Team Concept and
Kaizen: Japanese
Production
Management in a
Unionized
Canadian Auto Plant
DAVID ROBERTSON,
JAMES RINEHART,
CHRISTOPHER HUXLEY AND THE
CAW RESEARCH GROUP ON CAMI
his paper provides some half-time reflections on a
longitudinal case study of a unionized JapaneseAmerican automobile factory based in Ingersoll, Ontario.! The operation, CAMI Automotive Inc., is a joint
venture between General Motors and Suzuki that produces
subcompact cars and compact 4-wheel drive sports utility
vehicles. There were no transplants operating on this continent prior to 1981. As a result of a variety of considerations
- tariff and non-tariff barriers, Voluntary Restraint Agreements and threats of import quotas, the upward re-evaluation
of the Yen, and state or provincial subsidies, grants, forgivable loans, etc. - eight auto assembly transplants began
production in the United States and Canada between 1982
and 1989, with a combined capacity of 1.5 million vehicles
per year. There are now four transplants operating in Canada
- Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and CAMI (the only joint venture in Canada) - all of them having arrived since 1985.
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Studies in Political Economy 39, Autumn 1992
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By 1990 they were producing over one-quarter of a million
vehicles or roughly 18 percent of North American transplant
production. This figure represented 13.8 percent of all
vehicles and 22.6 percent of all cars produced in Canada
in 1990. It is estimated that by 1995 transplant capacity in
North America will reach three million vehicles, or onefourth of all North American production.t
If the remarkable Japanese penetration of the North
American auto market has stimulated the Big Three auto
producers to adopt Japanese methods, the transplant
phenomenon may accelerate the rate of emulation. One
proponent of Japanese Production Management (JPM) has
warned:
The competitive future of the American automotive industry
may well depend on whether the high performance of the
transplants persists, and whether U.S. companies can learn the
secrets of their success.3
If this is so, transplants also present major challenges to
auto workers and their unions.
CAMI, following the pattern of Japanese transplants, is
a "greenfield operation," located on the outskirts of a small
town. Ingersoll, which has a population of approximately
8,500, is strategically located a stone's throwaway from
Ontario's major transportation corridor. Midway between
Toronto and Detroit, it is in, what the company refers to
as, the heart of the Canadian automotive supplier community. Production at CAM! began in April, 1989 and by
November, 1990 was operating two shifts with a workforce
of about 1,700.
Workers at CAMI are members of the Canadian Auto
Workers union (CAW), making this the only unionized
transplant or joint venture car factory in Canada, and one
of only four organized transplants in North America (along
with NUMMI in California, Mazda in Michigan and
Diamond Star in Illinois). Unions face major obstacles in
attempting to organize these plants, and so far only joint
ventures have been unionized. In the case of CAMI, the
CAW undertook a sign-up campaign and applied to the Ontario Labour Relations Board for certification. Having
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signed up 90 percent of the existing workforce, a certification vote was unnecessary. This was followed by the
negotiation and eventual ratification by the membership of
their first three year collective agreement.
Japanese Production Management: The Debate Our research is, in part, framed by the debate around JPM. At
one level the debate involves the efficiency of production
systems and the claims that JPM is demonstrably superior
to North American and European production systems. At
another level it explores what accounts for that efficiency
and what price, if any, is paid for it. JPM is a complex and
integrated system of production. At one and the same time
it describes industrial geography and particular technical
details, such as line rebalancing. It involves a network of
relationships ...,..-supplier, designer, dealer - as well as
specific production techniques and practices.
Our focus is the workplace, so we have to leave aside,
for the most part, matters such as procurement practices,
interfirm linkages, simultaneous engineering and the like.
Our intent is to understand JPM by studying the labour
process. We are concerned, then, with the organization of
work and the social relations of production on the shopfloor.
To its proponents, JPM (or in the phrase preferred by
the MIT group that wrote The Machine That Changed the
World, "lean production") represents the death of mass
production, the coup de grace to the remaining vestiges of
craft production, and the insurmountable barrier against
which those outposts of neo-craft based production will collide and then fall. JPM allegedly combines the best of craft
and mass production, "avoiding the high cost of the former
and the rigidity of the latter."4 For its enthusiasts, JPM is
unchallenged in its capacity to deliver cost reductions, zero
defects, tight inventories and low assembly hours. But just
as important, JPM accomplishes this through procedures that
demand the contributions of workers to production and
rewards those contributions by providing "workers with the
skills they need to control their work environment.v'[ For
the MIT group and others championing JPM, it is a production system that, "by moving responsibility for as much as
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possible down to the floor ...offers a creative tension in
which workers have many ways to address challenges.t's
What emerges in JPM workplaces is the multiskilled
worker, prepared to make a commitment to work and the
company in exchange for a "process that continuously enhances the workers' skill" and that provides opportunities
for "ever more challenging work." So taken by the possibilities offered by JPM is the MIT group that it looks
forward to a future workplace staffed with "highly skilled
problem solvers whose task will be to think continuously
of ways to make the system run smoothly and productively. "7 Florida and Kenney also view JPM as a major expression of post-fordism:
The central role played by worker initiative and the use of
workers' knowledge contradicts the view that the Japanese
model is simply an extension of Fordist mass production. It
lends support to the alternative conceptualization that it is a
new and potential successor model based upon harnessing
workers' intellectual and physical capabilities.f
In these views JPM, or lean production, is a win-win situation:
what is good for the company is good for the workforce.
There are those who question this perspective, who see
it as too rosy a view and one that is at odds with what
actually makes JPM work. Some critics have characterized
JPM as a system of "management by stress," in which the
production system and the workers who populate it are subject to continuous pressure.? Some observers have argued
that behind the 'lean' is a whole lot of mean - that JPM
workplaces exclude those who are not young and fit. Others
have characterized JPM as a sophisticated version of the
old standby, "speed-up." Still others have argued that JPM's
success, premised on some variant of enterprise unionism,
is contingent on undermining union independence and superimposing collaborative goals over the distinct interests
of workers. to
The protagonists are worlds apart. In one view, there is
a post-mass production work environment where conception
and execution are rejoined, where production work is
requalified, where workers' contributions come from what
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Management
they know as much as from what they do, and where the
spirit of cooperation and the principles of empowerment
define production relations. In the other view, there is a
workplace where the pace and the very logic of the assembly
line are imposed on workers, where the driving principle
is work intensification, and where workers' rights and well
being are traded in for the next quantum of production and
the next notch in efficiency. Empowerment or subordination,
cooperation or concession, working smarter or working harder - our entry to the debate is through the front door at
CAMI.
