ABSTRACT
The Saturn Corporation was announced by General Motors in January of 1985 as a project to produce a compact vehicle that would compete with foreign producers and be a world leader in quality, cost, and customer satisfaction. Saturn was also meant to be the breeding ground for a new set of industrial relations principles for ailing GM; after being ironed out at Saturn, these principles would spread rapidly to the remaining GM production facilities. A revolutionary agreement with the UAW, formal independence from the larger GM management structure, and years of careful planning went into the project before the first car rolled off the line in July of 1990, in the town of Spring Hill, Tennessee.
