Militancy Market Dynamics And Workplace Authority

This book is an account of the political economy of labor relations in the U.S. automobile industry from the end of World War II to the 1970s. Zetka develops a sophisticated paradigm of hegemonic and competitive market conditions that challenges dominant theories of postwar industrial relations, linking rates of workplace militancy to product market fluctuations, variations in work organization, and differences in authority systems legitimated on the shop floor. He then uses this model to interpret in historical detail the complex market and workplace relationships that unfolded in the industry. Zetka traces the postwar struggles between management and militant auto workers over the definition of a fair day's work. He argues that management's selective use of a quota-based authority system for occupational groups that had been the most militant during the 1940s and 1950s was primarily responsible for the decline of wildcat strike activity in the auto industry, and that this system was made possible by the emergence in the 1960s of a distinctive market structure that regulated competition between the surviving auto firms.

"Kevin Boyle has done a masterful job of identifying the unique contribution of the UAW, not only to American Liberalism, but also to the nation and to all people. As contemporary labor and society at large search for new directions, this book should be required reading."—Victor G. Reuther

Laboring for Freedom examines the concept of freedom in the context of American labor history. Nine chronological chapters develop themes which show that liberty of contract and inalienable rights form two contradictory traditions concerning freedom: one tradition insists that liberty involves the expression of individual will with regard to one's property (i.e. one's labor); the second tradition holds that there are fundamental rights of man that must neither be taken away by the state nor surrendered by the individual. The tensions between these two concepts are traced in the book. Topics covered include republican independence, corporate paternalism, the compromises of collective bargaining, and human rights in a global economy. The book argues that ultimately freedom is best analyzed as a changing set of constraints, rather than an attainable ideal.

Conventional wisdom argues that welfare state builders in the US and Sweden in the 1930s took their cues from labor and labor movements. Swenson makes the startling argument that pragmatic social reformers looked for support not only from below but also from above, taking into account capitalist interests and preferences. Juxtaposing two widely recognized extremes of welfare, the US and Sweden, Swenson shows that employer interests played a role in welfare state development in both countries.

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.

Thoroughly updated, this essential reference source introduces scholars to the study of organized labor on the international as well as national level. Contains 400 entries describing the labor movements in countries around the world, and the important people, organizations, ideas, and political parties involved in organized labor. Includes a summary list of past and present international labor leaders, lists of global union federations and the affiliated organizations of major national labor federations, and analytical lists of the membership of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.

An anthology of original essays on the history of work experience in automobile factories, from 1913 to the present.

During the 1980s the news media were filled with reports of soaring unemployment as 'downsizing' and `restructuring' became the new buzzwords. Firms managed their workforce reduction by increasing the attractiveness of their pension plans-especially their early-retirement plans. In this volume, the authors examine the U.S. auto industry and present a full-scale analysis of the work and retirement decisions of its workers. They address organizational context and the logic of financial incentives in employer-provided early retirement plans. The impact of pension provisions, layoffs, plant closures, attitudes about `generational equity', and other factors influencing the workers' evaluation of the optimum time to end their careers in the auto industry are explored.

In Inside China's Automobile Factories, Lu Zhang explores the current conditions, subjectivity, and collective actions of autoworkers in the world's largest and fastest-growing automobile manufacturing nation. Based on years of fieldwork and extensive interviews conducted at seven large auto factories in various regions of China, Zhang provides an inside look at the daily factory life of autoworkers and a deeper understanding of the roots of rising labor unrest in the auto industry. Combining original empirical data and sophisticated analysis that moves from the shop floor to national political economy and global industry dynamics, the book develops a multilayered framework for understanding how labor relations in the auto industry and broader social economy can be expected to develop in China in the coming decades.