Research Questions A study of one plant will not settle
the debate over JPM. However, our use of multiple research
methods, the longitudinal character of this study, and our
access to managers, workers and the shopfloor promise to
afford a more complete and realistic portrayal of the internal
operations of a transplant than that provided by previous
research. Our study is significant both for the new arrangements under investigation and for the comparative insights we hope to provide into the impact of union strategy
and worker activities. For example, comparison is inevitably
made between the CAW experience at CAM! and that of
the UAW at NUMMI, a OM-Toyota plant also heralded as
a model of innovative management practices based on
Japanese principles.I!
Since its split from the UAW in 1984, the CAW has
adopted a more militant stance towards new industrial relations systems, particularly those associated with JPM.l2 In
the fall of 1989 the CAW Council adopted a policy statement
on the issue. The union's "Statement on the Reorganization
of Work" spelled out its rejection of "Managerial efforts,
under whatever name, which jeopardize workers' rights, undermine workplace conditions and erode the independence
of the union." 13 At the same time, the CAW statement recognized the complexities involved in shaping an appropriate
union response:
Rejecting certain management demands may just mean that they
will return in more subtle forms. Some management demands
will even seem attractive (in isolation) to workers and our tactics
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must be sensitive to this. And management will attempt to use
its power to impose, unilaterally, specific changes.14
While JPM is at the core of CAMI, the company admits
its operations are a blend of North American and Japanese
management techniques. There is, then, at least a tacit acceptance that CAMI brings together a Canadian union, an
American company, a Japanese production philosophy and
a North American market. Our research questions are structured by this attempt to blend disparate elements, and in
particular by the relationship between JPM and a Canadian
union. Some of these are as follows:
-What is the nature of the CAMI production process?
-How is JPM modified by local conditions?
-How do workers respond to JPM? What are their reactions
to transformations in work pace, job content and rotation,
to concepts such as teamwork and kaizen?
-Are work teams cohesive groups, and if so are they a
source of resistance to and/or cooperation with CAM! standards and objectives? How do teams affect production relations?
-Can an independent union develop in the context of a
JPM workplace?
-How do workers and the union relate to CAMI's cooperative philosophy?
-What changes have transpired in the above areas over
the two year research period?
The Logic of Japanese Production Management The objective of JPM "is to increase profits by reducing costs that is, by completely eliminating waste such as excessive
stocks or workforce."lS Within the labour process this is
accomplished by a combination of interrelated procedures,
which are outlined below.
Just-in-time (JIT) production minimizes buffers by
making only what is needed, in the amount needed, at the
necessary time. JIT entails a one-at-a-time, continuous
production flow that establishes throughout a plant the
equivalent of an invisible conveyor. JIT operates with procedures for insuring that defects are spotted and rectified
immediately before the product is passed on to subsequent
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Management
work stations (for example, andon cords that workers can
pull to stop the line). Monden maintains this system makes
it virtually impossible for workers to hide production
problems. 16
IPM is rooted in a rigid standardization of human time
and motion. It is structured in three parts. 'Cycle time' is
the time each operator has to produce one part. Cycle time
provides, as it were, the container which is filled with the
tasks, motions and actions that comprise a person's job.
The 'standardized work sequence' specifies area layout, required tools and equipment, steps and sequences of each
job. 'Standardized-work-in-process' refers to the number of
units or pieces that are required for an even and on-time
flow through each work station. Standards are grounded in
time study and are strictly enforced.l?
Unlike the practice of Taylorism, once standards are set
in IPM the task, known as kaizen, is to continuously change
them. The object of kaizen is to reduce costs through
eliminating various forms of "waste" and non value-added
labour. Workers are expected to assist in the constant refinement of work methods. Suggestion programs and Quality
Control (QC) circles facilitate workers' involvement in this
process.P
IPM also seeks to lower costs through flexibility, through
continuous "adjustment and rescheduling of human resources."19 Flexibility means altering workforce size in response
to fluctuations in production quotas. It entails training
workers who can perform a variety of functions, widening
or narrowing the range of jobs done by each worker, instituting job rotation and allowing for overtime. Adaptation
to ever changing standards also requires flexibility. As Monden observes, "Workers must be able to respond to changes
in cycle time, operations routines, and in many cases, the
contents of individual jobs. "20
Work teams, the MIT research group asserts, are "at the
heart of the lean factory. "21 Aspects of kaizen and flexibility
are realized through the medium of teams. Team members
pass on their improvement ideas to team leaders. Teams,
operating as QC circles, issue formal plans for reducing
costs. They also provide a vehicle for cross-training and
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job rotation, and exert peer pressure to maintain work and
attendance standards. Finally, as MacDuffie stresses, team
concept embodies a philosophy of worker cooperation with
management to attain company goals.22
The Production Process Posted over the reception desk in
the front lobby and throughout the plant are CAMI's four
values -empowerment, kaizen, open communications and
team spirit. Two, kaizen and teams, are central features of
the production system of JPM. The other two speak more
to the corporate culture CAMI is constructing. Clearly,
CAMI envisions a social system that reinforces production.
While it is perhaps inappropriate to split the social dimensions of production - empowerment and open communications - from their technical objectives, this paper focuses
on the production process and thus deals only with kaizen
and teams.
CAMI started out to duplicate Suzuki's plant in Kosai,
Japan, but financial limits imposed restrictions on the extent
of automation (e.g., in the paint shop). In addition, the distance of the plant from Japanese suppliers combined with
the day to day influence of North American management
has resulted in, what might be called, organizational drift.
The plant consists of four consecutive production operations - stamping, body shop, paint and final assembly all housed within the same long, narrow, windowless structure. It is small by Big Three standards and it is much easier,
once inside, to track the flow of production. Around the
perimeter of the building are a number of loading doors so
that deliveries of parts, such as engines, are close to the
line.
The stamping shop, which produces the major body parts,
is a capital intensive and technologically sophisticated operation, using three computer-controlled Japanese presses identical to those Suzuki has in Japan, plus a recently installed
blanking line. The stamping area is minimally staffed with
around 33 employees who work in teams loading and unloading the presses, operating the overhead cranes to position
the dies and driving the forklifts to stack the parts. A team
of skilled trades is assigned to this area.
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In the body shop the stampings and smaller parts are
welded together to form the bodies. The welding operations
are among the most automated in the industry, using some
367 robots. In addition to manual welding, workers in the
body shop are responsible for loading small parts which
are automatically welded, and for checking and repairing
some of the welds. They are also responsible for minor
maintenance, such as dressing the tips on the robots. The
bodies then travel to the paint department, where they are
sanded, dipped, coated, masked, sprayed, baked and touched
up. There are some robotic applications, but the operation
is not as automated as new paint shops in the Big Three
plants, and relies more heavily on manual paint sprayers.
