Two announcements from major U.S. corporations during December 2005 effectively captured the past and future of work in America.1 The first was made by the Ford Motor Company, and it concerned yet another round of layoffs and plant closings in Michigan. Like most of the Midwest and Northeast, Michigan has undergone extensive deindustrialization in the past two decades as manufacturing firms have downsized or moved production to jurisdictions where labor costs are lower and unions weaker. The second announcement came from Biloxi, Mississippi, a city still digging its way out of the devastation wrought by hurricane Katrina. In 1991 the state had legalized thirteen casinos, which by 2004 employed 15,000 Mississippians and generated nearly $200 million in taxes annually. All but one were destroyed by the storm, but the “gaming” companies now pledged to fast-track construction on new and even bigger casinos. By late December, before basic utility service had been restored to all of the Gulf Coast, Mississippi’s casino dealers and cocktail waitresses headed back to work.
