Abstract
Chapter 4 documented the increasing mobility of the automobile industry, with the exception of Chrysler’s reduction during its financial troubles of the late 1970s. In this chapter, I examine in detail the bargains made for 19 investments in the United Kingdom, the US states of Illinois, Missouri and New York, and in Canada. I also analyse the use of capital mobility to threaten workers with disinvestment in order to secure concessions. As capital mobility rises, we find that the level of investment incentives given to the firms rises as well, and that the threat of closure was increasingly directed at workers.
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Notes
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics, (microfiche), 21 March 1984, p. 732; 28 March 1983, p. 679.
1980 Statistical Abstract of the United States. Moreover, unemployment in St Lawrence County, where the plant was located, was even higher (11.4 per cent in September 1976 and 9.4 per cent in October 1977). Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics (microfiche), 16 October 1981, p. 986; 15 October 1981, p. 1047.
Telephone interview with Larry Logan, Town Assessor, 22 October 1991.
State unemployment rate from 1990 Statistical Abstract of the United States; Westchester County data from Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics (microfiche), 23 May 1989, p. 1065.
Rubenstein (1988, p. 17); telephone interview with Bill Graper, Director of Regional Economic Development, New York State Department of Economic Development, 29 October 1991.
Telephone interview with Simon Reisman, chief Canadian negotiator of the Auto Pact and the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement, 10 September 1991.
Telephone interview with Stu Lowe, Public Relations, General Motors of Canada, 11 October 1991. This is an interesting contrast with Great Britain, where the Conservative government eventually tried to reduce incentives.
Salter and Tedesco (8 September 1986, p. 42); telephone interview with Frank Huyberts, Treasurer, CAMI Automotive, 15 October 1991.
Bureau of National Affairs, Basic Patterns in Union Contracts (Washington: Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., 1948–92). The information is culled from their looseleaf publication, Collective Bargaining Negotiations and Contracts.
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© 1997 Kenneth P. Thomas
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Thomas, K.P. (1997). Automotive Bargaining in the UK, the US, and Canada. In: Capital beyond Borders. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25472-9_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25472-9_5
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