ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on changing forms of work and competing interpretations of the implications for labour of capital's attempts to experiment with and find new methods of high volume production (HVP) in manufacturing. The chapter organizes the broad lineaments of HVP, the implication of HVP for the character of work and geographies of employment the reconfiguration of the collective worker and the implications of new forms of work and industrial relations practices for labour. Restructuring the links between companies impacts upon relations between workers, upon those between workers and managers, and upon forms and conditions of work. The geographies of employment associated with the introduction of HVP show that spatial variation in labour market conditions is clearly a critical consideration in decisions as to whether, and where, to introduce new forms of HVP. HVP has not, however, replaced mass production, any more than mass production replaced craft production, but has come to co-exist alongside it.
