Choice Review

The North American auto industry experienced rapid change on many fronts in the 1980s. During this decade Japanese companies constructed six assembly plants in the US and Canada, the "big three" North American automakers entered into joint ventures with Japanese companies to manufacture vehicles, and General Motors attempted to respond to Japanese competition by building a "revolutionary" new auto-making facility. Each of these ventures employed new lean production techniques and cooperative labor-management relationships. Both approaches differed substantially from the traditional Fordist mass production approach and the adversarial system of labor-management relations that had grown up with it. The essays in this collection critically analyze the impact of these changes on workers, unions, union-management relations, and public policy. Particular attention is paid to the differing responses of the US and Canadian autoworkers unions to these developments. The essays are thoughtful, well reasoned, and bring a much needed critical voice to the debate over the short- and long-term implications of the ongoing changes in the North American auto industry. A valuable addition to academic libraries serving upper-division undergraduates and up. P. F. Clark Pennsylvania State University, University Park Campus