The Return of the Question of Job security in Company Management

During the first international GERPISA programme we defined industrial models as coherent ensembles of technical, organizational, administrative and social mechanisms which aim at lessening the two fundamental uncertainties that companies face, that is to say, the market and work, in a give social and macroeconomic context. We spoke about fundamental uncertainties with regard to the numerous other uncertainties which a firm has to face (technical, political, etc...) because they stem from two "liberties" which are consubstantiel with our socio-economic system: "the liberty" of consumers to choose their own products, and the "liberty" of the worker to evaluate the degree of self implication he wants to sell when signing his work contract. If we can look at the 1980's as a period when companies tried to implement models which allowed them to take better control of the market, seeing as at the time work was in a weak position and therefore quite flexible and predictable, we can look at the 1990's as a period when work is returning to the fore as a "strategic variable" for companies.

It is Toyota, the automobile constructor which we least expected in the domain, who in 1990 used this formula of "strategic variable" to make known that it had to modify its system so as to take the new balance of power into account. The crisis in recruiting and the refusal of staff and especially foremen, to do more overtime to respond to the boom in demand for cars in Japan between 1987-1990, in fact obliged Toyota to change two essential pillars of its system: the salary and timetable system and the organization of the assembly line. The recession of 1993-1995 did not modify this orientation, thus showing that the Toyota Model had reached its limits of social acceptability in Japan.

In Germany the IG Metall trade union was able to bring out the reduction of the time of work (the 4 day week) with a small reduction in salary as aviable solution to safeguard employment between 1993 and 1996. The recovery in the demand and especially in the sales of Volkswagen led it to start recruiting again without going back to the 4 day week again. In France the Renault and PSA workers have demonstrated their discontent on several occasions due to not being compensated by way of salary of work for the efforts they made for the financial recovery of their company. Though this conflict has not led to any substantial change, at least it shows that the personnel of these companies consider that an acceptable compromise for salary still has not been drawn up. Obviously early retirement is not viewed as compensation for their participation in the reduction of costs. The announcement about the closure of the Renault factory in Vilvoorde, Belgium, made people realize that the time had come for trade union members in Europe to consult each other at a company level and to coordinate their demands andaction. In the rubric "Research Questions" you can read about the questions raised by Udo Rehfeldt's expose on the "European Committee Groups" at the last GERPISA work day in France. A recent conference of Fiat CGIL trade unions members, in Turin, let it be known that they intended to organize themselves at an international level and to prepare for possible closures in Italy.

During the last three years, strikes have started again in American car manufacturing , in their subsidiaries and their suppliers, since the return of profits. Some Japanese factories set up in the USA and Canada were also concerned. Employment, salary, work conditions, use of suppliers belonging to a trade union, that is to say companies where the personnel is protected by agreements signed by UAW are what triggered these conflicts. Let us not forget either, the spectacular reaction of Korean automobile workers at the beginning of this year, against the review of important dispositives of national work law. This new climate is not foreign to the book "Beyond Japanese Management" that Paul Stewart, a member of the International Steering Committee for the GERPISA programme, managed and of which we can read a presentation in the "Book Notes" rubric.

The relative simultaneity of "the return of the question of job security" in the countries mentioned does not mean that it has the same reasons everywhere. We now know that the crisis in employment that affected the automobile constructors in three world poles between 1965- 75/78 was the result of different social and economic circumstances, contrary to what was written at the time and long after. Although we can notice a swing from the market to work at more or less regular intervals in the visible and main priorities of firms throughout their history, we are not witnessing an eternal return but a dynamic process which changes each time conditions in which the uncertainty of the market and job security manifest themselves. The current movement of internationalization in automobile construction within the framework of the reshaping of the world economic and political environment which is taking place (and which nobody knows the final shape), surely constitutes one of these new phases. We will discuss this precisely at the 5th International Colloquium at the Palais du Luxembourg in Paris. In the "Debate" rubric, Leonid Sintserov, of the Geography Institute of the Academy of Sciences of Russia, brings his contribution to the elaboration of our programme, by emphasizing the place of the post-communist countries in the new international deal of the automobile industry.

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