Speedup or Closure: The Global Shop Floor of 1970s Silicon Valley

Between 1968 and 1978, the overseas plants of Signetics Corporation, a manufacturer of integrated circuits (ICs) based in Silicon Valley, were host to numerous job actions and genuine organizing campaigns by workers, including at least two strikes that went a long way toward stifling production. The results of these actions were, to say the least, mixed. Some succeeded in yielding concessions, particularly with respect to wages; others led directly to plant closures despite the relatively modest demands involved. Exploring these confrontations and their disparate outcomes provides a rare window onto class conflict in the semiconductor industry and allows us to test where existing explanations of deindustrialization apply to such high-tech production and where new ones might be needed.