The Canadian Automobile Industry: Work ...

Employee Relations The Canadian Automobile Industry: Work Reorganisation and Industrial Relations Change Tod Rutherford,

Article information: To cite this document: Tod Rutherford, (1990) "The Canadian Automobile Industry: Work Reorganisation and Industrial Relations Change", Employee Relations, Vol. 12 Issue: 2, pp.27-32, https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000001024 Permanent link to this document: https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000001024 Downloaded on: 30 November 2017, At: 07:04 (PT) References: this document contains references to 0 other documents. To copy this document: [email protected] The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 159 times since 2006* Downloaded by Syracuse University Libraries At 07:04 30 November 2017 (PT)

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THE CANADIAN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

T

he divergence in the economic and industrial relations development of the North American auto-industry is assessed.

Downloaded by Syracuse University Libraries At 07:04 30 November 2017 (PT)

The Canadian Automobile Industry: Work Reorganisation and Industrial Relations Change Tod Rutherford

Introduction Less than 20 years after the signing of the Auto Pact allowing conditional free trade in automotive products between the United States and Canada, the 1980s witnessed a marked divergence in the economic and industrial relations development of one of the most integrated sectors in North America. While American producers have yet to recover in both output and employment from the recession of the early 1980s, their Canadian subsidiaries have enjoyed remarkable success. Since 1980, investment in new plant and technology in Canada has totalled $10 billion and output and employment are significantly higher than their previous peak of the late 1970s[1]. New investment has not just been confined to the American-based "Big Three" (GM, Ford and The author wishes to thank John Homes for a steady stream of trans-Atlantic information and useful insights on the Canadian auto-industry. Responsibility for any errors remain with the author.

27

Chrysler) but has included Japanese and South Korean producers such as Toyota, Suzuki and Hyundai, which have established plants in Ontario and Quebec. Not only do these latter firms represent increased competition for North American-based manufacturers, but they are playing an important role in diffusing many work organisation innovations such as Just-in-Time/Kanban production and team-working. Most important from an industrial relations perspective though, is that the 1980s witnessed growing tensions between the US-based United Auto Workers (UAW) and the Canadian UAW, which ultimately led to the breaking away of the latter from its American parent and the formation of the independent National Union of United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of Canada (CAW). Since that time, the contracts won by the CAW from the Big Three producers have both diverged markedly from, and been significantly better than, those negotiated by the UAW. In particular, the CAW has been largely successful in maintaining a post-war "Fordist" type contract system which has included annual wage increases and Cost of Living Allowance (COLA). However, its American counterpart has increasingly been forced to accept what some have termed a "Post-Fordist" contractual system[2], with more contingent forms of payment (such as profit sharing), in lieu of annual wage increases as well as a marked shift towards more decentralised plant-level bargaining. Whilst the focus of this article is on developments in industrial relations in the Canadian auto-industry, what will be stressed is the important links between industrial relations and wider patterns of uneven development in the North American auto-industry. Many current and important industrial relations issues in the Canadian autoindustry such as team-working are inextricably tied up with work reorganisation and new technology. However, as will be made clear, the development of industrial relations in this sector has been and will continue to be, a major factor in determining the form of work organisation — especially as pressures to move towards more Japanese or flexible working practices grow.

Fordist Production and Industrial Relations in the Canadian Automobile Industry Since the late 1970s, the North American automobile industry has undergone perhaps the most significant period of restructuring since the 1930s. This restructuring has challenged the "Fordist" pattern of industrial relations which developed in the post-war period[3]. Fordist production, i.e. the use of assembly-line pacing of tightly specified and Taylorised work, created the basis of mass industrial unions such as the UAW in both the US and Canada in the late 1930s and 1940s. By 1950 though, an accommodation between labour and management had


