Considering the Factory Floor

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on a professional space that technical and professional communication with which students might not be familiar: a factory. In unionized factory workplaces, particularly, the interactions between the factory floor workers (the unionized group) and the salaried professionals can be complicated, making effective communication difficult. From the perspective of one factory floor worker, we examine some of these complications and difficulties as a way to provide insight into such workspaces.

KEYWORDS:

• Workplace studies
• professional practice
• community-based research
• action research
• qualitative methods
• industrial workplaces

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elena G. Garcia

Elena G. Garcia is an Assistant Professor and Director of the First-year Writing Program at the University of Detroit Mercy. Her research focuses on several key areas: factory workplace writing and communication, academic/non-academic collaborative research, issues of identity and positionality in academia, and first-year writing pedagogy.

Lupe Garcia

Lupe Garcia is a now-retired factory machine operator who spent over 45 years working in a single factory. His research focuses on working with his collaborative partner and daughter, Elena G. Garcia, to examine the communication practices of his former workplace and the effectiveness of collaborations between academic and non-academic researchers.