Abstract In the early 1980s, amid a collapse in manufacturing employment and the worst economic crisis in half a century, a number of US manufacturers founded retraining programs for their laid-off employees. Two of the highest-profile programs were the Ford-UAW National Development and Training Center (NDTC) and the GM-UAW Joint Skill Development and Training Committee (JSDTC), both established in 1982. This article examines the institutional and ideological relationship between such programs and the so-called new industrial relations. In the context of rapid deindustrialization, the NDTC and the JSDTC would struggle to deliver the kinds of occupational and social mobility that their architects promised. They were more successful, however, in keeping the spirit of “jointness” alive through an era that would be characterized by shuttered factories, mass layoff notices, and double-digit unemployment. Retraining programs have not typically been the purview of labor historians, but bringing them into view can enrich our understanding of the precipitous decline in labor militancy after 1979.
