Overview

The last two decades of the twentieth century were a tumultuous time of innovation for business and labor. Perhaps the boldest and most far-reaching experiment in industry was the creation of the Saturn Corporation. Working together as partners, the UAW and General Motors built a new small car in Spring Hill, Tennessee, with American suppliers and American workers. Saturn's locally designed manufacturing system featured self-directed teams and the integration of union representatives into management's strategic and operational decision-making processes. Saul A. Rubinstein and Thomas A. Kochan have followed the Saturn story since its beginning in 1983. Through surveys as well as hundreds of interviews with company managers, union representatives, and employees, and with leaders of GM and the UAW, they trace the history of, and the lessons to be learned from, this ""Different Kind of Company."" The Saturn experiment embodied a new concept of labor-management relations, management, and organizational governance. Has it been a success or a failure? Is it relevant in the current industrial environment? What effect has it had on GM and the UAW? The authors resist overly simplistic conclusions; Saturn's strengths and limitations must be fairly assessed before the company's experience can provide lessons on the future of unions, labor-management relations, work organization, and corporate governance.

Full Product Details

9780801438738

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Reviews

Learning From Saturn is a very nice and concise account of the Saturn process. . . . Labor relations policymakers, both in the private and public sectors, should read this book. Henry P. Guzda, Monthly Labor Review, August 2002

Saturn has pushed the envelope-creating extraordinarily high-quality cars through extraordinarily high levels of worker involvement. This book shows how this different kind of organization really functions and in the process raises urgent, deep questions about the future of US industry. Paul S. Adler, University of Southern California

Learning From Saturn is a very nice and concise account of the Saturn process. . . . Labor relations policymakers, both in the private and public sectors, should read this book. -Henry P. Guzda, Monthly Labor Review, August 2002

Author Information

Thomas A. Kochan is the George Maverick Bunker Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Co-Director of the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research. He is coauthor of Healing Together, Up in the Air, The Transformation of American Industrial Relations, and, with Thomas A. Kochan and Alexander J. S. Colvin,Labor Relations in a Globalizing World, all from Cornell, and author or editor of many other books.

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