Workplaces in a State of Change: The Research Organizations and their Employees

Abstract

Tyne and Wear, where my research was carried out, is an area long associated with heavy manufacturing industry: coalmining, shipbuilding, armaments, engineering and steel. But Tyne and Wear, and the Northern region more generally, have experienced savage attacks on their traditional forms of employment over the past two decades. The steelworks of Consett are gone; the pitheads are still; the shipyards of the Tyne and Wear rivers are shut. During the period of my research, in 1994, the last deep pit in the area (Wearmouth in Sunderland) closed down, as did the last shipyard on the Tyne (Swan Hunter).