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Just Another Car Factory: Lean Production and Its Discontents

Lowe, Graham S.

Labour, 2000, Vol.45 (45), p.308-310 [Periódico revisado por pares]

Committee on Canadian Labour History

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Título:
Just Another Car Factory: Lean Production and Its Discontents
Autor: Lowe, Graham S.
Assuntos: Automobile industry ; Canada ; Collective bargaining ; Employment ; Factories ; Labour history ; Management ; Production systems ; Quality circles ; Reviews/Comptes Rendus ; Workers
É parte de: Labour, 2000, Vol.45 (45), p.308-310
Notas: content type line 1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Review-1
Descrição: CAMI is a joint venture between General Motors and Suzuki. The firm built a new factory in Ingersoll, Ontario, carefully recruited a relatively young workforce, and began production of sub-compact vehicles in 1989. The Canadian Autoworkers Union (CAW) represented the workers, making CAMI one of the few North American "transplants" to be unionized. The union figures prominently in this study. Indeed, the book begins with an account of a five-week strike in 1992 -- a strike that was not supposed to happen. What went wrong? Why didn't CAMI live up to the high expectations it created? What are the fundamental problems workers and unions face in lean work systems? The authors' responses to these questions are uniformly insightful, evidence-based, and cogently argued. The authors reject the view that lean production represents a paradigm shift from old-style mass production to post-Fordism. Rather, CAMI represents a fine-tuning of Fordism. CAMI's production conveyor line, the logic of the plant's industrial engineering, time study, narrowly defined jobs -- these features more accurately describe a form of "neo-Fordism." Most problematic for post-Fordist interpretations of lean production, argue the authors, is that the system does not require a highly committed workforce. Nor is team organization a prerequisite, largely because teams function mostly on a social level in complex ways that are as divisive as they are integrative. For workers, the most pressing problem was chronic understaffing, resulting in "overburdened jobs," mainly due to CAMI management's intent to operate very lean from the start. Consequently, work under lean production is "arduous and intense." (204) CAMI jobs were not challenging; most were low-skilled, quickly learned, repetitive and routinized, and had a high risk of injury. CAMI workers were encouraged through sophisticated social engineering adapted from Japan to impart their knowledge into the system. The logic of the system was a relentless push to reduce the labour component of each vehicle -- hardly conditions that foster more humane work.
Editor: Committee on Canadian Labour History
Idioma: Inglês;Francês

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Just Another Car Factory: Lean Production and Its Discontents

Lowe, Graham S.

Committee on Canadian Labour History

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