The bosses' The fight against new management techniques Trade Union Committee. Here ANDREW KILMISTER explains how these techniques work and why they challenge millions of trade unionists, from car workers to teachers. THE IMPOSITION of new management techniques will be, together with the laws, the key question facing workers in he next decade Although generally associated with manufacturing industry, especially cars, they are now being introduced in the pubne sector. Fealth, education, the post office, telecom and transport all face the same offensive. Few workers will not be faced with some aspect of these techniques in the coming years.
New management techniare often called apanisation' because Japanese firms have played a key role in introducing them. But they did not all originate in Japan; indeed many were developed in the US and introduced into Japan during the post-war occupation.
There are four main elements to these techniques. First an at -tack on trade unions. Second, the transformation of working condiThird, the reshaping of the workforce. Finally, these techniques are held together by an overall ideological offensive.
None of these elements, taken separately, is new. What is new and threatening is the way these things are being integrated by management into a coherent approach in which each one reinforces the others.
Attacking the trade unions can involve outright de-recognition, as in the Unipart plant in Oxford, and in the print trade. But derecognition so far has involved relatively few areas. Anti-unionism has included a range of measures designed to break the allegiance of workers to their union, and identify will be a main topic of discussion at the conference being organised in July by the Socialist Movement Soft on LUL company plan: RMT chief Jimmy Knapp mance is judged to be good enough; exactly the same model is being proposed for teachers in higher education.
At Unipart the company employs a solicitor to give free legal advice, including on questions like unfair dismissal. Such measures constantly undermine the independent role of the unions.
The new techniques demand an intensification of work levels, reduction or abolition of job demarcation, being proposed on London Underground, and by putting respon sibility for quality control and maintenance on to production workers, thus cutting the workforce.
Defining jobs in terms of tasks to be carried out per week, rather than hours worked per week, effectively introduces compulsory overtime.
Speed-up often operates through team-working. Teams have the responsibility for checking their own output and also checking and reporting on other teams.
In Britain the main focus in this area has been in the public Specially local govern nent, with compulsory competi tive tendering. In education, telecommunications, social services and publishing the use of agency staff, freelance workers and workers on short-term contracts is on the increase. The workforce becomes divided, with obvious implications for those already discriminated against such as women and The different aspects of the techniques are held by a number of ideological cal hare constante words are constantly used - like 'choice, "flexibility' and 'quality. Companies aim to world class' through introducing systems of total quality management.
Management tries to portray anyone who opposes the techniques as being inflexible, as --__Employers have come a long way in developing new ways of screwing the workforce standing in the way of providing choice or quality for the 'customer' or 'client'. Unscrupulous local authorities, social services departments or educational managements have no compunction about using the situation of working vices as a lever to introduce new Teachers and social workers are ford that acceptins new echniques is a necessary part o quality for a wider range of people; without being pey more remources to do ste A further element of the ideological offensive is simply the proposition that unless new management techniques are acepted, then the company wi o the wall. Belling, the electri cooker manufacturer, forced through new techniques on just this basis, and promptly went New management technihey ren be resorted. This -powerful and depends to a large extent on the militancy and attitude of the workforce. Teams cannot be used to replace trade unions if the workers refuse to see the teams who are representing their interests. Changes in the workforce need not weaken unity or trade union organisation if the unions respond and actively recruit.
The techniques have been more easily introduced by Japanese companies in new plants with a new workforce. Introducing them in existing workplaces with existing union representation will be more difficult. The struggle against the introduction of these techniques will play a maor role in determining the possibilities for trade union organisation in the coming decade.
Second Conference 1992