28 INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN CANADA: CONTEMPORARY COMPARISONS AND CHANGE

developed which lasted almost 30 years. The bench-mark of this accommodation, the 1948 GM-UAW agreement developed a labour relations system which consisted of three central features: the determination of wages through formula-like "wage rules" in multi-year national agreements (usually three years in length); a collective bargaining structure which defined the relationship between national and plant level bargaining; and a "job control" focus on the contractual resolution of disagreements at both a national and local level[4,5]. The wage agreements included annual improvement factors (AIF) which since the mid-1960s has been roughly 3 per cent per year, and cost of living adjustment (COLA), which provided almost full protection for workers against inflation. Collective bargaining established agreements at a national level on overtime administration and seniority guidelines whilst local agreements focused on worker seniority, job ladders and bidding, transfer rights, and health and safety standards which governed shop-floor production. Job control agreements were necessary because wages were tied to jobs and not worker characteristics and as such required elaborate job classifications which defined the exact requirements of each job. As Kumar[5] in his study of labour relations at GM of Canada has made clear, despite the inclusive nature of the national Master agreement and those on a local level, the actual signiing of a contract between labour and management did not mean the end of conflict and disputes. Rather, many conflicts arose and had to be settled between the unionlocal and management over the interpretation of these agreements, particularly over production related issues such as job classification changes, production standards and working conditions. However, contracts were negotiated such that there was little, if any, significant variation in wage rates, between Big Three plants in North America. It was both the technical and social organisation of this system which began to go into crisis during the 1970s, as productivity gains slowed, "wildcat" strikes increased and unit labour costs began to rise. Moreover, national markets began to break down as international competition increased (particularly from the Japanese who were able to achieve a considerable landed cost advantage in North America) and the tendencies towards overcapacity in the Fordist system began to become more evident. During the recession of 1978-1982 world demand for automobiles fell by 13 per cent, whilst trade in vehicles increased by over 30 per cent. In Canada, import penetration has doubled since 1971 peaking at 31.4 per cent of the market in 1982, while during the recession of 1978-82 vehicle production declined from 1.8 million units to 1.2 million and sales fell over 30 per cent. This was the crisis which US producers and their Canadian subsidiaries were forced to confront by the early 1980s. In the next section, the response of the major assemblers will be examined, with particular attention focused on new technology and the social reorganisation of work.

Production Restructuring in the Canadian Automobile Industry In response to both the crisis of Fordism and more specifically the challenge represented by Japanese production methods, producers in both the United States and Canada have responded with several different strategies. Following Kumar and Holmes[3,5], these include: (1) The accelerated use of computerised automation such as CAD/CAM systems and robotics. (2) Joint ventures with Japanese and other foreign firms to supply small cars. The most notable example of this being the GM-Suzuki plant due to open at Ingersoll, Ontario in 1991. (3) A restructuring of the parts delivery system towards increased outsourcing and a shift away from the traditional "arm's length" relationship between buyers and suppliers, towards closer production collaboration and the implementation of Just-in-Time (JIT) or Kanban delivery systems. (4) An improvement in product technology. (5) The forging of a "new deal" with labour which emphasises greater worker involvement, fewer job classifications, increased flexibility in work arrangements and compensation and increased training and retraining of workers, and a new emphasis on more co-operative labour arrangements.

New Technology Perhaps the most thorough report on the implementation of new technology and work reorganisation in the Canadian auto-industry is a 1987 study by the CAW Technology Project[6]. As they point out the implementation of new technology has taken several different forms and has had an uneven impact on production organisation. Whilst new product technology (such as the application of electronic and microelectronic systems) in automobiles have been introduced, the most important innovations have been in the form of equipment and process technology. Equipment technology includes the introduction of programmable computers into or in tandem with equipment and machinery used to assemble automotive parts and vehicles. These include the use of computer numerical control machinery (CNC), CAD/CAM systems and automated guided vehicles (AGVs). Process technology is how these are organised into an overall manufacturing system which includes not only the use of JIT, but such quality assurance methods as statistical process control (SPC). Thus far, most of the implementation of new technology has taken the form of either task replacement or substitution in which robots or machines undertake and replace humans on relatively simple and repetitive tasks (such as welding and painting). To a lesser extent, there has been the development of "islands of automation" in