In the assembly shop, which requires the greatest number
of workers, the empty painted bodies are transformed into
finished vehicles. In the process thousands of mechanical,
plastic and electrical plants, power train components, interior and exterior trim, glass, wheels and so forth are bolted,
screwed or otherwise fastened together at hundreds of different work stations. Final assembly consists of separate
lines on each side of the assembly hall for cars and trucks.
Each line in tum is composed of three parallel segments
which run the length of the assembly shop - up, down
and up again. Shorter feeder lines for subassemblies, such
as the instrument panel and the powertrain, are tied into
the main line. Each segment of the line has a different line,
as do the feeder lines. The lines are constantly moving (as
compared to stop and go production). In places the vehicle
travels along a continuous moving track and in other places
on an overhead conveyor. Workers have to keep up with
the vehicle, installing whatever parts are assigned at their
work station. With few exceptions the operations are
manual. At each work station there are yellow and red andon
cords, hooked up to andon boards, which are installed at
regular intervals in the aisles. If a yellow cord is pulled
the andon board alerts the team leader and others (i.e., area
leaders) to which work station is having trouble. The line
remains in motion and bothersome electronic tunes continue
until the problem is resolved. If the red andon cord is pulled,
the line is stopped. The assembly shop also houses the final
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inspection, testing, and repair operations, which run the
length of the assembly area in the space between the truck
and car lines.
Workers and the Production Process Standard operations
permeate the CAMI labour process. The CAMI training
manual states: "The standardized operation shows the best
methods of performing every operation in a process which
any associate must strictly observe in doing the job," In all
documents on standardized work it is stressed that the standards have to be thoroughly enforced and this emphasis is
reflected in the headlines in the CAMI training manual:
"Improved efficiency begins with standardized operations";
"Everyone performs the same operation the same way"; and
"Thorough enforcement of standardized operations."
At CAMI standardization underwrites flexibility. It ensures that management can easily reassign and transfer
workers. Flexibility means, as well, that they can demand
overtime. The production system is operated by teams whose
members share a single job classification called production
associate. They are cross-trained, engage in job rotation and
are expected to adapt to continuous changes in job content.
Many workers change jobs every two hours, rotating through
easily learned, repetitive jobs. The result is a work day characterized by routine variety. At CAMI, as at Japanese auto
assembly plants, the conveyor dictates the logic, organization and pace of work in most of the plant.
CAMI seeks to recruit workers who can readily adapt to
the rigidities and flexibilities of JPM and who will internalize the company's values. Job applicants move through
a five-step selection process that, over a period of time,
takes about 16 hours to complete. Once selected, workers
are required to take courses reflective of CAMI values, objectives and work operations, like those dealing with the
Suzuki production system (nagare), the competitive world
of auto manufacturing, working as a team, kaizen, etc. About
20 percent of workers are women,23 and the median age is
under 30. This youthful workforce is particularly well suited
to meet the rigorous and ever shifting demands of JPM.
Whatever the pace of work at any given moment, the logic
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Management
of JPM dictates it should be faster and/or operate with fewer
people. An essential ingredient of JPM is the relentless,
systematic pursuit of the reduction of necessary labour time.
Katzen is the cornerstone of this process.
The Politics of Katzen "Kaizen is forever, and this company
value will guide our future activities," Masuyuki Ikuma,
President of CAMI, informed guests and workers who attended the Partners' Appreciation Day on May 4, 1990.
Kaizen is about continuous incremental improvement. The
CAMI training manual makes the point that the only way
to secure profits in the highly competitive world of
automobile manufacturing is to cut production costs (as opposed to raising car prices or increasing market share). According to the manual, "The primary source of profits at
CAMI is through the elimination of waste." Kaizen is
defined as the "process of searching out waste, eliminating
it, then deploying the resources made available to a more
productive task." Waste is defined as anything not essential
to the operation. Any activity that does not directly add
value to the product is waste. Installing a bumper is value
added, but walking to pick up the bumper is waste. Idle
time, unnecessary transport, unnecessary movement, excessive inventory, producing defective parts, unnecessary inspection, and unnecessary processing are all considered
forms of waste. The ultimate goal of kaizen is to produce
with the absolute minimum of workers.
Kaizen requires the continuous revision of standards.
While CAMI workers must follow the "one-best-way," they
are also instructed to constantly ask, "Is there a better way?"
A CAMI manager expressed the relationship between standards and their revision:
The whole secret of it is to do the operation the same way
every time, exactly the same way every time. And you'll notice
even the COS's [CAMI Operating Standards] on the line are
made in pencil, so that if you change it you just erase parts
and add to it. And that's from Japan.
Kaizen is characterized by the company not only as an
economic imperative, but as a benign process building on
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the technical common sense and innovative capacity of all
workers. During our first visit a manager discussed the changes that were taking place.
We have already rearranged the process on the truck line by
taking one robot out. We can still run and do everything with
one robot less. We're almost up to full speed on the car line
and we are already looking at the possibility of taking two
robots out. So that would give us three robots in the bank that
we don't have to buy. Now all we need is some fixtures and
we can set up a new operation ...and bring work in-house.
This exemplifies one executive's belief that kaizen leads to
"an incredible win-win situation for them [workers] and for
the company as well."
Kaizening jobs and operations is the responsibility of all
CAMI employees. As one manager observed:
We have 26 different competitors and the only way that we can
get better than them is that we need the ideas of every individual
in the organization. We need the ideas of the people on the
floor. Otherwise, we're just not going to be able to make it
down the road.
In the orientation sessions new recruits are continually
reminded of the necessity of kaizen, The message is reinforced with structured exercises of discovery, and trainees
are taught that it is not the dramatic innovations but incremental improvements on which CAMI counts. As an instructor told his worker trainees, "Base hits win ballgames."
CAMI does not rely on an industrial engineering department. This is one of the differences between JPM and traditional North American workplaces. As one manager said:
Our philosophy is that engineers can't possibly know as much
about the jobs as the people that are doing them. And the people
are going to feel a lot better and they're going to be much
more inclined to implement a change that they have proposed
that works for them than having some time and motion engineers
come in and tell them, 'This is what we're going to do' and
have people sitting here saying, 'Well, that's dumb, but we'll
do it.'
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The same manager insisted that it was necessary for CAM!
to hire people for their brains as well as their brawn, because
"what will bubble up will be a lot of tremendously good
ideas that we can incorporate to make this place safer, to
make it more efficient, to make the work easier to people."
