US LABOR-RELATIONS IN TRANSITION - EMERGING STRATEGIES AND COMPANY PERFORMANCE

This report examines strategic labour relations and operational change s pursued by large, highly unionized, US manufacturing companies over the 1975-86 period. Four fairly distinguishable strategies are identif ied as implemented across a sample of 105 companies. These strategies are characterized by various combinations of activities associated wit h union avoidance, deunionization and co-operation. In addition to des cribing these strategies, we examine changes in company performance as sociated with these strategies for a subsample of 56 companies. It is found that, on the one hand, improvements in company performance are a ssociated with extensive cooperative efforts across unionized faciliti es, but, on the other hand, they are also associated with the opening of non-union facilities and the simultaneous closing of unionized faci lities. In contrast, the closing of unionized facilities (but not non- union facilities) and the decertification of unions are negatively ass ociated with company performance.