Abstract
A recent Wall Street Journal article reported the new UAW assembly line workers that Chrysler and Ford are currently hiring are far better-educated than their current work force. The UAW is opposed to this effort to hire better-educated workers. Ex-UAW president Fraser was quoted as saying “Let’s face it, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work on the assembly line (Templin, 1994).” During the last decade of the twentieth century there have been intense changes underway in the global political economy and these changes are profoundly impacting how we think about labor and labor relations. The proximate cause for this rethinking is the remarkable success of Japanese capitalism. Trying to understand the changes labor is experiencing is, in effect, to try to explain the changes in capitalism itself. As Say er and Walker (1992) aptly point out, there is a reworking and a new, more powerful integration of the global division of labor. This is reflected in and is an aspect of a far deeper and more profound globalization of the wage labor relationship. Importantly, though capitalism has always accumulated on a world scale, in the current period it is penetrating new regions with the intent of integrating the inhabitants into the global marketplace as producers. As importantly, like a virus, it is constantly mutating its surface coating (i.e., labor relations, interfirm relations, the role of managers etc.), while reproducing its essential genetic code. Thus, its tremendous flexibility.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Abo, T. (Ed.). (1994). Hybrid Factory: The Japanese Production System in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.
Adler, P. (1993). “Time-And-Motion Regained,” Harvard Business Review 71, (1): pp. 97–109.
Adler, P. and Cole, R. (1993). “Designed for Learning: A Tale of Two Auto Plants,” Sloan Management Review (Spring): pp. 85–94.
Aglietta, M. (1979). A Theory of Capitalist Regulation. London: New Left Books.
Aoki, M. (1988). Information, Incentives and Bargaining in the Japanese Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Aronowitz, S. (1973). False Promises. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Barff, R. and Austen, J. (1993). “‘It’s Gotta Be Da Shoes’: Domestic Manufacturing, International Subcontracting, and the Production of Athletic Footwear,” Environment and Planning A 25 (8): pp. 1103–14.
Berger, S. and Piore, M. (1980). Dualism and Discontinuity in Industrial Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bonazzi, G. (1994). “Between Post-Fordism and the Japanese Model: Cognitive Processes in European and American Sociology,” unpublished mimeo, Department of Social Sciences, University of Torino.
Boyer, R. (1990). The Regulation School: A Critical Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press.
Brown, C. and Reich, M. (1989). “When Does Union-Management Cooperation Work: A Look at NUMMI and GM-Van Nuys,” California Management Review 31, (4): pp. 26–44.
Cole, R. (1989). Strategies for Learning. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Coriat, B. (1991). Penser a l’Envers. Paris: Christian Bourgois.
Curry, J. (1993). “The Flexibility Fetish: a Review Essay on Flexible Specialization,” Capital and Class 51: pp. 49–76.
DeVroey, M. (1984). “A Regulation Approach Interpretation of the Contemporary Crisis,” Capital and Class 23: pp. 45–66.
Diaz. A. (1993). “Industrial Governance in Latin America.” Paper presented at the SSRC Workshop on Industiral Governance and Labor Flexibility in Comparative Perspective, September 17–19, New York, New York.
Dohse, K.; Jurgens, U.; and Malsch, T. (1986). “From Fordism to Toyotism? The Social Organization of the Labor Process in the Japanese Automobile Industry,” Politics and Society 14, (2): pp. 45–66
Donaghu, M. and Barff, R.A. (1990). “Nike Just Did It: International Subcontracting and Flexibility in Athletic Footware Production,” Regional Studies 24, (6): pp. 537–552.
Florida, R. and Kenney, M. (1992). “Restructuring in Place: Japanese Investment, Production Organization and the Restructuring of Steel,” Economic Geography 68, (2): pp. 146–73.
Fruin, W.M. (1992). The Japanese Enterprise System: Competitive Strategies and Cooperative Structures. Oxford: Clarendon Press and New York: Oxford University Press.
