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Innovation in Isolation: Labor-Management Partnerships in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Kirsten S. Wever ,
Rosemary Batt  and
Saul Rubinstein
Kirsten S. Wever
Affiliation:
Radcliffe Public Policy Institute
Rosemary Batt
Affiliation:
Cornell University
Saul Rubinstein
Affiliation:
Rutgers University
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Abstract

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In the United States, as in other advanced industrial countries, worker participation in management has taken on increasing importance, placing pressures on employers and unions to change how they deal with employees/members, and with each other. This paper examines two of the most impressive cases in the U.S.: the partnerships between General Motors (G.M.) and the United Autoworkers union (U.A.W.) at Saturn and between BellSouth and the Communication Workers union (C.W.A.). We outline the evolution and the basic features of these innovations, as well as highlighting certain ongoing problems. These problems, we argue, confront the parties to employment relations in the U.S. more generally, reflecting profound ambivalence about such experiments, and their continued isolation as ‘islands of excellence’. As such, these cases both illustrate the vast potential for labor-management partnerships as well as the dampening effect of the employment relations context in the U.S.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , June 1996 , pp. 67 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1996

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