IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v18y2004i4p687-708.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Manufacturing concessions: attritionary outsourcing at General Motor’s Lordstown, USA assembly plant

Author

Listed:
  • Jeffrey J. Sallaz

    (University of California at Berkeley, USAjsallaz@socrates.berkeley.edu)

Abstract

Workers at the General Motors (GM) auto assembly factory in Lordstown, Ohio, USA, fabled in the industrial sociology literature because of their militancy during a 1972 labor dispute, have over the past decade approved a succession of contracts whittling down the labor force from 12,000 to around 3000 today. These reductions were accomplished by ‘attritionary outsourcing’. To explain why labor has accepted such job loss, this interview project with Lordstown workers extends accepted accounts of deindustrialization by considering the political, material and ideological conditions underlying concessionary bargaining. As the tactic known as ‘whipsawing’ became less credible and consequential, GM turned to tactics that actively secure worker consent to job loss. Here one can see the replacement of Burawoy’s hegemonic despotism by a despotic hegemony.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeffrey J. Sallaz, 2004. "Manufacturing concessions: attritionary outsourcing at General Motor’s Lordstown, USA assembly plant," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 18(4), pages 687-708, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:18:y:2004:i:4:p:687-708
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017004047961
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017004047961
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017004047961?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Helper, Susan, 1991. "Strategy and Irreversibility in Supplier Relations: The Case of the U.S. Automobile Industry," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(4), pages 781-824, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christina Purcell & Paul Brook & Rosemary Lucas, 2011. "Between Keeping Your Head Down and Trying to Get Noticed: Agency Workers in French Car Assembly Plants," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 22(2), pages 169-187.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ghoddusi, Hamed, 2019. "Risk Management in Commodity Processing Firms," Foundations and Trends(R) in Technology, Information and Operations Management, now publishers, vol. 12(2-3), pages 219-239, March.
    2. Susan Helper & Mari Sako, 2010. "Management innovation in supply chain: appreciating Chandler in the twenty-first century," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 19(2), pages 399-429, April.
    3. repec:dgr:rugsom:97b05 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Gábor Péli & Bart Nooteboom, 1997. "Simulation of Learning in Supply Partnerships," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 43-66, March.
    5. Kouvelis, Panos & Wu, Xiaole & Xiao, Yixuan, 2019. "A Framework of Hedging Decisions for Supply Chain Partnersts," Foundations and Trends(R) in Technology, Information and Operations Management, now publishers, vol. 12(2-3), pages 189-200, March.
    6. repec:dgr:rugsom:95b39 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Chou, Mabel C. & Teo, Chung-Piaw & Zhong, Yuan-Guang, 2019. "Material and Cash Flow in Two-Tier Supply Chain with Trade Credits and Defaults," Foundations and Trends(R) in Technology, Information and Operations Management, now publishers, vol. 12(2-3), pages 119-134, March.
    8. Elhanan Helpman, 2006. "Trade, FDI, and the Organization of Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(3), pages 589-630, September.
    9. Mariagiovanna Baccara, 2007. "Outsourcing, information leakage, and consulting firms," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(1), pages 269-289, March.
    10. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1999. "Incomplete Contracts and Industrial Organization," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1876, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    11. Susan Helper & Rebecca Henderson, 2014. "Management Practices, Relational Contracts, and the Decline of General Motors," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(1), pages 49-72, Winter.
    12. Mark ANNER, 2019. "Predatory purchasing practices in global apparel supply chains and the employment relations squeeze in the Indian garment export industry," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 158(4), pages 705-727, December.
    13. Alessandro Lomi & Philippa Pattison, 2006. "Manufacturing Relations: An Empirical Study of the Organization of Production Across Multiple Networks," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(3), pages 313-332, June.
    14. Karine Fabre & Gwenaëlle Nogatchewsky & Anne Pezet, 2010. "Contribution à une histoire de l’externalisation:le cas Renault (1945-1975)," Revue Finance Contrôle Stratégie, revues.org, vol. 13(2), pages 145-188., June.
    15. Mark Lorenzen & Ram Mudambi & Andreas Schotter, 0. "International connectedness and local disconnectedness: MNE strategy, city-regions and disruption," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 0, pages 1-24.
    16. Nooteboom, Bart, 1996. "Towards a cognitive theory of the firm : issues and a logic of change," Research Report 97B05, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    17. Susan Helper, 1995. "Supplier Relations and Adoption of New Technology: Results of Survey Research in the U.S. Auto Industry," NBER Working Papers 5278, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Swaminathan, Anand & Hoetker, Glenn & Mitchell, Will, 2002. "Network Structure and Business Survival: The Case of U.S. Automobile Component Suppliers," Working Papers 02-0105, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    19. Gabi Dei Ottati, 2000. "Exit, Voice, And Loyalty In The Industrial District: The Case Of Prato," Working Papers wp175, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    20. Sergio G. Lazzarini & Gary J. Miller & Todd R. Zenger, 2008. "Dealing with the Paradox of Embeddedness: The Role of Contracts and Trust in Facilitating Movement Out of Committed Relationships," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(5), pages 709-728, October.
    21. Lucker, Florian & Chopra, Sunil & Seifert, Ralf W., 2019. "Disruption Risk Management in Serial Multi-Echelon Supply Chains," Foundations and Trends(R) in Technology, Information and Operations Management, now publishers, vol. 12(2-3), pages 398-315, March.
    22. Havas, Attila, 2006. "Private Sector R&D in the New Member States: Hungary," MPRA Paper 55786, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:18:y:2004:i:4:p:687-708. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.