Workers, activists, union supporters… Find out

“What’s Happening??”

in the workplace – today!!

 In 1998, a range of workplace trade union activists provided contributions to a much-appreciated pamphlet, “What’s Happening?? The Truth About Work…& the Myth of Partnership”. The pamphlet focused on strategies and tactics that work – both in winning victories against management and getting members involved.

Now, ten years later, “What’s Happening?? The Truth About Work…& the Myth of Work-Life Balance” tells us more about that much-ignored  topic – exactly what goes on at work.

This time, even more contributions – from workers in sectors ranging from buses to building work, telecomms to teaching – show us once again that whatever the area of work, management objectives and working pressures are eerily similar. With an editorial linking these common themes together, What’s Happening?? continues to be essential reading for anyone wanting to make a difference to the problems of falling pay, ever-increasing intensification and management bullying facing workers today.    

Order your copy or copies of

What’s Happening??

from TU Publications, c/o PO Box 58262, London N1 1ET.

£5 to individuals,

£3.50 per copy for orders over 5,

£3 orders over 10,

£2.50 orders over 20,

£2 orders over 30.

Cheques to TU Publications.

The recent dispute at the Grangemount refinery in Scotland shows just how far employers are prepared to go, in order to diminish terms and conditions long since fought for and won. They are prepared to lose millions of pounds, to gain just what exactly?

Are the pension payments crippling this struggling company? (Struggling?)

Are we to believe that this company will go to the wall if it can’t make the changes to the pension fund that it wants?

I think not and I do not think that this is the case in any other company that has proposed or implemented similar changes.

The problems faced by workers today, will be multiplied many times over when the workers retire, these short term gains by employers, will, in my humble opinion, come back to haunt us all, when retirees will be dependent on the state for support, after a lifetime of work.

We are led to believe that the company wants one off changes to the scheme, more like the thin end of the wedge as far as I can see, what’s next I wonder?

Perhaps paying the owner for permission to go to work? Or some other such gem from the expanding branches of “Lean”.

Paying to go to work is not so far fetched ask anyone who works for the NHS if they have to pay to park!!!! Workers mainly at the lower end of the pay scale that is.

 

GM Europe, has this week announced new measures for outsourcing of some of its work around Europe.GM want to cut its workforce by 5136, a very precise number that shows some thought has already gone into the exercise.The Trade Unions have been aware for some time that there were parts of the organisation that were targeted for outsourcing and indeed have agreed in the past to support such measures in return for greater job security.

This new round of cuts in the workforce, have it seems taken the European Trade Unions by complete surprise and a dip in profits is being blamed for the decision.The truth of course is that this is another cut from the knife of “Lean” and will mean another group of workers left without adequate pension provision at 65 and as such dependent on the State?

It could be that these firms that win the outsourcing contracts will provide adequate pensions and other benefits, but I very much doubt that this will be the case and I will have my hat duly salted just in case. If they did, the fuss would not be quite so great. 

Another real crisis for GM?

Or Just another step towards their goal of!!! Just what exactly?

Only agency or outsourced workers to produce GM products?

GM only to be involved in the marketing of the products? 

Just what is the goal of GM and other large companies?

Lean really is Mean and we need to open up the debate, before it is too late and we are all working for minimum wage with no benefits. 

Are we there yet?

A phrase though that I think the dynamics of Lean were made for, after all, if the jingo is to be believed, they never will get there.

Over the next hill and just around the corner, how many times have you said that? Of course the destination is never there, always one more hill and one more corner.

The push for Lean amongst, not only manufacturing, but in all walks of life, has left us in this sort of limbo, for the employers, it is

“Can we get any better”?

For the worker of course the questions are far more realistic and that simply put is:-

“Can this get any worse”?

Well, yes I am sorry but not only will it get worse, but until we realise exactly what is going on, it will impoverish us all, all us workers that is.

Not simply in terms of what we take home in our pay packet, but more far reaching than that, for example, will we have a retirement pension, will I be able to live a reasonably comfortable life during my retirement, now that Lean has gobbled up the occupational pension and forced me into a private pension?

What effect on my health will the Lean Revolution bring about?

Will I have a retirement free of occupational ill health? RSI etc.

We need to get the debate going and have people who are at the sharp end of this Lean thing, to express their opinions and help to bring some realisation to the whole issue.

So if you think it’s all balls, then feel free to comment, or if you agree with me, then likewise feel free to comment.

So be quiet back there, it’s just up ahead!!!!!!

Cartoon by: cartoonwork@carolsim.com

 ——————

VW Launch of the VW Way!!!!

