After the last whistle

At the General Electric plant here, the scene is very different. In the 1980s more than 10,000 people worked for GE making transformers and defense equipment. Today the work force is down to about 1,000 and the only signs of life are the bulldozers knocking down the century-old industrial buildings one by one. Pittsfield, which has struggled to attract new businesses, hopes an industrial park constructed in the same spot will improve its economic fortunes.

"People assume there will always be a next act for the economy, but it is not automatic," said Frederick Breimyer, an economist with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in Boston.

If the United States wants to know what happens when manufacturing jobs vanish, Massachusetts is a good place to look for clues. Nationally the loss of manufacturing jobs is a hot topic. The country has lost 2.5 million factory jobs since the beginning of 2001, a huge decline in what otherwise has been a relatively mild economic downturn. On the political side, manufacturing's woes have put President Bush on the defensive and prompted his would-be Democratic opponents to charge that American is losing its competitive edge.

In Massachusetts, as in other states in the Northeast, losing manufacturing jobs is anything but new. In the past 20 years Massachusetts has shed factory jobs at a steady clip, in traditional fields such as textiles and machinery and in new economy industries such as computers and telecommunications. Since 1980 the state has lost about half its manufacturing jobs, a loss roughly twice as large as the nation has suffered.

Over time, it is possible to replace the lost jobs and create a successful new economy. But as the experience of Pittsfield demonstrates, not everyone or every place will be able to make the leap. Between 1980 and 2000, when the latest downturn began, Massachusetts shed 236,000 manufacturing jobs, but still ended the period with 669,000 more jobs. The new jobs were not all low-paying service positions. In the Boston area, in particular, good new jobs were added in high technology, healthcare, finance, and a range of professional services, from consulting to law.

"In Eastern Massachusetts people keep finding new things to do," said Robert Nakosteen, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Nakosteen credits Boston's intellectual infrastructure -- the mix of companies, universities, and money -- for keeping the city and its suburbs close to the cutting edge. The Boston Scientific example, an old industry replaced by a new one, has been duplicated all around the region over time. In Maynard, textile mills gave way to Digital Equipment Corp., which in turn, gave way to a new generation of smaller technology businesses.

But farther from Boston, especially in older industrial cities such as Fitchburg, Fall River, and Springfield, finding the next act has proved far more difficult. Pittsfield, 2 1/2 hours from Boston, falls into that same category.

"It's sad what happened here," said Daniel Walsh, as he drove a visitor around what remains of the GE facility. Walsh is no stranger to manufacturing decline. Walsh is the business agent for Local 255 of the International Union of Electrical Workers. Twenty years ago the local had 6,500 members. Today it has 70 members, and some of them just do maintenance work in the abandoned GE buildings. "Their job is to keep the pigeons out until the buildings get knocked down," Walsh said.

Walsh points to buildings where large transformers were assembled, others where small transformers were made and still others where tanks and other military gear were constructed. Beginning in the 1980s GE either got out of those businesses, shipped the work to cheaper locations, or sold off the divisions. General Dynamics still runs a defense plant in one corner of the site with about 1,000 employees. The scale of some of the structures -- Building 42/43 stands five stories tall and 585 feet long -- hints at how big the manufacturing operation once was.

Pittsfield has tried, with some success, to replace the lost factory jobs. Berkshire Medical Center is a big employer. So is Berkshire Life, an insurer. The tourist economy is healthy and the city's relatively low-cost housing has made Pittsfield a popular destination for retirees. "But we really haven't recovered from the loss of manufacturing," said state Representative Peter J. Larkin, a Democrat who represents the area in the Legislature.

Statistics back Larkin. According to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, Western Massachusetts' work force grew by 12 percent and its total wages climbed 34 percent between 1980 and 2000. The numbers don't sound too bad until you put them up against to the comparable figures for Greater Boston where the job total rose 34 percent and wages grew 109 percent. Both places lost a big chunk of their factory jobs. Greater Boston had more success finding replacements.

For the people in Pittsfield, the adjustment process hasn't been easy. Some of the people who lost manufacturing jobs retired; others left the area. The population in the Berkshire region fell between 1990 and 2000, with the biggest drop coming in people aged 19 to 44, the prime working age. Some former factory workers went back to school and got retrained. A variety of studies on displaced manufacturing workers all come to the same conclusion: Younger people with some college education fare better than older workers with only a high school degree.

"My daughter told me recently: `Daddy, you are a dinosaur: You're a white male over 50 and you are a blue-collar man,' " said Bob Gilbert, 56. Gilbert can chuckle about his daughter's comment, but his life since he lost his job at General Dynamics three years ago has been anything but funny. At General Dynamics, Gilbert earned almost $18 an hour, with a good medical plan and pension. Over the next three years some of the jobs he found paid as little as $7.89 an hour with no benefits. Among other things, he worked as a guide at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge and prepared food for Friendly's.

Gilbert's luck turned recently. General Dynamics had some job openings, and under union rules Gilbert and a small group of his colleagues were at the top of the list to take them. When the story appeared in the local newspaper, the union office was deluged with phone calls from other former workers hoping there was room for them too.

Harvey Drosehn did not get a call back. Drosehn, 54, was in the unemployment office in Pittsfield not long ago. Drosehn put in 29 years at GE and some of its successors. He was laid off in the late 1990s. He has tried to keep working in manufacturing, which is a bit like trying to stay afloat on a sinking ship. His first job ended when his employer -- a maker of machinery for the paper industry -- closed its Pittsfield factory. His next job ended when the machine shop that employed him ran out of work. He was supposed to start a new job this month at a plastics company. The job paid only $9.50 an hour, about half what he made originally. Less than a week before the new job was supposed to start the company called up and told Drosehn not to show up. There was no work for him to do. In the meantime Drosehn is keeping up payments on his old health insurance policy for which he has to pay $902 a month out of his pocket.

"I've been kicked in the teeth quite a few times," he said.

Charles Stein can be reached at stein@globe.com.