This book assesses the varying ways in which automobile assemblers in several countries of East and Southeast Asia, Europe and the Americas have sought to enhance their efficiency and flexibility in response to heightened global competition during the 1980s and early 1990s. It then explores the implications of such managerial strategies for workers and trade unions, and the responses of unions in seeking to preserve or enhance worker welfare and voice under industrial restructuring.

List of Tables - Introduction: Competition, Power and Industrial Flexibility: Social Reconstructions of the World Automobile Industry; F.C.Deyo - PART 1: ORIGINS AND DIFFUSION OF FLEXIBLE PRODUCTION - The Transformation of Industrial Relations in Postwar Japan; S.Levine - Japanese Automotive Transplants and the Transfer of the Japanese Production System; R.Florida & M.Kenney - PART 2: DISPERSION TO THE PERIPHERY - Industrial Relations in the Korean Auto Industry: The Implications of Industrial Sector Requirements and Societal Effects for International Competitiveness; R.Rodgers - Competition, Flexibility and Industrial Ascent: The Thai Auto Industry; F.C.Deyo - PART 3: LABOR'S RESPONSE - Change, But in What Direction?: Divergent Union Responses to Work Restructuring in the Integrated North American Auto Industry; P.Kumar & J.Holmes - The Politics of Industrial Restructuring: Transnational Firms' Search for Flexible Production in the Mexican Automobile Industry; K.Middlebrook - A Diversity of New Work Organization: Human-Centred, Lean and In-Between; L.Turner & P.Auer - PART 4: POLICY ALTERNATIVES AND SOCIAL OUTCOMES - Regulatory Frameworks and Development in the North American Auto Industry; S.Herzenberg - Conclusion: Competition, Politics and the Social Construction of Flexible Production Systems; F.C.Deyo - Index