Mollie's Job: A Story of Life and Work on the Global Assembly Line

Following the flight of one woman's factory job from the United States to Mexico, this compelling work offers a revealing and unprecedented look at the flesh-and-blood consequences of globalization.

In this absorbing and affecting narrative history, investigative journalist William M. Adler traces the migration of one factory job as it passes from the cradle of American industry, Paterson, New Jersey, to rural Mississippi during the turmoil of the civil rights movement, to the burgeoning border city of Matamoros, Mexico. The story of Mollie James, Dorothy Carter, and Balbina Duque, their company, and their communities provides an ideal prism through which to explore the larger issues at the heart of the new economy: the decline of unions and the middle class, the growing gap between rich and poor, public policies rewarding U.S. companies for transferring jobs abroad, and the ways in which "free trade" undermines stable businesses and communities.

Combining a deft historian's touch with first-rate reporting, Mollie's Job is a provocative and fresh perspective on the global economy — at a time when downsizing is unraveling the American Dream for many working families.

A telling portrait of North American labor and capital over the last half-century, Mollie's Job is the story of a family-owned factory founded during the postwar boom in an archetypal Mid-Atlantic industrial town, that relocated to Mississippi, and eventually ended up in a Mexican border town. Through the lives and intersecting fates of three female factory workers, it sheds new light on major societal and economic: the decline of unions and the middle class; the growing gap between rich and poor; public policy that rewards companies for transferring jobs abroad; the detrimental effect of "free trade" on stable businesses and communities; and, most poignantly, the devastating impact of globalization on the lives of real people on both sides of the border.

William M. Adler is a freelance writer who has written for numerous publications, including Esquire and Rolling Stone. He is also the author of Land of Opportunity. He lives in Texas.

Contents

Introduction: End of the Line

PART I: PATERSON

1. Dimples Takes a Ride

2. The Golden Land

3. High, Wide and Handsome

4. The World of Tomorrow

5. Eight Days a Week

6. Farrell Dobbs's Vision

7. "All Hell Broke Loose"

PART II: MISSISSIPPI

8. Biscuits and Bond Issues

9. Working for the Railroad

10. Handbills from Heaven

PART III: MEXICO

11. Border Dreams

12. Leveraged Lives

13. "On the Border, By the Sea"

14. The Lucky Ones

15. Sleeping with the Elephant

Epilogue: "Thank God for NAFTA"

Acknowledgments

Selected Bibliography

Source Notes

Index