The process of appropriating workers' knowledge is aggressively cultivated by the company. Team leaders
(unionized) take a one-week course on kaizen which a CAMI
executive described as a "mini-course on industrial engineering." Katzen is woven into the cloth of daily life at
CAMI through informal suggestions within the team and
formal suggestion, called teian, and QC circle programs.
There is an expectation that workers will individually submit
at least five teians each month. While one manager interviewed did not like the word "pressure," he admitted the
company strongly "emphasizes" the teian program. For
every teian submitted a worker receives 50 cents, and for
every teian approved a worker gets $1.00. Implemented suggestions are awarded points, coupons or cash, whose value
depends on the amount of money per month saved by the
company. Individuals with exceptionally high point totals
are told that they can receive more substantial prizes, such
as study trips abroad or a CAMI car.
It is easier to statistically describe these participatory
programs than to assess them. Some of the numbers are
dramatic. Consider the suggestion program. In October,
1990, 10,915 teians were submitted for an average of 5.8
suggestions per employee. In the first 10 months of 1990
there were 81,254 teians submitted, and management claims
that 76 percent were implemented and another 22 percent
were approved or under evaluation. In our first round of
interviews 84 percent reported they participated in the teian
program. In round two, even though people had less time
to work on suggestions because production was running at
full capacity, 71 percent of our sample still submitted teians.
It is not clear whether the high numbers are a result of
workers submitting trivial ideas (something that happens
all the time, according to some workers) because of the
pressure to achieve the quota, or to turn in the teian coupons
for cash.
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By our second visit there were indications that some
teams did not really bother about submitting teians, while
others took the exercise more seriously. Similarly, there was
a growing sense that certain activities were voluntary
regardless of how important they were to management.
There were also some changes in QC circle participation
by the second round. In the first round 53 percent of our
respondents belonged to a QC circle. By the second round
the figure had fallen to 43 percent. Even so, most workers
(70 percent in round one and 73 percent in round two)
reported that QC circles addressed issues that are important
to workers.24
While the company pushes kaizen and places special
kaizen responsibilities on team leaders and area leaders.
there are developments which suggest that the kaizen program cannot (and never was intended to) rely entirely on
ideas emerging from the shop floor to achieve continuous
cost reduction. During our second visit we were told of
roving kaizen teams, comprised of non-bargaining unit personnel, that were kaizening problem areas. In some cases
these kaizen teams caused resentments among workers.
On the truck line, the roving kaizen teams tried and failed
to eliminate one person from a work team, but they did
manage to increase the workloads for most of the jobs in
this area. According to one member of the work team, "they
kaizened everybody." This "left a bad taste in everybody's
mouth" and caused morale problems. Workers on this team
complained that there was no time at all between one job
and the next, and they maintained they needed another person. Of the 14 persons on the team, four were going for
ice (victims of repetitive strain injuries) and one worker
was off on Worker's Compensation. Complaints of understaffing and overloading were common. A manager acknowledged the concerns: "I appreciate that people feel that
there's a shortage of manpower, and I guess in areas of the
plant there are shortages." But he went on to suggest that
"maybe it's a case of line balance as well." Accordingly, a
kaizen team was being formed to locate work areas that
required line rebalancing and to identify those work areas
where there was a genuine shortage of workers.
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The kaizen process seems to be a contradictory one. It
is clear that kaisen is used to adapt teams to the requirements
of cost-down production, and to line speeds that are being
notched up. During our first visit kaizen did not seem to
be an issue; on our return there were signs of resistance.
One worker defined kaizen as "a polite way to get more
out of us." Another worker said she regretted kaizening
(eliminating) a job from her line.
At CAMI, kaizen aims at both a moving target (continuous improvement) and one that is firmly fixed in Japan.
As a copy plant the comparison is always immediate: How
does Suzuki do it? One team leader describes the process:
We know how many people it takes in Japan. Say we've got
four and everything is working well. They [management] come
to me and say, 'This time we're going to try it with three.' We
[the team] talk about how to do it with three, and if the team
says that's okay, then it's okay.
Another team leader talks about the relationship between
kaizen, line speed and people's jobs:
We pretty well have an outline of how many people are supposed
to be at each station and how many people are supposed to be
on the team. Sometimes we might try and reduce steps in a
particular job ...because over an entire day production will be
higher if your steps are less and in some cases the production
associate won't have to go through so much, they won't get as
tired in a full day. Everybody in the team is interested in that.
If they create less steps and make the job easier, then your time
is more productive. Let's say they were to speed the line up
or speed the process up, if you had fewer steps it's going to
even out.
In these situations kaizen appears as the necessary accommodation to production speed-up. In other cases the outcomes are not so one-sided. Some work teams have been
able to use kaizen to make work easier and less stressful.
A team on the truck line, operating as a QC circle, managed
to decrease their workloads, although they did not succeed
in cancelling out the increases imposed by the roving katzen
team. This team also proposed that their workloads be further reduced and one worker added to the team when an
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impending line speed increase is implemented. Moreover,
five team leaders from the truck line "kaizened one job per
team" to create an off-line sub-assembly area to allow
workers to periodically rotate off the more physically
demanding main line. These cases suggest that kaizen, which
has the company-defined goal of cost-down, can be appropriated by workers to achieve objectives that are in their
own interests.
It is important to recognize that there is more to kaizen
than reducing necessary labour time. Katzen is at the heart
of CAMI's campaign to convince workers that they have
the capacity to make important workplace decisions. Ideally,
kaizen and feelings of empowerment go hand in hand. The
kaizen program is a means of instilling in the workforce a
sense of empowerment, an attitude that it is hoped will result
in greater worker commitment to company goals and will
stimulate initiative and effort. As our research progresses
we hope to be able to determine with greater clarity the
degree to which kaizen: a) becomes a focal point of
shopfloor struggles; and b) develops outcomes that are
beneficial to the company, workers, or both.
Team Concept on the Shop Floor There are various dimensions to team work. It may refer to small groupings of
workers engaged in improvement activities (i.e., QC
circles). It may refer to the production process and groups
of workers operating under a team leader. At other times
the focus is on the idea of a collaborative partnership between management and the workforce. All three conceptions
of team work are found at CAMI.
CAMI management emphasizes that all employees, from
the president to the production worker, are part of the same
team, pulling together to produce "world class" vehicles.
CAMI's cooperative ideology is reflected in the absence of
exterior signs of rank, power and privilege. Workers are
called production associates. There are no time clocks.
Workers and managers wear uniforms distinguishable only
by the colour of their hats or collars. All employees use
the same cafeteria (if they have time to get there from their
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Management
work stations). And with the single exception of the president, no one has a reserved parking space.
