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Photo essay

What changed when the shift ended at nine

Moving the shift forward cost the plant eleven minutes of line time a day. It kept nineteen of the twenty-three women who had given notice.
01 · TWENTY-THREE GAVE NOTICE

Twenty-three gave notice

Over one quarter, twenty-three of the sixty women on the evening shift gave notice. The plant read it as a wage problem and it was not.
It was never the work. It was the walk from the gate at half past ten.
03 · ELEVEN MINUTES

Eleven minutes

Ending the shift at nine cost eleven minutes of line time a day. Nineteen of the twenty-three withdrew their notice.

More stories of change

All stories ›
Drawn from the floorThree units where the women would talk and would not be photographed. The story is drawn instead: composite people, checked facts.What the supervisor sawA first-line manager on the six months after his line went from all-male to a third women, written in his own words.The first fifty women on the floorA dyeing unit went from four women across three shifts to fifty-one in two years. Nothing about the machines changed.