Rusty Muncie: Deindustrialization in Middletown
Industrialization in Muncie would continue through the Second World War. After the war, however, industrialization nationally was beginning to plateau and would eventually stagnate during the late 40s and 50s with fewer industries opening plants in large cities. Business owners began to struggle with the influence of unions, including the UAW, and their influence in allowing workers within the Midwest to enjoy many benefits and control over their workplace.
In Muncie, industrialization would begin to taper off with the infamous closing of the Muncie Ball Jar Plant in 1962 to the shock of many within the local community. In the Muncie Star, an opinion piece discussed frustrations with the changes going on in Muncie, especially around the closing of the Ball Jar Company. The newspaper prophetically declared “It is the job for all to see what we do.”[1] Through the decades following the closing of the Ball company plant many more businesses would begin to leave Muncie and many other cities throughout the Midwest. The last large plant with a unionized workforce, the Warner Gear (BorgWarner) plant, closed in 2009.
But, to understand the consequences of deindustrialization we will first go over the how and why of deindustrialization and how it all fell apart so quickly. The history of industrialization in Muncie and the Midwest is also the history of unions, as both have shared histories and connections. However, due to a combination of rising labor costs, which were driven largely by the influence of unions, the emergence of new global markets, and technological changes in communications, transportation, and manufacturing combined to reduce the viability of large Midwestern factories Firstly, with unions gaining more and more influence in the factories, management argued that it was costing too much money to operate effectively. Steven High, in Industrial Sunset, discusses how the Midwestern industrial workforce was heavily unionized and how the only way to get around the unions and their policies was to leave the Midwest and head down to regions without union influence. Initially, this would lead to many factories leaving their original cities of origin and fleeing for either the western parts of the country or more predominantly the South, where they had very few worker's rights laws and anti-union laws as well. “Many states actively promoted the promise of being union-free in order to attract footloose employers from the heavily unionized industrial heartland.”[2]
Eventually even the factories that moved to the south would move outside of the country through the rising influence of global capitalism. Large business owners could effectively lower the costs of production by having factories and businesses set up in countries with fewer workers rights laws and low wages. The process of deindustrialization and job loss left visible scars throughout Muncie. The consequences of deindustrialization at this large of a scale would almost mimic how many of these industries formerly used to operate before the rise of unions. By the end of deindustrialization process, unions became rare within major industrial zones. Job security became an issue again as local residents could no longer rely on unionized factory jobs and instead turned lower-paying service industry jobs. These included positions in fast-food restaurants and big-box stores. There were a few factories still running but they employed fewer people and none of the workers were union members.
However, by the turn of the twenty-first century, a different economic change was beginning to take place in Muncie. By the 2000s and 2010s, the largest employer wouldn't be industry or even service jobs anymore but it would come through the former teacher's college known as Ball State University which became the largest local employer. Ironically, this made Muncie somewhat exceptional, since most industrial cities did not have a significant educational institution to anchor the local economy. Whether through good luck or good planning, the university was able to keep Muncie on the map compared to cities like Detroit or Gary. Muncie became an example of a city where “Meds and Eds” supplied new kinds of work.
Section Authors: Navin Pace, Isaac Porter, Roc Ricker, Harry Snyder (editor)