Team concept on the shopfloor is built into the
CAW/CAMI collective agreement, which states:
CAMI will utilize team concepts, with employees organized
into teams determined in accordance with the nature of an operation or process. All members of a team share responsibility for
the work performed by the team and for participation in quality
and productivity improvement programs. Each team will have
a team leader ...
From this short passage can be seen the varied functions
of CAMI's work team structure. First, the team provides a
vehicle for job rotation, training and productivity improvement activities (kaizen). Teams reduce non value-added activity. In taking on some of the functions of industrial
engineering, they reduce the need for these specialists. And
teams can more easily absorb indirect duties (housekeeping,
some material handling, minor maintenance) than can individuals.
Second, teams provide a control system in which peer
pressure is combined with more traditional supervision.
Management understands the potential benefits of natural
cooperation.tf In team concept plants, even when workers
have not internalized company. values, peer pressure in a
cohesive group can operate to boost attendance, job performance and kaizen activities. Good team members look out
for one another, assist those who fall behind in their work,
attend to their work faithfully and are careful to do their
jobs in such a way that they do not create more work for
their team mates.
Third, the team (by its very existence and dynamic) will
serve both a social function and as a vehicle for communicating management values and expectations. Finally,
the team serves a production function with the expectation
that people are not performing an exclusive job. Even so,
it is important to distinguish between team concept and team
production. Work is carried out by teams whose members
are cross-trained and who rotate jobs, but output at CAMI
remains a product of individual effort. The team can support
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Studies in Political Economy
and reinforce that effort, but it is not the case that the group
has replaced the individual as the relevant unit of production. In this sense teams are more an expression of social
engineering than of any altered system of production.
A central CAMI guideline is to "be a good team member,"
and management has gone to considerable lengths to recruit
people who have the ability to cooperate with others - to
be team players and to be sensitive to the opinions of their
peers. Workers are trained to communicate effectively and
encouraged to interact with the team in QC circle activities.
Team concept permeates CAMI, and the layout of the
plant facilitates its implementation. Each team has its own
area in which to meet, take breaks, eat lunch and have QC
circle meetings, and all are equipped with tables, chairs,
lockers, blackboards and bulletin boards on which are posted
information relating to team production, attendance, jobs
learned by each worker, etc. Workers were initially encouraged to adopt team names and most teams did so, although by our second visit these names had often been
forgotten and their significance was downplayed.
Our research explores the dynamics of work teams, the
degree to which teams are cohesive and the direction of
cohesion.26 We are trying to assess whether teams are a
transmission belt for CAMI culture or whether they support
resistance to company initiatives. For now we have to limit
ourselves to the more straightforward issue of how workers
react to team concept and working in teams, and to providing some tentative comments on the critical role of the team
leader.
Our data suggest that, for most workers at CAMI, team
concept has a very··immediate, concrete referent. It means
working in small groups in which workers generally get
along with one another and want to help out. In both rounds
of interviews we found that most workers were agreeable
to the idea of working in teams. In the second set of interviews the majority of respondents reported that teams:
helped them to do their job better (66 percent); were good
for getting to know people (91 percent); let them raise their
concerns (85 percent); gave them a say about their jobs (73
percent); helped them to see how their jobs fit in to the
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Management
overall scheme (64 percent); and allowed members to act
together to express complaints (92 percent). Only a minority
of workers viewed teams as a waste of time (12 percent),
or as a one-way street that helped CAMI but not them (27
percent).
But there were some differences between the two periods.
More workers in round two thought working in teams increased peer pressure and heightened demands to work harder. In the initial interview only 19 percent of the sample
thought teams were a way to get people to exert pressure
on one another. By round two that had increased to 44 percent. In round one 41 percent thought teams were a way
to get people working harder. In the second round the number had edged up to almost half of the sample (48 percent).
But on a question that asked whether teams worked more
for the good of the company than workers the movement
was the other way. About three-quarters (76 percent) of
respondents in round one agreed, or agreed somewhat. By
the second visit that proportion fell to just under two-thirds
(64 percent).
Another difference was the willingness of workers to attend daily pre-shift team meetings, characterized as brief
information sessions. This is unpaid time - attendance,
while it is encouraged, is actually voluntary. In our first
round of interviews most people (83 percent) said they always attended meetings. On our return visit the number
had fallen to S6 percent. Also more and more teams are
dropping pre-shift exercises (taiso). One team stopped because they were not getting paid for it. A leader of another
team said, "Every so often I go, •Anybody want to do taiso'l'
Everybody says no:' Another team leader reported, "They
[his team] won't hand in teians, they won't do exercises."
The members of another team were threatened with transfers
if they did not resume taiso, The team jointly agreed to
continue their refusal and were supported by other workers
in their area who sported signs saying "Taiso or transfer!"
Management backed down on the transfers, and the team
continues to boycott taiso,
In other developments workers have begun to take the
initiative on issues pertaining to the pace and intensity of
9S
Studies in Political Economy
their work. We recorded situations where teams and team
leaders joined together successfully to demand line floaters
and were able to restructure their work areas to provide
workers with some relief from the line. All of these accounts
speak to the complexity of the issue of teams and team
leaders. Survey data reveals a sense of team solidarity, an
indication that workers have a fairly clear idea of management's
agenda, a growing refusal to accept some of management's
more excessive demands, and of teams constituting a terrain
of contest. Some answers suggest that teams are not operating entirely as management would like. Others remind us
that group solidarity does produce behaviour, such as helping out and keeping up with the work, that is consistent
with CAMI objectives.
It is within work teams that resistance to or support for
CAMI objectives will take shape. A major factor in how
this gets played out is the role of the team leader. Team
leaders, who occupy a position analogous in some ways to
front line supervisors, and in some ways to lead hands, are
union members who are paid $1.00 an hour more than
production associates. They are expected not only to do
paperwork, like filling out payroll and attendance forms,
but also to maintain and boost production, train workers,
fill in for absentees and assist those who fall behind in
their work. In daily meetings they relay to workers the day's
production quota and job rotation schedule. They are often
expected to pressure workers to submit suggestions, set up
QC circles and to kaizen their areas.
Team leaders are chosen by management, but their responsibilities are not accompanied by managerial authority. Their
authority is supposed to be of a moral kind - to set an
example and to advise the team. Decisions and discipline
are exercised by the area leaders (non-union) to whom team
leaders report.
If the "foreman" has been described as "the man in the
middle," then the middle can be even more muddled for
team leaders, who, caught between the conflicting demands
of management and workers, often feel a sense of divided
loyalty. Consider the following remarks by team leaders:
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Management
It would be nice to have a line to define where my job ends
and where management starts. You know, you feel kind of uncomfortable sometimes to have to deal with somebody who's
in the union when you're in the union yourself ...You don't feel
really like you belong with the hourly guys sometimes and yet
you feel really caught. You're getting pressure both ways.
