| La Lettre du GERPISA | no 120 (february 1998) |
Byoung-Hoon Lee,
Ph.-D. dissertation, Cornell University, USA, January
1997, 336 p.
Byoung-Hoon Lee carried out a comparative study of transformationswithin two plants, a Ford stamping plant in the United States (1980to 1994), and a Korean Hyundai plant (1987 to 1995). In both plants, management initiated partial reform in work organization and wage relations. Results remained limited in both cases.
Nonetheless, both cases are very different. In order to emerge from a serious recession and face Japanese competition, Ford wanted to obtain both improvements in quality and reinforced participation on the part of workers. Management thus decided to attack institutional forms considered far too rigid, such as production standards and employment limitations, themselves perceived of as too constraining. It proposed to introduce more flexibility, and to develop worker participation and group cooperation. Despite union participation and an initial and rather important agreement throughout the workshops, this policy eventually ended up disappointing workshop personnel who, after having resumed work, demanded a return to the old system.
Hyundai faced more favorable perspectives: the firm had succeeded in breaking through, and was aiming at an increase in production. Management sought to restore its control of workers since following conflicts which had lasted up to 1991, workers had overthrown former quasi-military management methods. They had developed informal arrangements and organizational practices within work teams. These teams presented a very high level of cohesion, as unionism was simultaneously growing stronger. Management thus wanted to reestablish the authority of foremen, reduce the number of worker collectives, refine worker management, that is to say implement a more flexible style (task rotation, worker transfers and exchanges). Relationships quickly became conflictual due to worker and union resistance fearing the return of former authoritarianism.
Beyond their differences, Byoung-Hoon Lee observes essential similarities in these two cases. The reforms undertaken experienced limited results, very much below initial hopes on the part of management. For the author, this can be explained by insufficient coherence relative to managerial strategies, and even more so by the underestimating of the role played by workshops and their members, acting in function of specific interests. According to Lee, this "workshop policy", more central and complex than imagined, lies at the heart of changes in work organization.