Work and Employment Relations in the Automobile Industry

Work and Employment Relations in the Automobile Industry PDF Author: Elsie Charron
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781403904980
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines the form and character of the internationalization of employee relations in the automobile industry. It goes onto examine the impact of the new forms of regionalization and their impact on employment relations within firms. Case studies are used to examine the transformation of employment standards, including General Motors, Toyota, Renault, FIAT and Peugeot. The book also assesses the significance of the emergence of regional integration processes in the form of regional economic spaces (EC, Nafta, Mercusor and ASEAN).

Work and Employment Relations in the Automobile Industry

Work and Employment Relations in the Automobile Industry PDF Author: Elsie Charron
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781403904980
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines the form and character of the internationalization of employee relations in the automobile industry. It goes onto examine the impact of the new forms of regionalization and their impact on employment relations within firms. Case studies are used to examine the transformation of employment standards, including General Motors, Toyota, Renault, FIAT and Peugeot. The book also assesses the significance of the emergence of regional integration processes in the form of regional economic spaces (EC, Nafta, Mercusor and ASEAN).

Globalization and Employment Relations in the Auto Assembly Industry

Globalization and Employment Relations in the Auto Assembly Industry PDF Author: Roger Blanpain
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
ISBN: 9041130527
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Get Book Here

Book Description
This important study—based on a three-year empirical research project in seven countries—focuses on employment relations in the auto assembly industry and shows that the influence of globalisation is tempered to varying degrees by institutional employment patterns at the local level. Twenty-one scholars and researchers representing all seven countries analyse the data, clearly describe the differences across both countries and firms, and offer conclusions and recommendations that greatly facilitate our understanding of the globalisation process at the level of human resources in industrial production. For each of the seven countries—two liberal market economies (the United States and Australia), two coordinated market economies (Germany and Sweden), and three Asian market economies (Japan, South Korea, and China)—the book describes five key issues in detail: work organisation; skill formation; remuneration systems; staffing arrangements and employment security; and enterprise governance and employee–management relations. The authors offer in-depth comparative analysis of these central issues in the context of such overriding factors as corporate strategy, local institutional constraints and advantages, competitive pressures among automakers to capture emerging markets, power relations within firms, and the role that agency and interests play in shaping social action.

After Lean Production

After Lean Production PDF Author: Thomas A. Kochan
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 150173167X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Get Book Here

Book Description
Nearly every country that produces cars views the automobile industry as strategically important because of its direct economic significance and because it serves as a bellwether for innovation in employment conditions. In this book, industrial relations experts from eleven countries consider the state of the industry worldwide. They are particularly interested in assessing whether the loudly heralded model of lean production initiated by Toyota has become pervasive.The contributors focus on employment practices: the way work is organized, how workers and managers interact, the way worker representatives respond to lean production strategies, and the nature of the adaptation and innovation process itself.

Wrecked

Wrecked PDF Author: Joshua Murray
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 0871548208
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book Here

Book Description
At its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, automobile manufacturing was the largest, most profitable industry in the United States and residents of industry hubs like Detroit and Flint, Michigan had some of the highest incomes in the country. Over the last half-century, the industry has declined, and American automakers now struggle to stay profitable. How did the most prosperous industry in the richest country in the world crash and burn? In Wrecked, sociologists Joshua Murray and Michael Schwartz offer an unprecedented historical-sociological analysis of the downfall of the auto industry. Through an in-depth examination of labor relations and the production processes of automakers in the U.S. and Japan both before and after World War II, they demonstrate that the decline of the American manufacturers was the unintended consequence of their attempts to weaken the bargaining power of their unions. Today Japanese and many European automakers produce higher quality cars at lower cost than their American counterparts thanks to a flexible form of production characterized by long-term sole suppliers, assembly and supply plants located near each other, and just-in-time delivery of raw materials. While this style of production was, in fact, pioneered in the U.S. prior to World War II, in the years after the war, American automakers deliberately dismantled this system. As Murray and Schwartz show, flexible production accelerated innovation but also facilitated workers’ efforts to unionize plants and carry out work stoppages. To reduce the efficacy of strikes and combat the labor militancy that flourished between the Depression and the postwar period, the industry dispersed production across the nation, began maintaining large stockpiles of inventory, and eliminated single sourcing. While this restructuring of production did ultimately reduce workers’ leverage, it also decreased production efficiency and innovation. The U.S. auto industry has struggled ever since to compete with foreign automakers, and formerly thriving motor cities have suffered the consequences of mass deindustrialization. Murray and Schwartz argue that new business models that reinstate flexible production and prioritize innovation rather than cheap labor could stem the outsourcing of jobs and help revive the auto industry. By clarifying the historical relationships between production processes, organized labor, and industrial innovation, Wrecked provides new insights into the inner workings and decline of the U.S. auto industry.

