Economic and Industrial Democracy

In advanced industrial sectors less qualified jobs are tending to disappear with fewer and more qualified jobs remaining. A 'new polarization' has developed with the losers of rationalization ending up unemployed. Within the car industry one finds that the most advanced jobs in the automated sectors are getting more qualified with no additional stress. Also, in the more manual sectors group work is now being introduced but often in a 'structurally conservative' form resulting in short job cycles and little autonomy. The climate in society is influenced by the unemployment that the new production concepts contribute to and may, in turn, influence whether structurally conservative or innovative solutions prevail.

Contemporary empirical studies of teamwork take much of their inspiration from long-standing conflicting images of 'good' work in modem societies. In particular, the 'machine', 'anomie' and 'alienation' images have had a strong influence on theoretical development and empirical research. Rather than criticizing the dominance of this imagery, this article argues for a more selfconscious and comprehensive exploitation of its richness and diversity. Contemporary studies of teamwork are more often than not held back by a reduction of fundamental theoretical issues and tensions to matters of simple empirical tests and a 'forced' choice between perspectives and a general decline in attention to the 'alienation' image. The argument herein is made through a reanalysis of the classic and exemplary debate between Adler and Cole and Berggren over teamwork in NUMMI and Uddevalla.

Although teamwork is a leading innovation in work organization, detailed studies of employee responses, and the reasons for acceptance or rejection, are rare. Here, an advanced form of teamworking at a British aluminium smelter, part of a large Canadian multinational company, is examined. Direct supervision was abolished, and teamworking using semi-autonomous groups with job rotation, multiskilling and team briefing was introduced. Employees responded favourably to the initiative. Job satisfaction and labour productivity increased. Industrial action, overtime and accident rates fell. The conditions for this outcome included prior experience of job shedding, capital-intensive continuous process technology, union-management cooperation in the introduction of teams, and a pre-existing culture of strong work group solidarity. Some tensions remained, however, notably over the pay system and some aspects of work performance, and there was no evidence of a move towards high commitment.

The newly reopened Volvo Uddevalla plant is the only automobile factory in the world where 'reflective production' system principles are put into practice. This article attempts to analyse the implementation of these principles in the plant. Reflective production reattributes both cognitive and cooperative dimensions of ordinary activity to industrial work. Applying it to automobile assembly has proven that it is not necessarily econoniic or practical to 'deconstruct/reconstruct' work into elementary operations with the final stage of combining them sequentially. Insofar as lean production is concerned (best observed at Toyota in 1992), it continues to rely on traditional principles of additivity and fluidity. When compared to the Uddevalla experience, the lean production system remains one which seeks to limit loss of time inherent in additive assembly line production, without recognizing the very origin of this problem as being the production method itself.

The study of forest work allows connections to be drawn between good work, productivity and environmental sustainability. The development of good forest work has generally followed the classic path, entailing higher wages, shorter working hours and less strenuous work; but it has also resulted in growing unemployment, labour market segmentation, flexibilization and environmental degradation. Full cost accounting, all-age forest management, valueadded production, community tenures and eco-certification provide a basis for alternative good work and productivity measures. We suggest that forest workers, both in their capacity as workers and residents of forest-industry based communities, constitute potential agents who can embrace and support such alternatives.

Since the 'Crisis of Taylorism' in the 1970s, 'new forms of work organization' have been developed that were intended to contain better, if not 'good', work characterized by factors such as vocational qualification, personnel development, participation, and so forth. It is precisely these factors which are endangered by the prevailing strategies of 'systemic rationalization'. In pursuing these strategies, dominant companies aim to reorganize production and value creation chains in order to harness heterogeneous company situations within the production networks so as to increase total productivity. The results consist of either the stabilization or progressive polarization of employee working conditions and new problems regarding in-company interest representation and interest representation by unions. The material and descriptions presented are based on empirical findings gathered from the German automotive industry.

Current debate focuses on the consequences of massive layoffs and the search for ever-increased productivity. In this perspective, the future of work points towards even greater unemployment. This article proposes a different interpretation: the major trend is not so much towards the 'end of work' but to strategic expansion, through economic concentration and the externalization of labour. Evidence is given to demonstrate this thesis, with empirical examples in different industries at national and international level. The externalization process which characterizes current economic restructuring is directly related to the search for greater flexibility. As a result of fierce competition, different forms of labour organization are appearing as well as new costs for society. This article concludes that today's 'cascading subcontracting' is not only related to the externalization of labour costs, but also to the externalization of risks and responsibilities and, as such, contradicts more and more the basic principles of democracy.

The term 'better job' refers to work that permits employees to flourish, that is, situations where employees, and in particular operators, have increased autonomy, more responsibility and greater control over their time and space: in brief, firm control over the organization of their work. The 'better job' appears to be a real possibility, a compromise in our societies (despite the contradictions inherent in capitalist relations of production) in which capital might leave the workers, and employees in general, to organize their own work, in capital's own interest, in other words to increase labour productivity and productivity in general. This explains why the 'better job' has, historically, been initially developed by capital during periods of labour market tension and labour shortage, during the 1960s and 1970s, prior to becoming a demand made by the unions in the late 1970s and 1980s. Today, the partial resolution of the capital accumulation crisis through the widespread adoption of 'tightened flow' production methods runs counter to the emergence of the 'better job', including in those work sectors which otherwise seem most favourable to it.