THE CANADIAN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY 29

which machines become more integrated and tasks are not only substituted but redefined (for example, CNC machining cells). The importance of these new forms of technology when compared with automation under Fordism, is that the latter was restricted to capital intensive component production. Machinery was fixed and single purpose and had to be scrapped for model changes. Since new technologies are reprogrammable and hence more flexible, they facilitate quick retooling for model changes, reducing turnover time from days to less than a few hours. As such these new technologies have contributed to a fall in the minimum economies of scale (MES) in the autosector. It is estimated, for example, that in the last decade the MES for GM has fallen from 8 million to 4 million units per year and for the average assembly plant from 400,000 to 250,000 units per year[3,7]. However, the costs of such new investment are extremely high. In Canada, perhaps the most ambitious attempt to introduce new technology has been the development of the Autoplex at the Oshawa GM plant. Here GM has invested some $C3.7 billion to modernise and raise capacity in its two car and one truck plant from 500,000 to 730,000 vehicles annually, the largest in North America. The assembly-line has been abolished with work being brought to work stations on automated guided vehicles. The plants themselves contain some 650 robots and over 1,300 AGVs[8]. The use of CNC machinery in metal stamping operations, will for example, reduce die change time from the current four hours to ten minutes, allowing the doubling of production output over a 24-hour period. This has also been augmented by a JIT delivery system with some 40 per cent of parts being made within four hours travelling time of Oshawa. Seats, for example, are made to order at nearby Whitby, starting only 115 minutes before they are installed on the production line. Indeed, the increased capital investment represented by the Autoplex has contributed to a change in GM's components sourcing strategy in Canada. In particular, GM has restored the alignment between Canadian component parts manufacturing and auto-assembly, which prevailed before the signing of the Auto Pact in 1965[5]. This is for several reasons. Firstly, it is no longer uneconomic for component parts to be built exclusively for Canadian GM operations due to the growth of the Canadian market in the last 20 years and the availability of new flexible technologies which allow smaller production runs. Furthermore, with the split of the American and Canadian UAW along national lines, it was felt by GM that such a realignment would be less vulnerable to work disruptions in the United States.

The Social Reorganisation of Work Significant as it is to current forms of reorganisation, new technology only creates the potential for increased flexibility and productivity. In fact, some have criticised GM's strategy as embodied in both the Autoplex and the Saturn project for its over-reliance on technology to raise

productivity and quality. Certainly there have been teething problems in both projects[9]. At the Autoplex for example, it took 14 months to achieve the target of 60 pickup trucks an hour averaged over three consecutive shifts. As noted earlier, it is the broader social organisation of work which determines the impact of such new investment. The CAW Report, for example, points out that while new technology has led to increased worker displacement this has not necessarily led to increased redundancies or layoffs[10]. The GM truck plant at the Autoplex was initially projected to cut 400 jobs or roughly 15 per cent of its workforce, but this has now been revised to an increase of some 200 since not as much technology as was originally projected is going into the plant and output levels have increased [6, p.17]. As the CAW Technology Project states: Whether job displacement translates into layoffs depends on a number of factors. It depends a great deal on corporate policy. It depends on whether the timing and the pace of the new technology is orderly, planned and linked to the normal rate attrition. It depends on whether production volumes increase, thereby providing displaced workers with jobs in other areas. It depends on whether new products are added to the mix in a way that accommodates the existing workforce and offsets the loss of jobs. Similarly, while the CAW report found the implementation of new technology had generally raised overall skill levels, its impacts were uneven and dependent on several factors. Where new technology has been introduced, such as in spray painting and welding, difficult and often dangerous jobs have been reduced, and workers freed from the pace of the assembly line. Whilst requiring less manual dexterity new jobs require greater monitoring and analytical skills and often necessitate workers having higher levels of education and training in statistics and other techniques. For example, of the total number of new employees at Honda's new plant in Alliston, Ontario, some 90 per cent are secondary school graduates (Grade 12), or better, while 40 per cent have a community college diploma or university degree[11]. Technical skills for some workers such as electricians have also risen for the maintenance and repair of new computer-based equipment, although as Robertson and Wareham[6] point out, this may be a temporary development since computer equipment is now being designed to minimise and simplify diagnosis and repair problems. However, in jobs which were formerly independent of the assembly line, such as machining and tool-making, the introduction of CNC machinery has tended to be deskilling, as jobs have become more fragmented and specialised. For example, in some shops, journeymen machinists and tool-makers have been replaced with semi-skilled machine operators. Workers have also reported that work responsibilities have increased (for example, to include inspection and quality control), with work itself becoming more intense and stressful and in many cases more boring. Since new machinery is designed to minimise human intervention, there is often relatively little for workers to do when it runs smoothly. However, this in itself can be a source of


stress, and even more so when machinery breaks down. Indeed, a recent study of the implementation of CNC technology in US firms (including automobile production,) found that such machinery was often down a third or more of the time after it was introduced to the shop-floor[12].


Towards Post-Fordist Industrial Relations?

