Labor Relations Commons^™

Paths To Global Social Regulation – What Can Americans Learn From The European Union, Lance A. Compa, Lowell Turner

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] For American proponents of global justice, social Europe appears distant yet inspirational, with all its weaknesses still a "vanguard" model for the social regulation of the global economy. We believe that a great deal can be learned by other countries, regions and the global economy as a whole from the ongoing experience of European economic and social integration. We also believe, however, that American experiences with NAFTA as well as with contemporary labor movement revitalization and coalition building offer positive lessons for Europeans and other actors in the global North and South.

As much as we admire the European …

Social Partnership: An Organizing Concept For Industrial Relations Reform, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

[Excerpt] In this era of globalization and intensified world market competition, once stable relationships involving firms, unions and government have come under pressure everywhere. Here in the United States, a crisis of economic competitiveness, industrial relations instability, and union decline has generated a new openness to reform efforts, including a widespread willingness to learn from the successful practices of both domestic innovators and foreign competitors. Employers, for example, have increasingly moved to adopt "lean" and high-quality-oriented forms of organization as well as new participatory programs for employees. Unions have shown increasing interest in getting involved and providing input into the …

The Politics Of Work Reorganization: Pervasive Union Decline?, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

[Excerpt] These are hard times for unions. There is currently a broad cross-national trend toward the decentralization of bargaining in industrial relations, which challenges established bases of union influence everywhere. The combined effects of intensified world market competition, new microelectronic technologies, managerial strategies to reorganize production, and the success and influence of Japanese production models are exerting great pressure on systems of industrial relations in Western Europe and North America; in many societies, unions are among the major losers in political realignments and industrial adjustment. Alongside wide-ranging discussions of competitiveness and the causes and consequences of trade and other economic …

Conclusion: Markets, Strategies, And Institutions In Comparative Perspective, Kirsten S. Wever, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

[Excerpt If this had been another collection of country case studies, it would now be possible to map out the similarities and differences across the cases covered, possibly in a figure describing various IR-related issues by country. However, since this is a collection of different kinds of analyses with a variety of different focuses, the job of concluding this volume is not so simple. Nevertheless, in the very variety offered by the chapters in this volume, several themes emerge, most of which are at least implicitly, if not explicitly, clarified in the five substantive chapters. The chapters point up the …

Three Plants, Three Futures, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

To spread teamwork and cooperation, managers need to reform themselves—especially their attitudes about workers. At NUMMI, management has provided a system of work and rewards that has earned the loyalty of most employees and local union leaders.

Social Partnership In Germany: Lessons For U.S. Labor And Management, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

German industrial relations in the postwar period have made a major contribution to German industrial success. The German system is rooted in the explicit recognition of well organized interests: strong, assertive employers and employers' associations not afraid to demand what they think is right, including wage restraint as well as reorganization of production toward "lean production"; and strong, assertive unions not afraid to demand what they think is right, including broad skills training, high wages, a shorter workweek, and a "human-centered" work organization. Amazingly, these strong forces end up with negotiated outcomes in a system that is accurately called "social …

Introduction: A Wide-Angle Lens For A Global Marketplace, Kirsten S. Wever, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

[Excerpt] We hope in this volume to accomplish three things. First, we hope to meet the wide and growing demand in the IR community for a better understanding of industrial relations developments abroad. That is, we would like to help lift comparative IR out of its secondary status to a more prominent position within the field as well as reaffirm its centrality to other fields, such as comparative political economy and political sociology. Secondly, we aim to shed light on the specific comparison between other advanced industrial economies and industrializing countries, on the one hand, and the U.S., on the …

The Transformation Of Industrial Relations In Eastern Germany, Ulrich Jürgens, Larissa Klinzing, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

Citing case studies based on interviews they conducted in 1991 and 1992 with labor representatives and managers at six eastern German manufacturing firms, the authors argue that the future could hold either vigor and growth or stagnation and permanent second-class status for the economy and labor movement in eastern Germany, depending largely on actor strategy and choice. The rapid spread of privatization and open markets is tending to undermine unions' influence, on the one hand; but on the other hand, institutional transfer from former West Germany (especially of codetermination law and centralized, regional-level collective bargaining) is giving unions and works …

A Diversity Of New Work Organization: Human-Centered, Lean, And In-Between, Lowell Turner, Peter Auer

Lowell Turner

Lean production, from Toyota, is said to be paradigmatic for future production organization in the auto industry. This article challenges that view. Case studies at auto plants in the U.S., Germany, and Sweden show a wide diversity of developing new work organization. Not only are there differences across countries, there are also substantial and persistent variations across firms and even individual plants. No single model of production is yet emerging from this diversity. Although there are common elements such as team and group work, just-in-time delivery, and "total quality management", the actual shape of new work organization depends on a …

Rank-And-File Participation In Organizing At Home And Abroad, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

[Excerpt] We know that we need labor law reform. But it is also clear that this is not all we need; nor can we expect to achieve legal reform simply by electing Democrats. That strategy did not work in 1978-79 or in 1993-94, and it will not work in the future. In the face of inevitably powerful and well-organized business opposition, even the most well-financed and articulate lobbying campaign for labor law reform can fail. What was missing in 1978-79 and in 1993-94 and is urgently needed now is the pressure of a massive social movement, mobilized to transform and …

[Review Of The Book Perspectives On American Labor History: The Problems Of Synthesis], Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] Over the past two decades many claims have been made for what was once called the "new" labor history. Deeply influenced by European scholarship (especially by the British historian, E. P. Thompson) and by writings in cultural anthropology and sociology, this new history seemed to sweep all before it. In a tumble of discrete community studies and precise examinations of individual strikes lay the foundation of the new history's critique of the work of John K Commons and his associates, who had stressed an institutional analysis of labor's growth and development within a liberal, democratic capitalist society. In studying …

[Review Of The Book Unions And Workplace Change In Canada], Alexander Colvin

Alexander Colvin

[Excerpt] Some leading unions in Canada are notable for the diversity of their responses to workplace change. These unions' policies and strategies, which range from the Steelworkers' (USWA) bold experiment in employee ownership and co-determination at Algoma Steel to the Autoworkers' (CAW) activist response to the pressures of the Japanese production and management systems at the CAMI auto plant, have produced significant variation in change processes and outcomes. This range of activity by Canadian unions in response to workplace change provides a fertile area for study by industrial relations researchers, as well as important challenges for policy makers and practitioners …