Drudgery at Wentzville:
Downs, Peter
LABOR RELATIONS DRUDGERY AT WENTZVILLE THE TEAM CONCEPT STRIKES OUT One of the most striking features of the bishops' letter, Economic Justice for All, is its emphasis on human dignity. The...
...The locals compete with one another to cut costs by, for example, eliminating jobs...
...There is a type of respectful disrespect that even shows up in the employee handbook...
...or it rejects fewer parts for defects...
...No one starts to work in an auto plant expecting to stay there...
...We're dealing with major decisions here...
...According to management, one of the objects of the team system is to motivate workers to "do the job right the first time," what is called "doing it right in station...
...As a worker, all I can say is "Gee, thanks...
...Other avenues for worker involvement have not enhanced the workers' real participation...
...It really means following orders...
...The sooner union officials admit that, the better...
...It will do more for the unemployed too, since it will create more jobs...
...Several of today' s programs for bolstering the dignity of work by increasing workers' involvement in their workplace began as union proposals in the early 1970s, when everyone was concerned about "blue collar blues...
...be a good housekeeper...
...At Wentzville, the local union also got the right to send four workers, out of six thousand, to Detroit to help design the production process for a new model the plant is supposed to start producing in two years...
...The object of participative management never was to challenge any of the companies' most basic decisions or operating principles...
...Talk is cheap, however, and "dignity" is one of those things that is easy to feel, but hard to measure...
...It is the drive to maximize profits which is responsible for speed-up, the monotony of the work, and the pressure from supervisors to cut back on safety supplies and to work during breaks...
...Not a week goes by when I don't see an article in the business pages of a magazine or a newspaper stating that as the relationship between labor and management improves and both sides treat each other with respect, productivity gains...
...I was so very impressed . . . that I actually shed tears...
...GM and the UAW have even come up with a way to let local unions have a say on what products a plant will make and at what cost...
...keep fit...
...The newer plants are even air-conditioned, like offices...
...Workers are invited to think of ways to carry out orders with fewer deviations...
...The results, however, have not been what reformers had hoped for...
...Management makes all the important decisions, and workers decide how best to live with them...
...take pride in your work...
...The assumption was that workers' material needs were taken care of and all that was needed was to find a way to make them happy being part of a company that was ripping off the world in a drive for higher profits...
...That is "worker involvement" on a grand scale...
...In other words, can you think of a way to make your job even more monotonous by making it impossible to make a mistake...
...Being able to do six monotonous jobs is no more fulfilling than being able to do one...
...Indeed, thinking makes work on the assembly line harder...
...Absenteeism, though lower than in the 1970s, remains high compared to the 1950s and early 1960s...
...I was convinced that the team concept was the answer to our national economic and industrial ills, because the ideas and efforts of each individual worker would be sought out and appreciated...
...Management defines every problem so that workers cannot participate on the basis of what is good for society, for their community, or even for themselves...
...Many workers who stay develop "outside interests," which are more important to them than the auto plant...
...PETER DOwns Peter Downs, an assembly line worker for General Motors, is recording secretary for UAW Local 2250.tary for UAW Local 2250...
...If anything has changed, it is that there is now more cynicism and apathy about the union than before...
...The flaw in the UAW's project for humanizing the workplace is a simple one: it left management holding all the cards...
...It seems now everyone is concerned with the dignity of people at work...
...They own liquor stores or carwashes, or operate one-person cabinetry workshops, farms, or serve as construction contractors...
...Despite all the rhetoric about dignity and respect, management wants the job designed for brainless zombies...
...But how many times in a generation does that happen...
...Management's responsibilities, on the other hand, are "to improve the quality of work life of our employees...
...learn to listen actively...
...Job rotation hasn't changed the situation...
...It seems to be written from the point of view that workers are drudges, and they have to be told how to be good drudges so that they can be happy drudges...
...GM decides the products it is going to make, and local unions can bid against each other for a particular car model or product...
...to design the task so that eventually a robot can do it...
...At Wentzville, each team is assigned a budget and asked to think of ways of cutting its costs...
...By definition, the problems of quality control and cost reduction remain entirely up to management...
...According to Jim May, attendance coordinator at the plant, alcohol and drugs are still popular escape mechanisms...
...The bishops call attention not only to what we produce, but to the effects that our forms of work and styles of trade have on the people involved in them...
...The official philosophy of the team concept was that "informed people working together with mutual trust and respect will create an environment that encourages support, participation, pride, craftsmanship, and personal development...
...Obtaining a shorter workweek with no loss of pay will do more for assembly workers' dignity than any scheme for "participative management...
...I think they're wrong...
...Individual responsibilities listed in the handbook include such things as "be safe...
...Initially, many workers at Wentzville were enthusiastic about the team concept...
...and make a fair return to our stockholders on their investment...
...Many unions, including my own, the UAW, see the adoption of these programs and the discussion about dignity at work as a great advance for their members...
...The plant opened in 1984 with what was billed as a new form of work organization: the team concept...
...Workers did help plan the layout of the assembly line...
...The choices are limited...
...Those are the things through which workers achieve satisfaction or "success...
...Which is not to say that workers are not involved in managerial decisions...
...At Wentzville, most workers prefer to stay on one job because it is easier to daydream or talk with their neighbors if they stay on the same job than it is to do those things while trying to adjust to the rhythm of a different job every week or so...
...be dependable...
...It is the imperative to maximize profits, however, which is at the root of workers' alienation...
...I work at an auto assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri...
...They can only participate on the basis of what is good for the company...
...and be courteous...
...Besides treating workers with "dignity and respect," management at Wentzville and other GM plants agreed to UAW proposals for job rotation, worker participation in designing plants and jobs, and the involvement of workers in both quality control and cost reduction...
...In short, the choice is whether the team compromises quality or safety...
...Boredom and alienation remain endemic at Wentzville...
...For the engineer that means designing the job so that it is impossible for the worker to make a mistake, whether the worker is paying attention or not...
...Ken Wigger now says that the team concept was management's way of weakening the union...
...Unions, of course, have been concerned about the dignity of work for over a hundred years...
...Quality, defined as "performing the operation according to specifications," is not the same as performance, appearance, and comfort to a customer...
...invest in new products, plants, and equipment...
...If management decides to "outsource" a part or product, the local union gets a chance to figure out how to produce the part for less than the outside supplier...
...It gets in the way of the rhythm...
...Auto workers don't want the factory to be their life...
...Either the team replaces tools, such as drill bits and screwdriver tips, less often, and uses fewer safety supplies, such as gloves...
...Team coordinator Ken Wigger, for example, who had worked in steel mills and chemical plants before starting at GM-Wentzville in 1985, said, "They told us up-front that they would be using our brains and not just our brawn, that what we said would mean something...
...show enthusiasm...
...That is the same today as it was twenty or forty years ago...
...to manage the business so that human and capital resources are effectively utilized...
...That's not too surprising, however, because from the beginning of its humanizing efforts, the UAW accepted that the companies had the right to make as much money as they could, provided only that the workers got a "fair share...
...Once it's built, it's built...
...By failing to challenge that drive, unions campaigning for workplace democracy can obtain little more than tokenism...
Vol. 115 • September 1988 • No. 15