Source: 

just-auto.com
December 5, 2007

In order to increase productivity and guarantee jobs, the management and works council at Volkswagen have agreed on a common strategy, known as the ‘Volkswagen Way’.
According to the German press agency, dpa, the strategy was announced at a works meeting in Wolfsburgthis week. Human resources director, Horst Neumann, said that the ‘Volkswagen Way’ would aim to develop and produce cars of the highest quality at a price that consumers are willing to pay.
He said that there are still real synergies that can be made with the potential for a massive leap in productivity. This needs networked thinking and a close cooperation between all divisions.
Director of the group works council, Michael Riffel, said that the Volkswagen Way is about improving production processes and optimising work organisation, but that it is also about guaranteeing jobs and pay. “No-one loses money because everyone is engaged in ensuring that we become better and more effective. No-one should be worried about their job.”
The ‘Volkswagen Way’ goes back to the 2004 wage negotiations. Employees sought cost savings from management process, structures and organisation in exchange for working longer hours for effectively lower pay.
Wage costs account for just under 15% of the cost of a car, said works council chief, Bernd Osterloh. “It is not about making people work faster. Rather we must make it possible for them to use their work time more effectively.”

The structure of the work processes is the job of the management.

 ——————————————————————————————————————

Well!! What Do You Think?

It all seems nice and simple even logical, but what is the cost?

If jobs are not at stake as is claimed by VW, why would the Works Coucil agree to work longer for less? What a great bunch of guys these workers must be.

This is “Lean” at its most potent, when workers are forced through circumstances to adapt to worsening terms and conditions of employment.

Ramparts of Resistance examines the experience of British and US workers during the last three decades to offer a broad analysis of the need for a new independent politics of trade unionism. Recent years have seen great changes in the trade union movement, from waves of strikes in the 1970s to a battery of employer and state onslaughts, culminating in the anti-union legislation of the 1980s and 1990s. Looking at grassroots labour struggles, Cohen explores issues of reformism, trade union democracy and the political meaning of ordinary workplace resistance, and puts forward ideas for change. Ramparts of Resistance examines the failure of the union movement to rise to the neo-liberal challenge and calls for a new politics of independent unionism and an explicitly class-based renewal of “workers’ power”. Coming at a time when union activity and membership involvement continues despite the odds, this book is an inspiring guide to the direction that unionism should take.

Link to the book at Pluto books is below.

http://www.plutobooks.com/cgi-local/nplutobrows.pl?chkisbn=9780745315294&main=&second=&third=&foo=../ssi/ssfooter.ssi

 

Cartoon by: cartoonwork@carolsim.com
 

Essentially, who actually benefits from lean?

There is no evidence that I can see, that employees have in any way benefited from the Lean deal, only the opposite can be said.

It is true that employers will point to profit margins and competition as indicators of how well the company is performing and hence greater job security, but in real terms this is only a short term benefit, in the long term employees find themselves faced with increased work tempo, curious shift working arrangements and ever higher targets as well as other stress related issues.

Is there any evidence that workers are financially better off? That workers have had a good deal?

In the US are the jobs that have been bought out in the auto industry been replaced, like for like?

Are new workers protected with a decent pension plan? Do they have a good family health plan?

Questions that must be asked and questions that are rarely asked.

Workers have always faced changes at work in one form or another and have largely adjusted to these changes without much fuss or problem, but the push to do more with less is growing day by day and the loser will be the worker, worked until too tired or broken to continue and will either end up taking an early retirement package or voluntary redundancy package in order to escape the rigours of the new work environment.

I heard today on the radio that the two Japanese transplant auto firms in the UK make the most efficient and reliable cars in the UK, they also have the highest turnover of labour, broken down human, reliable car.

I am not putting forward any sort of case for halting progress for employers, what I am trying to say is that the cost does not have to be a human one, by all means make the best product, give the best service etc. but it must all end somewhere! There must be some balance, some way of achieving what they employer would like in a better way.

In the UK there is a move for workers to work until 70 years of age!!!!

I can’t imagine how a worker on one of todays Lean Production lines, or working in one of our Lean Prouctin workplaces, could possibly achieve this, whilst it may be true that people are indeed living longer, are they also having a good quality of life in these extra years?

After a lifetime of work, workers deserve better than this.

Mostly the changes that the big companies have achieved have been on the back of threats to job security and such like and use this spectre of plant closure on a constant basis.

Do you have any experience of this?

Has your health suffered?

Has the health of your family suffered?

Anyone who works in an industry that is truly “Global” can understand “Lean” in a different way, whilst the employer is busy trimming in your workplace, it is more than likely that the exact same thing is happening around the globe at different work locations.

Over the years we have seen  changes in the way our services are delivered and by whom, in some instances services provided by the company for decades have been switched to agencies not directly controlled by the company concerned.

Normally this means minimum wages and a deteriation of terms and conditions, or rationalisation as the company might put it, strange that the boardroom never undergoes a similar rationalistion process!

 So it is easy to see why big companies often go to less well developed places and have a “Lean From Day One” attitude, workers don’t know any different, this is then developed and exported back to the other workplaces, not really global at all, just easy to do.

• Do you have a story to tell?
• Do you have an opinion?

Lean Production is part of everyday life, from the supermarket to the bus, the hospital waiting room to your place of employment.