Jump Start: Japan Comes to the Heartland - Softcover

Gelsanliter, David

9784770017130: Jump Start: Japan Comes to the Heartland

Softcover

ISBN 10: 4770017138 ISBN 13: 9784770017130

Publisher: Kodansha USA Inc, 1992

Rich in implications for American industry, this first-class piece of reportage on the U.S.-Japanese "car wars" traces the economic, political, and social penetration of the Japanese Big Three into the fabric of the U.S heartland, as it creates a wrenching, funny, and heartwarming portrait of intermingling cultures in small-town America.

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From Publishers Weekly:

In this interesting, revealing study of three Japanese auto plants--Honda in Ohio, Nissan in Tennessee and Toyota in Kentucky--freelance journalist Gelsanliter examines the industrial "invasion" of America by which Tokyo threatens to outdo Detroit's GM-Chrysler-Ford in sales and popularity. He shows that the Japanese firms, while competing among themselves, also share familial worker-management "life employment" values that appeal to American employees, community businesses and state governments. Union organizers, we're told, have not done well in these Japanese plants, despite UAW claims of assembly-line "speed-ups." With nine assembly plants in six states and Canada, the Japanese efforts have been so successful that, according to the author, Honda America's president Tetsuo Chino predicts that 50,000 of these North American-made cars will be exported back to Japan in 1991, "helping you correct your unfavorable trade balance."
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

This is a journalist's account about how, in the 1980s, Japanese auto makers Honda, Nissan, and Toyota opened plants in America's heartland--Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, respectively--thereby posing a threat to the dominance of the "Big Three," General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, as well as to the future of the United Auto Workers (UAW). Relying mostly on interviews and on-the-spot observations, Gelsanliter shows how these outsiders were able to gain acceptance by the workers and the communities, so much so that UAW unionization was defeated at an election at the Nissan plant in August 1989. The full implications of these developments for the American economy and society are yet to be seen. This book is strong on human interest, but skimpy on analysis of broader issues. Recommended for public libraries. --Harry Frumerman, formerly with Hunter Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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