American Made: What Happens to People When Work Disappears

In this real-life story of loss and reinvention, Farah Stockman takes us into the lives of three people who had built their lives around their place of work: the Rexnord steel bearings manufacturing plant in Indianapolis. She introduces us to Wally, a black man who dreamed of starting his own barbecue business; Shannon, a white single mother who became the first woman to run the factory's dangerous furnaces; and John, a white machinist whose multigenerational union family background clashed with a work environment increasingly hostile to labor organizing. Factories like Rexnord had served as an economic engine for the surrounding community. With its closure, hundreds of workers lost their jobs. What had life been like for three workers at this factory, and what became of them after the factory moved to Mexico and Texas?

American Made is the story of a community struggling to reinvent itself. It is also a story about American values: how jobs serve as a bedrock of a sense of belonging, drive powerful social justice movements, and remain at the heart of people's identities. Who we hire, train, and protect at work reveals who we consider to be "one of us." This is a story, too, about this political moment, when the desperation of job loss and uncertainty about the future of work have made themselves heard at a national level.