1. March, 2010, Beijing Cathy Walker Former Director, Health and Safety Department Canadian Auto Workers Union Automotive industryIntroduction

2. Early motor vehicles north america evolved from bicycle, Henry Ford’s quadricycle, 1896

3. Whole vehicles made by one or a small group of highly skilled mechanics, 1901 henry ford

4. Mass production led to production efficiencyford assembly line 1913

5. Interchangeable parts rather than having to make new parts for each vehicle Model A, 1903, skilled fitter took 8.5 hours to build a major part of a car Model T, 1908, completely redesigned assembly line so that each job took 2.5 minutes 1913 introduced moving assembly line so workers didn’t have to walk between stations, reducing each job to under 2 minutes Cars were painted by hand

6. Fordism, mass production mean that jobs are divided into small parts so hundreds of unskilled workers, together, build hundreds of vehicles

7. Of course there are still skilled workers to maintain the production machines, but the production itself is done by unskilled workers

8. Workers are alienated from the means of production, karlmarx Capitalist owns the factory And the workers are simply factors of production

9. fordism A term coined by Italian Communist, Antonio Gramsci to describe a form of production characterized by an assembly line (conveyor belt factory system) and standardized outputs linked with the stimulation of demand brought about by low prices, advertising, and credit.

10. Ford standardized production and consumer choice You can have any colour as long as it’s black Henry Ford, Model T Ford, 1921

11. Many myths and half truths about ford $5 a day, high wages Workers should be able to own the vehicles they produce But, the reality is that Ford did much to keep unions out of his factories

12. Ford used his own private police force and company goons The company threatened firing and did fire people for ‘talking union’ Workplaces were full of favouritism and bribery, eg. Workers needed to give the supervisors a bottle of alcohol for better jobs Company spied on workers’ personal lives Shortage of labour during World War II meant workers had more power

13. Workers fought to get the unionFord rouge workers in Detroit, usa 1941

14. 5 week strike in windsor, canada in 1945thousands of pickets blockaded plants

15. 5 week strike in windsor, canada in 1945thousands of pickets fought police

16. 5 week strike in windsor, canada in 1945thousands of cars blockaded plants

17. 5 week strike in windsor, canada in 1945thousands of cars blockaded plants

18. Finally, union is recognized and collective agreement achieved

19. Taylorismfrederickwinslowtaylor, american, 1856-1915

20. Taylor: task of factory management determine the best way for the worker to do the job, provide the proper tools and training provide incentives for good performance

21. Taylor broke down each job into its individual motions analyzed these to determine which were essential, and timed the workers with a stopwatch scientific management 1910

22. taylor eliminated unnecessary motion thus workers followed a machine like routine, becoming far more productive

23. Jobs became simple, repetitiveEasy to learn and incredibly boring

24. Lenin thought taylorism made sense he, too, sought industrial efficiency but did not understand the shortcomings of a system that de-skilled labour removing the thinking part of labour made jobs very boring

25. In mass production,Workers became cogs in machines

26. Today, time and motion studies of workers’ jobs measure tiny fractions of a second The effect is that workers no longer can work ahead on an assembly line to get small breaks They have no time to rest within their jobs but must follow the steps laid out by management precisely or they cannot keep up

28. Lean production, term began in 1988 John Krafcik, quality engineer in the Toyota-GM NUMMI joint venture in California Identify and steadily eliminate waste Continuous improvement

29. Toyotism: toyota production system Focus on improving flow of production Production levelling Eg. Kanban, pull system, parts are ready and brought to the assembly line when production requires it, just-in-time (JIT) production JIT is basically a system of inventory control and shifts responsibility for stocking inventory to parts suppliers

30. toyota

31. Andon lightwarns of production problems, but what about worker problems?

32. Advantages and disadvantages of working in teams Advantages: Get to work with other workers Variation in jobs if there are, eg. 12 jobs shared among 12 workers Can help to reduce repetitive strain injuries Disadvantages: Jobs are still boring If a worker is absent, other workers may be forced to do his job too If a worker is injured on a particular job and is unable to do it for a time, the other workers in the team are forced to do it, increasing their discomfort and risk of injury

33. Current issues for workers in canada:job loss Contracting out, ie jobs go elsewhere to other plants in Canada or to other countries Free trade agreements and de-regulation have hurt workers, allowing companies to go where they want, when they want

34. Crisis of overproduction:endemic to capitalism and a market economy, exactly as marx described Late 2008, GM and Chrysler faced bankruptcy in US and were bailed out by US and Canadian governments

35. Workers resist, led by the unionOccupATION OF gm FACTORY, 1996Issue, contracting out, 5 week strike

36. June 2008, company lies about closure during bargaining, workers and union occupy GM canadian headquarters

37. Alternatives to assembly line?Labour shortage in sweden 1974strong union demands: workers allowed to take breaks when wantedfinally, assembly line eliminated

38. Jobs became skilled again requiring years of training;but, when labour shortage over, so was the volvo experiment, plant finally closed

39. Labour productivity When news stories mention “productivity,” they almost always mean labourproductivity, which measures the output that an hour of labourproduces. Often expressed as “output per hour” or “output per worker-hour”.

40. Productivity at auto assembly plant A physical measure — the total number of cars produced in a given period of time (a week, a month, a year) divided by the number of worker-hours needed to produce them, or A monetary measure — the total dollar value of cars produced in a given period of time divided by the total number of worker-hours needed to produce them.

41. North america

42. Mexico auto assembly automates;productivity catches up

43. Improving Productivity in auto assembly If an auto assembly company can reduce the number of its direct employees by sub-contracting out or in (using dispatch workers), its reported productivity goes up And since it is seen as a productive company, the price of its shares goes up Today, a plant producing 250,000 or more cars per year is considered efficient and productive