When asked if she feels closer to management or her
team, another team leader said, "Some days I might say
the workers, other days I might say management. I don't
know." A third team leader said:
I really don't get the respect from the union, and I don't get
the respect from management either. I'm somewhere in between.
I have a problem with that because I'm a brother just like the
next guy..•
Team leaders told us that they are often yelled at by workers
for policies and practices over which they have no control
(for example, not getting replacements for injured or transferred workers). On the other hand, when a team fails to
do taiso or participate in QC circles, which are nominally
voluntary, it is the team leader who is taken to task by
management.
The position of team leader is a focal point of tension
and conflict between the union and the company. The company would like team leaders to identify with corporate
goals and to act more in concert with first-line management.
The union wants team leaders to identify with union goals
and to act like rank-and-file union members. The company
wants to expand the role of the team leader. The union does
not want the team leader to facilitate the exercise of management authority,
Among workers the issue is not whether there should be
team leaders. Indeed, in both rounds of interviews the
majority of respondents supported the idea of team leaders.
The figures, at 77 percent and 78 percent respectively, were
quite high. But there was dissatisfaction with the way team
leaders were selected. Most people favoured electing them.
Again the figures were high. In round one 74 percent of
the sample thought team leaders should be elected. In round
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Studies in Political Economy
two this actually increased to 83 percent. Other options,
such as rotating the position were not considered attractive,
with about two-thirds opposing the idea in both rounds.
Respondents also reported a good relationship between
teams and team leaders, and most people were favourably
disposed toward their own team leaders. Over the two
periods there was some improvement in certain aspects of
the relationship. For instance, in the base line measure, 42
percent expressed a concern that their team leader thought
more like management than one of them. By the second
visit that proportion had fallen to less than one in three (29
percent). According to respondents, the relationship between
team members and team leaders was a workplace relationship and was defined by work issues. People did not see it
in either personal or social terms. Team leaders were
regarded as neither counsellors nor social conveners.
The Union Local Local 88 of the CAW and the company
are contending for the hearts and minds of the workforce.
The local occupies, or more accurately shapes, the space
between a collective agreement that accommodates aspects
of team concept, and a policy statement of the national union
that raises substantial questions about the implications of
IPM. When we first visited CAMI the union had a desk in
the Employee Relations office, and the plant chairperson
shared space with about half a dozen management personnel. Independent space is an important issue for the union,
and as such there were skirmishes over the interpretations
of what the collective agreement meant when it talked about
providing space to the union. The union wanted separate
space and management wanted to maintain the union as
part of the employee relations function, with all that implied
about cooperative effort. By our second visit the union had
taken over a workroom and had established it as the "Union
Workcentre .••
As the newly established bargaining agent representing
workers at CAMI, Local 88 faced special challenges. The
first collective agreement offered the barest of guidelines
on how ideas such as team concept were actually to be
worked out in practice. Prior to their experience with CAMI,
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Management
the national office of the CAW had begun to evolve policies
on appropriate union responses to JPM. At the same time,
the new local at CAMI started to handle day-to-day
problems arising from the application of JPM at CAMI. An
increasingly evident focus of concern was the role of team
leader. In early 1990,400 workers attended one of the biggest meetings ever held by the local, at which there was
heated discussion of the role of team leader. Some months
later the local produced a short handbook containing union
guidelines for team leaders. Published under the authority
of the Executive and In-Plant Committee, the handbook
states that it is "intended to be used as a guide by all team
members" and that it has been designed "to help team
leaders [to perform] their team leader functions and be good
union members." The guidelines stress that the team leader
is a unionized production worker who is "a technical advisor, not a personnel manager." The demarcation between
the team leader and management is summed up by the statement that the job function of the team leader "is to support
production," while that of the area leader "is to manage
people."
Not long after the plant began production the workforce
contested CAMI's dress code, which calls for company
uniforms and hats. Workers maintained the hats were uncomfortable and interfered with the performance of their
jobs. The local union took up the issue, but the company
refused to alter its official policy. Even so, CAMI's dress
code rules have been relaxed. While CAMI uniforms are
still required, it is now rare to see workers wearing hats
and non-CAMI issue sweaters are also worn. On Remembrance
Day, 1990 two workers violated the dress code when they
arrived at the plant wearing poppies. An area leader ordered
them to remove the poppies. The workers refused and were
sent home. The following day more workers showed up at
CAMI wearing poppies. Management relented, although the
two workers were disciplined for disobeying a direct order.
Although seemingly minor, these kinds of incidents have
boosted worker morale and union solidarity.
The local union newsletter has stepped up its criticism
of management and repeatedly takes CAMI to task for fail99
Studies in Political Economy
ing to live up to its own values. The local union also is
asking hard questions about kaizen, In the February, 1991
issue of Local 88's newsletter, Off the Line, the President
of the local, Rob Pelletier, wrote, "We've all heard about
those who katzen out a job from their team, and then find
they are over-worked." He warned the membership:
to be wary of how easy it is for management to fill up the time
we save with our improvements. This sort of continuous
redistribution of work costs us jobs, and eventually puts such
a burden on us that we risk injury from trying to work too
quickly, forgetting about safety ....If you can figure out a way
to do something in less time, keep your secret within the team.
This is your time, you've earned it.
Just Another Car Factory? Our second visit left us with
the impression that work pace and work loads had increased.
There were definitely more unsolicited complaints about
being overworked, and more shopfloor conversations dealt
with the problem of repetitive strain injuries. Our workplace
observations do provide some evidence of intensified work.
For example, in March, 1990 the truck line completed 150
jobs a shift. Eight months later 190 jobs were done in an
eight-hour shift, an increase of 27 percent. Two workers
were added to one of the teams on the line to compensate
for the speed-up, however, this meant only a 17 percent
increase in personnel. During this same eight month period,
workers' job cycles at this station decreased from 2.68 to
2.00 centi-minutes.
These impressions have to be framed by the results from
our survey interviews. In answer to a question about the
pace of work, about one-third of our sample considered the
work pace to be too fast. About one-quarter of the respondents complained that the line speed was too fast often or
all the time. About one-third of the sample reported being
physically tired all the time or often and the same proportion
reported being burned out often or all the time when they
got home from work. We are in the process of more fully
analyzing these data, controlling for work area, prior union
experience, sex and the like. For instance, when we asked
people to compare their present work load with the work
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Management
they had performed six months ago, 36 percent said it was
easier, 33 percent reported it was the same and 31 percent
indicated they were working harder. There are important
differences by department Close to half of the assembly
workers (45 percent) reported that they were working harder, while only 13 percent of those in off-line jobs made
similar claims.