Gereffi, G. (1992). “New Realities of Industrial Development in East Asia and Latin America.” In R. Appelbaum and J. Henderson (Eds.), States and Development in the Asian Pacific Rim, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 85–111.
Gareffi, G. and Korzeniewicz, M. (Eds.). (1994). Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Gordon, A. (1985). The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan: Heavy Industry, 1853–1955. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Hamper, B. (1991). Rivethead. New York: Warner Books.
Harvey, D. (1985). The Urbanization of Capital. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Harvey, D. (1989). The Condition of Postmodernity. London: Basil Blackwell.
Hopkins, T. and Wallerstein, I. (1986). “Commodity Chains in the World Economy Prior to 1800,” Review 10, (1): pp. 157–70.
Kato, T. and Steven, R. (1993). Is Japanese Management Post-Fordism? London: Mado-sha.
Kenney, M. and Florida, R. (1988). “Beyond Mass Production: Production and the Labor Process in Japan,” Politics and Society 16, (1): pp. 121–58.
Kenney, M. and Florida, R. (1993). Beyond Mass Production: The Japanese System and Its Transfer to the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kenney, M. and Florida, R. (1994). “Japanese Maquiladoras: Production Organization and Global Commodity Chains,” World Development 22, (1): pp. 27–44.
Kenney, M.; Romero, J.; and Cho, D. (1994). “Japanese and Korean Investment in the Maquiladoras: What Role in Global Commodity Chains?” Paper prepared for the International Conference on The Maquiladoras in Mexico: Present and Future Prospects of Industrial Development held at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Mexico from May 16–18.
Koike, K. (1988). (Translated by M. Saso). Understanding Industrial Relations in Japan. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Krafcik, J. (1986). “Learning from NUMMI,” MIT International Motor Vehicle Program Internal Working Paper 15, September.
Kyotani, E. (1994). Seminar at Institute of Governmental Affairs, University of California, Davis, February 28.
Lipietz, A. (1987). Mirages and Miracles. London: Verso Books.
NUMMI. (1986). “New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. and the United Automobile Workers: Partners in Training,” Case Study for the ILO/Turin Center Seminar on Labor-Management Cooperation in Training and Retraining, May 21.
Parker, M. and Slaughter, J. (1988). “Management by Stress,” Technology Review (October): pp. 36–46.
Perez, C. and Freeman, C. (1985). “Microelectronics, Long Waves and World Structural Change,” World Development 13, (3): pp. 441–63.
Pine, B. (1993). Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Piore, M. and Sabel, C. (1984). The Second Industrial Divide. New York: Basic Books.
Reich, R. (1991). The Work of Nations. New York: Alfred Knopf, Inc.
Roobeek, A. (1987). “The Crisis of Fordism and the Rise of New Technological Paradigm,” Futures 19, (2) 129–54.
Sayer,A. (1986). “New Developments in Manufacturing: The Just-In-Time System,” Capital and Class 30: pp. 42–72.
Sayer,A. (1989). “Postfordism in Question,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 13, (4): pp. 666–95
Sayer, A. and Walker, R. (1992). The New Social Economy. London: Basil Blackwell.
Sklair, L. (1989). Assembling for Development. Boston: Unwin Hyman, Inc.
Templin, N. (1994). “Auto Plants, Hiring Again, Are Demanding Higher-skilled Labor,” Wall Street Journal (March 11): pp. Al, A8.
Upton, D. (1994). “The Management of Manufacturing Flexibility,” California Management Review 36, (2): pp. 72–89.
United Auto Workers. (1991). “Agreement Between New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. and the UAW,” July 1.
Womack, J.; Jones, D.; and Roos, D. (1990). The Machine that Changed the World. New York: Rawson and Associates.
Zuboff, S. (1988). In the Age of the Smart Machine: the Future of Work and Power. New York: Basic Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kenney, M., Curry, J. (1996). Labor and Capitalist Accumulation in the Late Twentieth Century: What and Who is Flexible?. In: Knudsen, D.C. (eds) The Transition to Flexibility. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-1425-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-1425-7_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-8619-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-1425-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive