This paper identifies the ways in which the ideas of Fordism and Taylorism have been responsible for the success of the U.S. motor vehicle companies until 1955, and for their subsequent decline. On three occasions, the motor vehicle industry has changed the fundamental ideas on the process of...

The success of the US motor vehicle companies up to 1955 and their subsequent decline is directly related to the management-labor negotiations in the 1930s and the acceptance by both management and the mass union movement of the inherent nature of work in an assembly-line factory. Because the...