In our second round of observations we also discerned
a growing disillusionment with CAMI philosophy, or perhaps more accurately with the gap between philosophy and
shopfloor practice. Over three-quarters (79 percent) of the
sample in round one agreed with the statement that
"management would put one over on the workers if they
had the chance." By round two this increased to 90 percent.
Similarly, in the initial interviews people were more evenly
split over whether or not there were prospects for CAMI
to be something different from a typical factory. In the
second round over three-quarters argued that CAMI was a
factory where management still had all the power.
Considering that issues such as workplace culture are
theoretically complex and not easily understood by the
simple frequency of responses, we have constructed a scale
which combines a series of questions measuring different
but related elements of what we term integration (or commitment). The integration scale measures the degree of commitment to CAMI philosophy and values. Between the two
rounds of our interviews there has been a definite movement
away from a position of commitment. At the base line
measure 27 percent of the respondents were highly integrated, 32 percent were somewhere in the middle and 40
percent showed responses characteristic of low commitment
or resistance. By the second round only 13 percent occupied
the high integration category, one-third were still in the
middle and over half of the sample (54 percent) were in
the low integration group. This is the group that interprets
worker empowerment at CAMI to be strictly limited in
scope and degree, who see the workplace as undemocratic
and who are concerned that participation means workers
contributing ideas that are used to increase work loads, accelerate the pace of work and eliminate workers. But even
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Studies in Political Economy
among this group, there are those who see in the CAM!
principles of cooperation and team spirit an opportunity to
make a difference. It is a limited agenda. As one local union
leader expressed it, "This is a car factory but maybe [from
the point of view of workers] it can be a good one."
Conclusion In our study of IPM at CAMI we seek to ascertain how workers themselves are experiencing the new
production methods and how their attitudes and responses
are changing over time. Previous investigations of transplants
have either ignored workers altogether, or have relied on
relatively unsystematic interviews conducted outside of the
plant.27 Even on the basis of two rounds of data collection,
we have arrived at some conclusions relevant to the debate
on IPM. The claims by the MIT group and others that lean
production delivers advantages to workers as well as to managers are hardly sustained by our data, whether we look at
the survey evidence, open-ended interviews, our work-station observations, or by following the concerns taken up
by the in-plant union committee.28
But while our findings halfway into the research certainly
challenge the claims being advanced by the advocates of
IPM, at least as far as workers are concerned, the responses
to certain questions did indicate a degree of support for
particular features of IPM. Of course, given the selection
process, the efforts devoted to instilling CAMI corporate
culture in the workforce, and the continuing presence of a
high proportion of workers who had been part of the first
cohort of CAMI pioneers.s? we would expect to encounter
some ongoing support for CAMI's version of IPM.
The second major set of findings presented in this paper
address the complex responses of workers to the ideas of
kaizen and team concept. Workers were more likely to express approval for particular features of IPM when they
could see some real possibility for advancing their own objectives or for adapting existing structures to realize specific
goals, however limited these might be. Thus workers tried
to appropriate the kauen process to make work less stressful,
or they developed a heightened appreciation for their team's
sense of solidarity in advancing worker interests. As our
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Management
research proceeds, we hope to ascertain more about the ways
in which workers continue to test the creative possibilities
of using kaizen, team concept and other features of JPM
to further their own concerns.
A third conclusion relates to JPM's alleged transcendence
of Taylorism. The re-unification of conception and execution of work supposedly is achieved by the employment of
multi skilled workers who perform challenging jobs, who
respond to changes in model mix and line speed through
job rebalancing, and who are responsible for the continuous
improvement of the production process (kaizen). The industrial engineering function at CAMI has incorporated
workers, but Taylorist principles remain dominant. In other
words, while the process of restructuring jobs constitutes
a departure from traditional industrial engineering practice,
the outcomes of the process conform to the Taylorist dictates
of tightly timed, standardized, repetitive tasks. The main
vehicles for the realization of kaizen - QC circles and
individual suggestions - do allow workers to use their ingenuity and knowledge. However, the liberatory potential
of these programs is limited because: 1) they have as their
goal cost reduction rather than workers' safety, satisfaction
and development; and 2) suggestions are controlled by
managers, who have the final say as to their disposition.
These limited forms of workers' involvement, multitasking
(rather than multiskilling), and the absence of opportunities
for continuous training and skills development operate
within a hierarchical control structure whose egalitarian
facade does little to mask the subordinate position of
workers. It is fair to conclude that JPM at CAMI incorporates key elements of Taylorism and has made no genuine
movement toward re-unifying mental and manual labour.
The fourth finding to emerge from our research concerns
the role of the union. In contrast to the stances taken by
some of Japan's enterprise unions, Local 88, a unit of a
national union that has publicly questioned JPM, is beginning to construct on the shopfloor a collective force that
can both defend and advance workers' interests. The union
presence has been viewed by workers as necessary, and the
union culture has already influenced the manner in which
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Studies in Political Economy
IPM operates at CAMI. Whether it is helping to shape the
role of team leader, or providing support to workers who
want to resist involvement in activities like kaizen and the
teian programme, the union has made a difference. The ongoing success of these and other endeavours by workers
and their local leadership will affect whatever form IPM
eventually assumes at CAMI.
Notes
In addition to the authors listed, the members of the CAW Research Group
on CAMI are: Steve Benedict (CAW Local 112), Alan McGough (CAW
Local 27), Herman Rosenfeld (CAW Local 303), Jeff Wareham (CAW Research Department). An earlier version of this paper was presented to the
9th Annual International Labour Process Conference, University of
Manchester Institute for Science and Technology, Manchester, England in
April, 1991. We would like to thank Gregory Albo, Hugh Armstrong, Mike
Parker, Ester Reiter and Donald Swartz for their helpful comments. We
would also like to acknowledge the research assistance of Cynthia Johnston
and Kaiyu Wang. The financial support of Labour Canada for this research
is gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed in this paper are those
of the Research Group and not those of Labour Canada.
1.
104
This project was proposed by the CAW. Access to CAMI was initiated by the CAW research department and negotiated through
senior level meetings between CAMI and the union. The CAW's
interest in the study stems from its desire to monitor an operation
embodying forms of work organization and labour-management relations with which the union has had little direct experience but still
has a number of concerns. The research is being conducted by a
team of two CAW researchers from the national office, three local
CAW officials and two academics. The local unionists joined the
research group after having been trained by the CAW as Local
Union Discussion Leaders on the subject of team concept. The
academics had planned on initiating their own study of CAMI, but
when informed of the union's project, accepted the CAW's invitation
to join the research group.