Flexibility at Work

Flexibility at Work PDF Author: V. Pulignano
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230581935
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 204

Get Book Here

Book Description
An examination of the form and character of recent transformations in the international automobile industry. Using comparative and national-based case study analysis, it explores the nature of such recent developments (outsourcing, modularization, high performance workplaces, etc.) and their impact on issues in the sector on a world scale.

Reshaping the North American Automobile Industry

Reshaping the North American Automobile Industry PDF Author: John P. Tuman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136547517
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Get Book Here

Book Description
This work examines the responses of unions and workers to regional integration and restructuring in the automobile industry in North and Central America. The focus is on the automobile industry in Mexico, which, because of its size and importance, is viewed as a strategic sector of the Mexican economy and was the focal point of talks between the US, Canada and Mexico during negotiations on NAFTA. Focusing on the period from 1980, John P. Tuman examines the changes implemented by firms to promote export production, he explores reasons for the variation in labour responses to restructuring, and he discusses the prospects for cross-border organizing and co-operation among automobile workers in Canada, the US and Mexico.

Labour Relations in the Motor Industry

Labour Relations in the Motor Industry PDF Author: H. A. Turner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351669419
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book, originally published in 1967, takes the automobile industry experience as a basis for a wider view of industrial relations, trends and developments of the 1950s and 60s. The study also analyses the emergence of new institutions and systems of labour-management relationships. It contains chapters on the effects of automotion and technical change, on the impact of fluctuations in the market for cars and on wage trends. There are detailed surveys of some of the biggest post-war disputes and especially of trade union organization, the shop steward system, the experience of individual firms, such as Austin, Ford and Fiat. There is also a comparative survey of labour relationships in other major car manufacturing countries such as the USA, Germany and Japan.

Shifting Gears

Shifting Gears PDF Author: Harry Charles Katz
Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
ISBN: 9780262110983
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Get Book Here

Book Description
This penetrating study of labor-management relations at General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler investigates whether recent pay and work rule concessions and cooperative programs adopted in the auto industry are a temporary response to economic problems or a new pattern of behavior. It combines historical, case, and statistical analysis, to look at past and contemporary events, and to indicate the likely future course of auto bargaining. Harry C. Katz is Associate Professor of Industrial Relations, Sloan School of Management, MIT.

Labor's Power and Industrial Performance

Labor's Power and Industrial Performance PDF Author: Stavros Gavroglou
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780815332442
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Get Book Here

Book Description
Constructs an analytical framework of production politics within which to address such phenomena as the erosion of wages and lost of good jobs in the US in the 1980s, the emulation by US companies of production methods from elsewhere, and differences and similarities between Japanese and German industrial relations. Narrowing the study to the automobile industry, argues that variations in labor's fortunes and competitive success can be explained by distinct patterns of labor inclusion in corporate decision making. Distributed in the US by Taylor and Francis. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Work Organizational Reforms and Employment Relations in the Automotive Industry

Work Organizational Reforms and Employment Relations in the Automotive Industry PDF Author: Kenichi Shinohara
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000635295
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 85

Get Book Here

Book Description
General Motors (GM)'s attempt to adapt the renowned Toyota production system for its own automotive manufacturing plants had historically produced disappointing results. Why was it not sufficiently successful? This book aims to shed insights into GM's failed attempt through the analysis of work organization reforms and labor-management relations on production-system efficiency. The book examines collective bargaining agreements between automakers and the United Auto Workers union and the arbitration rulings in retrospect to illuminate the critical role continuous improvement activities initiated by production workers would play in enhancing performance management. It also looks at the impact of the meritocratic system in Japanese auto plants on performance success. As GM begins operations at its new electric vehicle assembly plant, Factory Zero, the book analyses the challenges of such production for both employment relations and workforce deployment. The book will be a useful reference for those interested in a comparative study of management styles and a better understanding of Japanese manufacturing practices.