Permanent Replacements and the Breakdown of the "Social Accord" in Calera, Alabama, 1974–1999.

In the summer of 1994, 150 workers at a cement plant in Calera, Alabama, abandoned a month-long strike after Blue Circle Cement Co. permanently replaced more than three-quarters of them. The company's tactics deeply alienated its experienced workforce. Tyrone Perkins, who had more than 18 years of seniority at the Calera plant, summed up how the experience of being replaced had transformed the attitude of workers to the company. In the 1980's and 1990's, employers faced with strikes increasingly resorted to hiring replacement workers.