We are spending one full work week at the plant at four regular
intervals over a two year period. At each of the four research visits
we are interviewing a randomly drawn sample of 100 workers, 10-15
team leaders and 10-15 managers. Schedules. consisting of both
fixed-choice and open-ended questions are used for the workers.
Interviews with team leaders and managers are open-ended and most
of them are taped. While the same workers will be interviewed
each time, the team leaders and managers may change. All
employees in our sample are being interviewed on company
premises and most on company time. Another major component of
our study is the repeated observation of work stations on the
Robertson, Rinehart, Huxley/Japanese
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Management
shopfloor. Technology. job content. line speed. work loads etc .• are
recorded. and we talk to team leaders and workers. These observations will allow us to track changes in the labour process over
the two year period. Our first visit to the plant was March, 1990.
prior to full production. Our second visit. at the end of November.
1990 saw the plant at full line speed and with a second shift on
the car side. As far as we can determine. this is the first study of
a Japanese or joint venture plant in North America to systematically
draw information from a randomly selected sample of workers and
to have such unrestricted access to the shopfloor.
See John Holmes. "The Globalization of Production and the Future
of Canada's Mature Industries: The Case of the Automotive Industry," in Daniel Drache and Meric Gertler (eds.) The New Era
of Global Competition: State Policy and Market Power (Montreal:
McGill-Queen's U. Press, 1991). pp. 153-180; Jonathan Morris. "A
Japanization of Canadian Industry?" in ibid .• pp. 206-228; Ernest
YanarelIa and William Green. Other People's Cars: Industrial Recruitment and Foreign Direct Investment in the North American Auto
Marketplace: The Case of Canada (Unpublished research monograph.
U. of Kentucky. 1992); Automotive News. August 6. 1990.
John Paul MacDuffie, "The Japanese Auto Transplants: Challenges
to Conventional Wisdom." ILR Report 26/1 (1988). p.12.
James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones and Daniel Roos, The Machine That
Changed the World (New York: Rawson Associates. 1990), p. 13.
Ibid .• p. 101.
Ibid .• p. 102.
Ibid.
Richard Florida and Martin Kenney, "Transplanted Organizations:
The Transfer of Japanese Industrial Organization to the U.S .•••
American Sociological Review 56 (June 1991). p. 388. This view
of IPM is also endorsed in Canada. Employment and Immigration,
Automotive: Why People Count. Report of the Automotive Industry
Human Resources Task Force (Ottawa. 1986). p. 6.
See Mike Parker and Jane Slaughter. Choosing Sides: Unions and
the Team Concept (Boston: South End Press. 1988).
See Simon Clarke. "The Crisis of Fordism or the Crisis of Social
Democracy?" Telos Spring 1990. pp. 71-98; Knuth Dohse. Ulrich Jurgens and Thomas Malsch, "From 'Fordism' to 'Toyotism'? The Social
Organization of the Labor Process in the Japanese Automobile Industry." Politics and Society 14/2 (1985). pp. 115-146.
At this stage it is sufficient to note that at NUMMI the UAW national
and local leadership appear to have made more significant concessions to Japanese management than is the case at CAMI. On this
point see Clair Brown and Michael Reich. "When does UnionManagement Cooperation Work? A Look at NUMMI and GM-Van
Nuys," California Management Review Summer 1989. pp' 26-44.
Mazda offers a further basis for comparison. since the UAW local
went through an intense debate over how to respond to Japanese
management methods, resulting in the election of a new and more
militant local leadership. See Joseph J. Fucini and Suzy Fucini,
Working for lhe Japanese: Inside Mazda's American Auto Plant
(New York: Free Press, 1990).
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Studies in Political Economy
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
106
Differences between the CAW and the UAW developed over a period
of several years prior to the eventual parting of the ways. A major
source of disagreement centred on the Canadian union's spirited rejection of the concession bargaining that had increasingly characterized
the industrial relations climate in the industry by the late 1970s.
See Canadian Auto Workers. "Statement on the Reorganization of
Work" (Policy statement of the CAW Council. Fall 1989). p. 2.
Ibid.
Yasuhiro Monden, Toyota Production System (Norcross. Georgia:
Industrial Bngineering and Management Press. 1983). p. 11. The
production system established at Toyota is virtually synonymous
with what is now known as JPM or lean production. For a further
analysis of some of the JPM elements that are discussed below see
David Robertson. "Workplace Restructuring
and the CAW
Response" (paper presented to Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association. 1990).
Ibid .• p. 11.
Ibid .• Chapter 7.
Ibid .• Chapter 9.
Ibid .• p. 100.
Ibid .• p. 105.
Womack. Jones and Roes, The Machine ...• p. 16. Whether or not
teams are essential to lean production is a question we will subsequently take up in our research. In our view. lean production can
and does exist without teams. It is the case. however. that CAM!
and the other transplants. as well as the Big Three. are all promoting
some variant of team concept.
MacDuffie. "The Japanese Auto Transplants ...••• p.1S.
CAM! may have a higher proportion of women workers than in
most of the Big Three auto plants operating in Canada. In addition
to examining whether there were any significant variations in the
responses to the survey questions by sex. we are addressing a number
of research questions on gender issues at work under JPM at CAMI.
We intend to present our findings and analysis on these issues after
completing all four rounds of the study.
In the first two rounds there was little difference in participation
in the teian program by department (except for a somewhat lower
rate among the skilled trades). age. sex or previous union membership. Younger persons (under 35 years of age) had a somewhat
higher rate of participation in QC circles than their older counterparts. but there was no substantial variation in participation in QCs
by sex or previous union membership.
This is not new. Marx discussed how employers used cooperative
practices that workers had developed in pre-capitalist societies to
their own advantage. Karl Marx. Capital Vol. I. (London: Lawrence
and Wishart. 1974). Chapter 13.
We are constructing measurement scales from the survey data to
help us assess the relationship among team members and between
team members and team leaders.
Bxamples of this kind of research include Womack. Jones and Roos,
The Machine ... and Florida and Kenney. "Transplanted Organizations ...••
Robertson, Rinehart, Hoxley/Japanese
28.
29.
Management
Only the management interviews provide views of CAM! that are
consistent with those of IPM enthusiasts, but there were some interesting differences of viewpoint on what was possible. This will
be of special interest as the original cadre of managers changes
over the course of the study.
One union committee person remarked that even he had to agree
that CAMI was a great place to work, until they started to make
cars.
107