Employment Relations Group

The second programme of GERPISA will be distinctive from the first in that it can develop a focus upon the sociological nature of the employment relationship involving both employee and labour relations (industrial relations in the US and UK sense) in the sector beyond final assembly. GERPISA made great strides in highlighting the considerable variation between companies and national locations in the sector but for a number of methodological and theoretical reasons we tended to remain at the level of the assembly plant. This provided for a powerful critique of the MIT project but we now need to broaden the focus somewhat. This concentration upon assembly (in most instances) was understandable given that this was also the arena in which MIT developed their argument and clearly some element of this domain needs to be retained in our prospectus. However, since it is obvious that we now need to considerable changes in the auto sector from the standpoint of exogenous characteristics and developments in labour relations we need to consider how we might begin to address these factors both inside and outside the workplace(s). It seems to me there are four themes which could be developed in this respect. (From the practical point of view, considerating financial and methodological constraints, the scope of the following themes may need to be limited, but we can discuss the efficacy of these as the group develops).

1). What is the relationship between the social nature of the employment relationship, including forms of governmental practice in the countries where the particular company/plant is being studied, and the pattern of employee relations at plant and inter-plant level? We can assume that different national trajectories impact upon employee relations but so far there has been no auto sector study of these accross the range of countries that we could provide. Whilst numerous intercompany plant based studies exist, these are often confined to two or perhaps three countries (inter alia Jürgens et al 1992; Martinez and Weston, 1994; Muller, 1996; Martinez and Stewart, 1997) Whilst these studies would fit our prospectus for the GERPISA programme as a whole, our remit is somewhat wider (because of our resources) and this will allow us to assess state, region, company and plant in terms of the problem of regulation.

2). What are the implications of variations in patterns of state regulation and employment relations within and between firms at regional and national level? Are there continuous patterns of employment relations, including labour market variations, between suppliers and assemblers in the sector? We would assume continuities and variations and therefore we need to establish how these are constituted. Locality is important and so, how do informal relations interact with national patterns of: labour relations and company-plant level bargaining, employee status criteria, gender characteristics of the labour force and labour markets?

3) Following on from the first programme, of course, we need to assess the efficacy of the hypotheses we developed in respect of firm trajectory and employee relations. Thus, how do industrial relations affect what the firms and their communites and suppliers can do? We need to incorporate the wider literature on industrial relations and employee organisation(s) into our programme through an appreciation of the importance of contingency and hence conflict in the employment relationship. On occasion, there has been a tendancy to delineate the character of the development of the sector as if variations and contradictions were somehow to be understood as being inscribed solely in the (logic of) structure, or the process, according to fordism or lean production... or whatever. Therefore, one of the important features of the change process which we need to address is the role of the collective actor in determining the outcome of the process of firm formation and development.

4) Following on from this, the employee can be 'brought back' into the equation by addressing the ways in which the interactions between firm and trade union strategies produce substantive variations at local and stae level. However, in drawing this assessment, we need to consider employee understandings of firm developments. This assumes that we include an assessment of some of the themes raised by Castillo in "La Lettre du Gerpisa" 110 (February 1997). Specifically, the Employment Relations group needs to consider issues of work intensification, deskilling, stress at work and home and the impact of the changing nature of work upon gender relations on the shopfloor.

Index of number 111 ;
All the Debates in La Lettre du GERPISA ;
Available numbers ;
Information on this server.