In this context of the rapid restructuring of the technical and social organisation of work in the North American auto-industry, it is becoming increasingly clear that a critical mediator of this process is labour-management relations. Here there is evidence to suggest that there has been a significant divergence in practices between the US and Canadian auto-industries[13]. In the United States the UAW has made important concessions to the major producers. These have included a shift away from the traditional annual base wage increases in return for lump sum payments which are dependent on profit. Furthermore, the major producers have been able to secure more flexible practices by reducing demarcations between workers. This is epitomised by the team concept which operates at ten GM plants in the United States — most notably the joint GM-Toyota New United Motors Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI), at Freemont, California. Under the team concept, there is a single classification for all production workers and no job "ownership". Rather workers are cross-trained and multi-skilled in terms of different tasks, with some of their wages related to "pay for knowledge"[2,4,6,14]. Moreover, unlike previous Fordist contracts, wage rates are set locally with differentials between existing and new hire rates, such that a two-tier wage system has begun to develop. In Canada by contrast, management has thus far confronted significantly greater resistance in their attempt to implement these strategies. Not only was there resistance from the Canadian UAW to worker concessions as part of the Chrysler rescue in the late 1970s, but also during the 1982 Chrysler strike to restore wage increases, and the 1984 strike against GM Canada to preserve Fordist annual base wage increases, in addition to, a less successful attempt to reduce working time[3]. As a result of this growing split between the Canadian and American UAW, the Canadian section broke away in 1985-86 to form the CAW. Since that time the CAW has continued to win favourable contracts, achieving wage parity and contract synchronicity at all Big Three producers, as well as the indexing of pensions against inflation, significant health and education benefits and free legal service for all CAW members. However, it would be wrong to suggest that there has not been significant changes in work organisation in the Canadian automobile industry which involve a move towards more flexible work and industrial relations practices. These moves though, have generally been more piecemeal than in the United States, with the CAW being

less willing to accept the same changes in work arrangements that many UAW locals have been forced to concede. While the pace of these changes may be different, management introduction of new technology, flexible work practices and attempts to achieve greater worker cooperation, must all be seen as interrelated[6 p.40]. This interrelationship is perhaps best illustrated by new management approaches to training and attempts to introduce Quality of Worklife (QWL), quality circles and Employee Involvement (EI) programmes in Canadian plants. Technological change has led to increased management emphasis on training. For example, during the conversion of its Windsor Assembly plant to the production of the mini-van during the early 1980s, Chrysler provided some 900,000 person-hours of training to its workforce, while the training programme at the GM Truck Plant in the Autoplex has a basic six days of classroom and hands-on training. In most of these programmes, management has placed considerable emphasis on the building of not only technical skills but social ones (for example, some 70 per cent of training time at the GM Truck Plant is devoted to "cultural"' training). There is special management emphasis on getting workers involved in problem solving and thinking in company terms, while conflicts stemming from the often different interests between labour and management (such as the trade-off between health and safety and profit maximisation), are either minimised or ignored. Furthermore, as the CAW report points out, while training and retraining is directly tied to employment security and access to better jobs, it can itself become a new terrain of conflict between management and workers. Conflicts have occurred over the extent, content and appropriateness of training. The question of who gets access training has been contentious, since this has sometimes been based on management favouritism and not on seniority. Similar problems have marked the development of QWL, quality circles and employee involvement schemes[15,16]. Whilst the CAW has co-operated with some QWL and EI programmes it has made sure that these did not undercut the union's role by preventing these schemes from dealing with contractual issues. However, since in practice this separation between what is covered by the contractual agreement between the union and thefirmand the QWL or EI programmes is often difficult to maintain and because these programmes have tended to be top-down and management dominated, the union's role in representing workers can be undermined. As Rinehart[15, p. 83] in his study of employee participation groups (EPGs) in a London, Ontario GM plant notes: The training manual pretends that matters not technically defined as contractual can be treated as areas of mutual concern, that is not subject to conflicting interests and claims. Efficiency, cost-reduction and profits, are strictly speaking, non-contractual concerns... but it is practices implemented

