Industrial Relations and Productivity in the U.S. Automobile Industry; Comments and Discussion

Performance data in individual automobile plants are used to determine whether work practices make a difference to productivity and product quality. Data were obtained from 53 plants of one of the major US auto companies for the years 1979 and 1986. The plants are located in the US and Canada, and all are covered by collective bargaining agreements between the firm and the workers' unions. The results indicate that, in cases of less relief and idle time and more managerial discretion in the allocation of overtime, layoffs, and job transfers, labor hours and the number of supervisors per production workers are significantly decreased and product quality improved. However, greater use of team systems in one plant has led to substantially higher labor hours and more supervisors. There is no evidence that plants with fewer production-worker job classifications performed better. In a comment, Lazear and Eads express concern over the characterization by Katz, Kochan, and Keefe of the relationship between labor and management as adversarial.