature) would be greater—just ask someone from the Rust Belt.

Keep this, and other stories of other soon-to-be or already shuttered plants in mind when reading about corporate bailouts. Those bailouts are not for—and were not meant to be for—the workers. Keep this in mind when you hear the ludicrous phrase, “jobless recovery.”

There is no such thing as a jobless recovery. Not for working people.