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- Title
Industrial Relations & Industrial Adjustment in the Car Industry.
- Authors
Katz, Harry C.; Sabel, Charles F.
- Abstract
Changes in the conditions of international competition are forcing auto producers to increase the flexibility of production while reducing the costs. These adjustments entail changes in work tasks, job ladders, and employment security; together they require a redefinition of industrial relations practices. Although there is feverish and promising experimentation with new plant-level arrangements in all countries, certain kinds of local bargaining institutions systematically facilitate these changes, while others obstruct them. But even when local institutions encourage change, reorganization calls into question the role of national unions in collective bargaining. Where unions are resisting change, they may pay a ruinous share of their industries' defeat in international competition. Where they are cooperating, they may be the victims of the very successes they encourage. This paper examines the current reorganization of industry and its implications for plant-level industrial relations and the survival of national unions, as commonly understood. The argument is in four parts. The connection between changes in competitive conditions and changes in the organization of production is examined first, with a focus on the relation between new product strategies and new ways of combining technology and labor. Then, management's frequently halting and confused efforts to pursue these strategies is compared to labor's reactions at the local level in different countries. The cases chosen illustrate polar possibilities accommodative reaction on the one hand, obstructive on the other — and thus suggest at least a few of the general conditions for successful adaptation to the new international environment. The next section looks at the ways in which changes in all these systems undermine the current distribution of power in national trade unions and open the way for conflicts which could slow the pace of economic adjustment and shatter the unions. Finally, the general conditions for a regeneration of the labor movement are outlined.
- Subjects
UNITED States; AUTOMOBILE industry; INDUSTRIAL relations; LABOR unions; COMPETITION; COLLECTIVE bargaining; COLLECTIVE labor agreements; PRODUCTION engineering; BUSINESS negotiation
- Publication
Industrial Relations, 1985, Vol 24, Issue 3
- ISSN
0019-8676
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1468-232X.1985.tb01034.x