This paper explores the implications of teamwork for trade unions, especially the assumption that new management strategies supporting teamwork may lead to the marginalisation of union organisation and influence. The fieldwork involves a cross-national comparison of Fiat in Italy and Rover in the British Midlands. The argument is advanced that institutional and socio-political factors rooted in the national system of industrial relations shape unions' responses to the general management derive of changing the organisation of work in the car industry.
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