Conclusion

Abstract

Job instability and economic insecurity dominated the experiences of Detroit autoworkers during the first fifteen years of the postwar boom, its supposed heyday. Moreover, there was no consistent body of people who could be classified as autoworkers during these years. Tens of thousands of people periodically entered and left auto work, with the timing often not of their own choosing. It is not clear to what extent these workers, especially the emerging majority of younger ones, considered themselves to be primarily autoworkers at all. The myth of the postwar boom for autoworkers persists for many reasons, including over-reliance on aggregate economic data and nostalgia for a time when Detroit was more prosperous and the UAW had a degree of power and influence.