THE CANADIAN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY 31


to achieve these ends that have been responsible for speedup, lay-offs, and other contentious issues... As a consequence, it is likely that EPGs will encroach on functions normally under the union's jurisdiction. To the extent that this occurs the union may be viewed by workers as a relevant actor only during the period of negotiations[and] irrelevant to workers' daily concerns and struggles. The extent to which such programmes have undermined the union's role and improved industrial relations is difficult to gauge accurately. For example, Wells[16] notes that some quality programmes have succeeded in getting former shopfloor militants to become quality supervisors, whilst Kumar points out that the grievance rate at GM plants in Canada has fallen by almost half since 1982, most notably at the St Catherine and Oshawa plants [5, p. 40 ]. Certainly, union concern over the actual management intentions of such programmes has in many cases, led them to withdraw their support from them. In a similar fashion, while there has been no wholesale introduction of team-working there have been attempts to reduce demarcations amongst line and skilled workers. At the Oshawa Autoplex, there has been no acceptance of the team concept as in the US where job rotation is forced on team members; rather in what are termed "natural work units" workers bid for jobs on the basis of seniority[8]. However, the extent of the introduction of more flexible working practices has been uneven between plants, depending largely on the relative commercial success of firms and particular plants. For example, GM has made the most headway in introducing reductions in job classifications and flexibility at the troubled St Therese plant outside Montreal, where due to the threat of closure, the union local is actively participating in the team concept[5, p.39]. While there are important institutional and tactical differences (for example, greater internal democracy, support of the direct worker action against plant shutdowns), in the way the Canadian UAW and CAW responded to the challenges confronted during the 1980s when compared to the UAW, the main reason for the CAW's more militant stance is largely due to differences in competitive positions and uneven development between the US and Canadian industries. Between 1983 and 1985, production in Canada increased 54 per cent to a record 1.9 million units, which itself was surpassed in 1988. Employment climbed by almost 30,000 to 130,000 full-time workers and by 1988 was some 17 per cent higher than its previous 1978 peak. In the United States by contrast, the recovery from the 1978-1982 recession has been slow with a significant number of plant closings occurring and as late as 1988 there were still 127,000 fewer workers than in 1979. Indeed, it has been estimated that currently, GM's US car plants are only operating at 75 per cent capacity and several plants are likely to be closed or "indefinitely idled"[17]. As such the UAW has been in a weaker position to resist management changes and has traded off concessions for increased levels of job security for its

remaining workers, such as the use of job banks and plant transfers. This position also reflects the considerable competitive advantage that the Canadian industry has over the United States. Even though nominal wages in Canada are now $1.14 hour higher than in the US, the lower value of the Canadian dollar, coupled with the lower costs of fringe benefits (due in large part to the socialisation of health care costs in Canada), has meant a differential of some $C7.50 in favour of Canadian workers vis-a-vis the United States [2, p. 32 ]. Moreover, Canadian productivity rates are at least equal to those found in US plants and have dramatically increased since 1982, such that Canada enjoyed an accumulated $C18 billion surplus in automotive trade with the US between 1982 and 1985. Perhaps the most significant factor that may well effect how rapidly changes in production organisation will be diffused in Canada, is direct foreign investment by Japanese and Korean assemblers. Thus far, Honda and Toyota have opened assembly plants in Ontario, whilst the Korean producer Hyundai has invested in an assembly plant in Quebec. Both the Japanese investments are relatively small as each will be producing less than 100,000 vehicles annually. From the perspective of the CAW however, the most important Japanese investment is the substantial joint venture between GM and Suzuki (CAMI), in Ingersoll, Ontario, which will produce 200,000 automobiles by 1991. Like many of the other Japanese plants in Canada (which have thus far not recognised the CAW), such as Toyota, the CAMI plant has utilised very rigorous and selective recruitment techniques, including "one of the most detailed application forms outside the secret service"[18,19,20]. The seven-step selection process takes up to 28 hours to complete over several days, with applicants being tested for aptitude, personal psychology, dexterity, problemsolving ability and human relations skills. More significantly, the Ingersoll plant may well become the Canadian equivalent of NUMMI. GM and Suzuki were able to secure CAW acceptance of the team concept with small semi-autonomous work groups given responsibility for quality and efficiency. Furthermore, not only are there fewer job classifications, but base wage rates are lower than (although indexed to), those at GM Oshawa, as is the pension plan. New hires for example, are paid 85 per cent of the base rate for their first 30 months (1989 Local Agreement CAMI and CAW Canada). However, unlike the "traditional" Japanese model, the CAMI plant has a grievance procedure and there is no productivity bonus scheme. The CAW has thus far then shown a willingness to accept significant work reorganisation at new plants established in Canada. Similarly it has made concessions when it was able to secure an agreement from the Canadian-based, Magna International, when it was recognised by the company at its St Catherine's Ontario plant — the first Magna plant to be unionised. As noted earlier, teamworking and other work changes have been readily accepted at existing plants such as the St Therese,



Quebec, which have been directly threatened with closure. However, there are indications that this policy has engendered some dissension within the CAW with critics of teamworking arguing that like Employee Involvement schemes, it undermines union strength, collective agreements and puts increased pressure on workers[21]. Recently, CAW workers at the McDonnel Douglas aircraft plant in Toronto rejected team working and in September, 1989, the CAW will make a major decision on whether to reject or endorse teamworking.

