We Sell Our Time No More Workers' Struggles Against Lean Production in the British Car Industry

by Stewart, Paul; Murphy, Ken; Danford, Andy; Richardson, Tony; Richardson, Mike; Wass, Vicki

• ISBN13: 9780745328676
• ISBN10: 0745328679
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-08-15
• Publisher: UCP

Summary

This is the story of struggles against management regimes in the car industry in Britain from the period after the Second World War until the contemporary regime of lean production. Told from the viewpoint of the workers, the book chronicles how workers responded to a variety of management and union strategies, from piece rate working, through measured day work, and eventually to lean production beginning in the late 1980s. The book focuses on two companies, Vauxhall-GM and Rover/BMW, and how they developed their aroaches to managing labour relations. Worker responses to these are intimately tied to changing patterns of exploitation in the industry. The book highlights the relative success of various forms of struggle to establish safer and more humane working environments. The contributors bring together original research gathered over two decades, plus exclusive surveys of workers in four automotive final assembly plants over a ten year period.

Author Biography

Paul Stewart is Professor of the Sociology of Work and Employment at Strathclyde University. He has been researching and writing on the automotive industry for many years and was joint convenor of the Automotive Workers Research Network.  Ken Murphy has worked for General Motors for over twenty years and was joint convenor of the Automotive Workers' Research Network.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xii
Abbreviations and acronyms	p. xiii
Understanding the Lean Automobile Industry	p. 1
Introduction	p. 1
Lean Production: the Context and the Promises	p. 2
Lean Production for Whom?	p. 8
Objectives of the Book	p. 13
The Prehistory of Lean Production: Employee Relations in the British Automobile Industry since the Second World War	p. 16
Introduction	p. 16
Regimes of Control: From Piecework to Measured Day Work	p. 19
Contemporary Contrasts and Continuities	p. 20
Bargaining in the Context of Conflict and the Importance of the Local Agreements	p. 22
Wages, Unions and Conflicts in the British System	p. 26
Regimes of Control: Measured Day Work and the Rise of Lean Production	p. 34
From 'Embrace and Change' to 'Engage and Change': Trade Union Renewal and New Management Strategies	p. 38
Introduction	p. 38
Industrial Relations Without Industrial Relations?	p. 39
Data and Method	p. 41
Union Responses in Each Company	p. 43
Rover: 'Embrace and Change'	p. 44
Vauxhall: 'Engage and Change'	p. 46
The Experience of NMTs on the Shopfloor: An Inter-Company Comparison	p. 49
The Acceptance of NMTs on the Shopfloor: An Inter-Company Comparison	p. 56
Concluding Remarks	p. 59
Appendix: Explanatory Variables	p. 62
Striking Smarter and Harder: The New Industrial Relations of Lean Production? The 1995-96 Vauxhall Dispute	p. 64
Management Misjudges the Shopfloor	p. 67
Confronting Lean: Laying the Basis for Union Advance	p. 70
Conclusion	p. 79
The Fight to Control Lean Production	p. 80
Addendum: Data Summary	p. 84
Round Table Discussion on Lean Production	p. 90
Introduction	p. 90
Lean Production	p. 98
Lean and Outsourcing	p. 100
Union, Shop Stewards and Lean: Capturing Hearts and Minds	p. 107
Comments from Ken Murphy	p. 120
Comments from John Cooper	p. 125
Comments from Gary Lindsay	p. 126
Rover-BMW: From Rover Tomorrow to the Longbridge Closure and the Bitter Fruits of Lean Production	p. 129
Introduction	p. 129
The Recent Origins of the Crisis: Lean Production and the Rise of a New Management Regime	p. 131
The Background to the Implementation of Rover Tomorrow	p. 131
Rover Tomorrow	p. 135
Implementation of Rover Tomorrow	p. 139
The 1998 Cowley Agreement	p. 142
The Working Time Account	p. 143
A New Model, the Rover 75	p. 143
The Longbridge Crisis, October 1998	p. 144
Implementation of the 1998 Agreement	p. 146
Crisis 2000 - What Future for Longbridge?	p. 149
The Demonstration for Longbridge, 1 April 2000	p. 152
The Union Position Changes	p. 155
Lean Production: From 'Engage and Change' to Endless Change	p. 159
Introduction	p. 159
Embedding Lean Production at Vauxhall-GM, 1989-2001	p. 163
GM's Project Olympia 2001, BMW and Partnership	p. 168
Worker Attributes	p. 171
Workplace Stress	p. 184
Conclusion	p. 196
Appendix: Project Olympia Framework Document	p. 197
Conclusion: Lean Production and the Individualisation of Workplace Stress: the New Class Struggle from above	p. 201
Worker and Union Responses to Lean	p. 208
Challenging Lean Production as a Strategy and Ideology	p. 209
Appendices
Survey of Car Workers by the TGWU and Cardiff University Trade Union Research Unit (Questionnaire 1996)	p. 214
Workforce Survey on Workplace Issues	p. 219
Working on the Line 'After Fordism': A Diary	p. 223
Notes	p. 229
Bibliography	p. 240
Index	p. 252
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