The 11 chapters in this book focus on "The New American Workplace" and assess its adequacy or inadequacy as a guide for the U.S. labor movement in relation to new work systems. "Unions and Workplace Reorganization" (Bruce Nissen) introduces the subject. "The New American Workplace: A Labor Perspective" (AFL-CIO Committee on the Evolution of Work, 1994) reprints this consensus document. "The New American Workplace: Big Deal or Too Little, Too Late?" (Adrienne E. Eaton) places the AFL-CIO document in a comparative international context. "Worker Democracy and Employee Involvement Plans" (Jim Grattan) places workplace change within the context of a democratic society professing to extend democratic processes to every aspect of its life. "Identity Crisis: Unions in the Workplace of the Future" (Peter Downs) evaluates the document from the perspective of the author's experiences as a worker for General Motors. "Participating in Labor-Management Initiatives To Build the Union" (Maureen Sheahan) asserts that independent union participation is the only workable approach. "Workplace Education and Labor-Management Cooperation in Small- and Medium-Sized Urban Manufacturing" (Mae M. Ngai) contends the AFL-CIO is still wedded to conventional industrial relations practice without a proactive strategy of its own. "Reinventing the Federal Government: Forging New Labor-Management Partnerships for the 1990s" (Edward L. Suntrup, Darold T. Barnum) considers workplace change in the federal government. "Labor-Management Partnerships in State and Local Governments" (Lee Balliet) asserts that chances for union-management partnerships are better in the public sector than they are in the private sector. "New Unionism and the Workplace of the Future" (Peter Lazes, Jane Savage) suggests the document does not go far or deep enough in showing the way to implement partnerships and workplace reorganization as a union strategy. "Advancing Unionism on the New Terrain" (Mike Parker, Jane Slaughter) presents a highly critical view of certain aspects of the document which the authors believe deepens confusions within the labor movement. Appendixes include a list of contributors and index. (YLB)