Conclusions During the 1980s there have been significant and interrelated changes in work organisation and industrial relations in the Canadian auto-industry. The uneven development of the North American auto-industry, which has placed the Canadian sector in a stronger position than the US, contributed to the breakaway of the Canadian UAW and the formation of the CAW. While the CAW has been in a better position than the UAW to resist wage concessions and maintain many features of the post-war Fordist contract system, it is clear that pressures on the union by the major manufacturers to accept greater divergences between plants in local agreements have been at least partially successful. However, the 1990s will witness further pressures on the CAW, especially with an estimated overcapacity in North America of some five million units and recent amendments to the Auto Pact under the recently signed Free Trade Bill between the US and Canada. What is clear though, is that the continued proactive stance of the CAW will remain important to determining the nature of change in the Canadian autoindustry over the next decade.

Notes and References

1. Anderson, M. and Holmes, J., "New Forms of Industrial Organization in the Automobile Industry: The Case of Magna International", presented at the Annual Meetings of the Association of American Geographers, Baltimore, Maryland, March, 1989. 2. Holmes, J. and Rusonik, A., "Canadian Workers, American Companies and an International Union: Uneven Development in the North American Automobile Industry", Environment and Planning A., forthcoming. 3. Holmes, J., "Technical Change and the Restructuring of the North American Automobile Industry", in Chapman, K., Humpheries, G.(Eds.), Technical Change and Industrial Policy, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1987. 4. Katz, H., "The US Automobile Collective Bargaining System in Transition", British Journal of Industrial Relations, 1984, pp. 205-217.

5. Kumar, P., Changing Labour Relations in the Auto Industry: A Case Study of General Motors of Canada, School of Industrial Relations, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, 1988. 6. Robertson, D. and Wareham, J., Technological Change in the Auto Industry, CAW Technology Project, Willowdale, Ontario, 1987. 7. Marsden, D., Morris, T., Willman, P. and Wood, S., The Car Industry: Labour Relations and Industrial Development, Tavistock, London, 1987. 8. Daw, J., "GM's Robotic Plant: Building Pride on the Line", The Toronto Star, 28 February, 1988. 9. For problems with the GM Saturn project, see, Meyer, P., "General Motors' Saturn Plant: a Quantum Leap in Technology and its Implications for Labour and Community Organizing", Capital and Class, Vol. 30, Winter 1986, pp. 73-96. 10. For similar conclusions on the impact of new technology on the world automotive industry, see Watanabe, S., Microelectronics Automation and Equipment in the Automobile Industry, Wiley & Sons, New York, 1987. 11. Daw, J., "Honda Settles In", The Toronto Star, 12 July 1987, p. F1. 12. See for example, Shaiken, H., "The Automated Factory: The View From the Factory Floor", Technology Review, Vol. 88 No. 1, 1985, pp. 16-27. 13. Gindin, S., "Breaking Away: The Formation of The Canadian Auto Workers", Studies in Political Economy, Vol. 29, Summer 1988, pp. 63-89. 14. Slaughter, J., "The Team Concept in the US Auto Industry: Implications for Unions", presented at the Conference on the Japanisation of British Industry, at UWIST, Cardiff, Wales, September, 1987. 15. Rinehart, J., "Appropriating Workers' Knowledge: Quality Control Circles at General Motors", Studies in Political Economy: A Socialist Review, No. 14, Summer 1984, pp. 75-98. 16. Wells, D., Soft Sell: "Quality of WorkingLife"Programs and the Productivity Race, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Ottawa, 1986. 17. Kaletsky, A., "GM Changes Gear to Fight Japanese", Financial Times, 26 April, 1988. 18. Utting, G., "Team Toyota", The Toronto Star, 24 April 1988, p. F1. 19. Daw, J., "Japanese-style Hiring Hall Knocks Workers Boots Off", Toronto Star, 24 July 1988, pp. F1-F2. 20. Climenhaga, D., "CAW to Represent CAMI Plant's Teamplayers', The Globe and Mail, 24 July 1988, pp. F1-F2. 21. List, W., "Team Work on the Assembly Line?", The Globe and Mail, 7 July, 1989.

Tod Rutherford is a Doctoral Student in the Department of Town Planning at the University of Wales College of Cardiff.

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