Place, space, pace, and power: The struggle for control of the automobile factory shop floor, 1896--2006.

摘要

This dissertation examines how management in the automobile industry maintains its hegemonic position through the control of the place, space, and pace of the work and workers that it manages. In particular, this work focuses upon the struggle for control at the Lordstown (Ohio) Complex, which began operation in 1966. Lordstown for much of its early history was the scene of constant labor strife, as workers battled management over the pace of work and job standards. More recently, however, workers at the complex have accepted changes in their working conditions with very little protest.;This study briefly traces the trajectory of automobile work in order to understand the changes that such work underwent during the twentieth century. This work also examines the effects that race, gender, and culture---particularly the effect of the counterculture---had upon the perceptions of the changes in work standards in automobile factories, as well as shifting economic conditions during the 1970s and 1980s and its role in shifting worker attitudes.;This study concludes that the changing economic conditions during the last quarter of the twentieth century had the greatest impact on workers' abilities to resist corporate power during that time period. As economic circumstances became less secure, and the UAW became more concerned with keeping the domestic automobile producers solvent, workers proved to become more pliant because their means of resistance became less secure, as well.