The maritime car carrier industry has been entirely neglected by social scientists. This book examines globalization changes in cost structure and dynamics; in ownership, freight, labour and other markets; in technological innovation and ship design; and in relation to car manufacturers, ship management companies and crewing agents.
'This important new study focuses on the maritime car carriers which ship more than 8 million vehicles a year between the world's major markets. It makes a major contribution our understanding of the auto industry outside the assembly factory and does so by combining pioneering analysis of a globalized business with classical labour process research. The book provides a graphic account of a fatigued and cosmopolitan workforce and demonstrates the continued relevance of union organisation in a way which challenges all our facile assumptions about the forces of globalisation. Theo Nichols and Erol Kahveci show how a tradition of politically engaged sociological research can be refocused and revitalized.' - Karel Williams, Professor of Accounting and Political Economy, and Co-director ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change, University of Manchester, UK