Introduction

1. German and British Trade Unions at Ford and General Motors: the local and national contexts

2. Geocentric Internationalization: A new challenge for German and British trade unions at Ford and General Motors

3. Internationalization and the paradox of economic nationalism

4. Internationalization and the paradox of domestic trade union practices

5. Internationalization and the paradox of cross-border trade union cooperation

Conclusions

Paradoxes of Internationalization deals with British and German trade union responses to the internationalization of corporate structures and strategies at Ford and General Motors between the late 1960s and the early twenty-first century.

Paradoxes of internationalization deals with British and German trade union responses to the internationalization of corporate structures and strategies at Ford and General Motors between the late 1960s and the early twenty-first century. The book is based on research in numerous archives in Britain, Germany and the United States.

The book points to the paradoxical effects of internationalization processes. First, it demonstrates how internationalization reinforced trade unions’ national identities and allegiances. Second, the book highlights that internationalization made domestic trade union practices more similar in some respects, while it simultaneously contributed to the re-creation of diversity between and within the two countries. Third, the book shows that investment competition was paradoxically the most important precondition for the emergence of cross-border cooperation initiatives.

The book will be of interest to academics and students in a range of disciplines from comparative industrial relations, to international political economy, business studies and transnational history.

Steven Fielding is Associate Professor and Reader in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham