Memory has become increasingly important in the study of deindustrialization over the last decade. The ways in which those who witnessed drastic socio-economic change reflect on their experiences decades later are crucial in understanding the ramifications. In this paper, I am concerned with the relationships between individual and popular/public memory for women manufacturing workers who participated in militant industrial action to oppose closure. Over a fourteen-month period in 1981 and 1982, three Scottish workforces refused to accept the relocation of their factories and launched occupations in resistance. The workers at the multinational factories of Lee Jeans (Greenock), Lovable Bra (Cumbernauld), and Plessey Capacitors (Bathgate) launched action to oppose shutdowns, which were announced during a period of accelerated closure in Britain. This aspect makes these workers unique in the history of factory closings; as has been demonstrated extensively, militant resistance was very much the exception. The vast majority of industrial workers reluctantly accepted management decisions, with most energy from the labor movement spent on securing enhanced redundancy packages.1 These workers are therefore exceptional among those who experienced the brutality of deindustrialization. They are additionally unique as the workers involved were predominantly women, whose experiences have not been sufficiently incorporated in previous studies of manufacturing closure.2 The disputes were widely reported on at the time; the story of Scottish women fighting against multinational corporations’ “unfair” decisions during a period of rapidly increasing unemployment captured the attention of the labor movement, journalists, and politicians. And, whilst they were not part of a coordinated response to closure, there were clear links between the actions, and significant overlap among the workers involved.

过去十年来，记忆在去工业化研究中变得越来越重要。那些目睹了巨大社会经济变革的人在几十年后反思自己的经历的方式对于理解其后果至关重要。在本文中，我关注的是参与反对关闭的激进工业行动的女性制造业工人的个人记忆与大众/公共记忆之间的关系。 1981年和1982年的十四个月期间，三名苏格兰工人拒绝接受工厂搬迁，并发起占领抵抗活动。 Lee Jeans (Greenock)、Lovable Bra (Cumbernauld) 和 Plessey Capacitors (Bathgate) 等跨国工厂的工人发起了反对停工的行动，这些工厂是在英国加速关闭期间宣布的。这使得这些工人在工厂关闭的历史上独一无二；正如广泛表明的那样，武装抵抗在很大程度上是个例外。绝大多数产业工人不情愿地接受了管理层的决定，劳工运动的大部分精力都花在了加强裁员计划上。1因此，这些工人在经历过去工业化残酷过程的人群中是特殊的。它们的独特之处还在于，所涉及的工人主要是女性，她们的经验尚未充分纳入之前的制造业关闭研究中。2这些争议当时被广泛报道；在失业率迅速上升的时期，苏格兰妇女反抗跨国公司“不公平”决定的故事引起了劳工运动、记者和政界人士的关注。而且，虽然它们不是对关闭的协调反应的一部分，但这些行动之间存在明显的联系，并且所涉及的工人之间存在显着的重叠。