I have seen several sites on the internet extolling the virtues of Lean Production and its beneficial effects for business.
Whilst it may be true that business has indeed benefited from the phenomena of this new way of business, workers have not benefited at all, indeed it is true to say that the workers involved in the progression of Lean Production, have in fact been put at a distinct disadvantage.
Workers are working harder than they have for a long time and where they get the opportunity to take early retirement or take redundancy, are tempted to do so, either because the pace of the work is too fast, or they are finding themselves having physical problems, RSI for example or back problems, they then find themselves in the minimum wage even longer hours trap with the same physical problems that they had before.
Increasingly a lot of the jobs that have been top sliced by Lean are eventually contracted out to agencies, workers again falling into the long hours low wage trap.
The maxim that the harder you work the better off you will be is now so out of date that it is a distant memory, these days the harder you work as a result of Lean, the less you earn and the shorter is your working life, all profits of course like all cream, rising to the top.
I would like to hear the opinions of those who have been affected by Lean, by the onset of this new company evolution, what are your experiences?
A lot of workers might not even know what is happening, but is your firm producing twice the amount of products with half the labour?
I am concerned that we will end up with the loss of thousands of middle earning semi skilled jobs, to be replaced by low paid jobs in the service sector, with all the problems that this then represents!
