Mass-Production Automation and Work-Group Solidarity in the Post-World War II Automobile Industry
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2363007 |
|---|---|
| Authors | James R Zetka (State University of New York at Albany, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1992 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 255-271 |
| Publication date | 1992-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Work and Occupations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0730-8884 • E-ISSN: 1552-8464 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0730888492019003003 |
| OpenAlex | W2039319982 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 17 |
Did mass-production automation trigger a decline in shop-floor militancy in the post-World War II period? Was it responsible for deskilling and atomizing once militant occupation groups? Drawing on a rich array of archival and interview evidence, this article addresses these questions by tracing the impact of automation on the most militant work groups in the American automobile industry. These were the work groups who performed stamping, body-building, and trim operations. The findings suggest that mass-production automation failed both to atomize and to deskill these militant occupational groups. An alternative explanation for post-World War II declines in shop-floor militancy is proposed in the conclusion
Automation · Automotive industry · Economics · Militant · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Solidarity · World War II · American History and Culture · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Engineering · Law · Mechanical Engineering
Occupational Divisions of Labor and Their Technology Politics
Automation and the Labour Process in the Australian Container Port Industry
Marxisms against the Current
Restructuring, Flexibility, and the Politics of Workplace Subjectivity
A Qualitative Protocol for Studying Technological Change in the Labor Process
Manufacturing Consent
The Automobile Industry since 1945
Labor and Monopoly Capital
Auto Work and its Discontents
Workers, Managers, and Technological Change
Work on the Waterfront
Auto Worker Militancy and the Structure of Factory Life, 1937-1955
Work Organization and Wildcat Strikes in the U.S. Automobile Industry, 1946 to 1963
Case Studies on the Labor Process
Automation in the Automobile Industry
Positional Power, Strikes and Wages
The Positional Power of American Labor, 1963-1977
Between the Labor Process and the State
Automation and the Automobile Worker
Technological Change and the Division of Labor
Automated Technologies, Institutional Environments, and Skilled Labor Processes
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,16 |
| Citation span | 1994 - 2026 (33) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |