Thomas Gounet
(Workers' Party of Belgium)
26th March 1998
Since 1973 industrialised countries have been undergoing a major economic crisis. In the car manufacturing industry, world production plummeted from 39 million vehicles in 1973 to less than 35 million in 1974. Many firms have started to make losses.
In this general climate, one manufacturer stood out with better results - Toyota. The other firms asked themselves why this was, and discovered that this Japanese car maker had gone over to a different method of production to that which was prevalent at the time. Instead of applying the principles developed by Ford, like its competitors, Toyota has developed a particular way of organising its production which gave both higher efficiency and better profitability. Just as the innovations in the methods of production inaugurated by Ford in Detroit at the beginning of the century are known as Fordism, so the new methods of working are called Toyotism.
The fundamental characteristics of this system are: autonomation, just-in-time management of supplies, team working, management by stress, flexibility of the work force, use of sub-contractors and participatory management. Some of these are well known, others less so.
1. Autonomation
The first aspect is autonomation. This is a word used to combine the concepts of automation and autonomous. It is used to describe machinery which halts when a problem crops up. This allows a worker to supervise several machines at once, because none requires constant attention. It is therefore a method by which productivity can be considerably raised. However, its use is limited to highly mechanised aspects of production, in particular production of engines.
Since Belgium's motor industry is limited to assembly plants, the workshops are either heavily automated (as in steel pressing or paint spraying) or are those which are almost exclusively manual work (as in assembly). It is for this reason that autonomation is a word seldom used in our country so far.
2. Just-in-time
The second aspect is "just-in-time". This means having components to hand at the required place in the required quantity only just as they are needed. In effect this means arranging the supply of parts at the moment when they are to be fitted to the vehicle. It is a way of managing production in the reverse to that developed by Fordism. According to the principles established by Ford, production comes first, followed by distribution and finally sales.
Toyotism turns these principles on their head: sales come first, and it is according to how sales are going that decisions are made on production and buying in of components necessary for their assembly. In this way, the flow of production, that is to say the continuous movement of the object which has to be transformed from one stage of production to another (as in the archetypal production line invented by Ford in 1913) is determined by demand. It is the demand which directly decides the quantity and the type of vehicles assembled. There is no need for stockpiles of parts which not only allows a reduction in the capital thus tied up, but allows labour to be rationalised more than ever before.
3. Team working
The third aspect is team working.
Fordism was based on the principle of defining the tasks for each worker. The task was determined by the speed at which production had to be effected. So with two eight-hour shifts, if 960 vehicles have to be produced per day (that is, 60 vehicles per hour), each task is defined in multiples of one minute. If the worker has one minute for the job, he works on every vehicle. If he is allocated two minutes, he only works on every other vehicle and another worker does the same job on the alternate vehicles on the line, and so on. If the level of production is raised, for example, to 1152 vehicles per day (72 vehicles per hour), the tasks are defined in units of 50 seconds. In other words, what the worker used to do in 60 seconds now has to be done in 50 seconds.
But this method of increasing productivity does have its limits as the level of production rises. A factory in the U.S.A. reached the level of 100 vehicles per hour, which meant tasks were reduced to 36 seconds. It becomes much harder to find greater efficiency, to find those seconds when no useful work is being done, out of each unit of 36 seconds, than it is from a minute or an even longer unit of time. That is why Toyota defined the tasks in groups. That means that rationalisation doesn't depend on the one minute that the worker is working on a vehicle, but on the ten minutes that the group of ten men are allocated to carry out certain jobs on the vehicle. It is the principle of rationalisation which is behind the introduction of team working at Toyota.
4.Management by stress
The fourth aspect is management by stress. Fordism had an external method of putting on pressure to increase production: the foremen. Under Toyotism this post has changed its function. The pressure is no longer from outside, but is exerted from within the work of the team. This happens in three ways.
Firstly, the virtual absence of stock of parts makes it possible to respond to variations in demand by changing the assembly line almost instantaneously. Workers have to adapt to new situations the whole time. This is the first source of stress.
Secondly, management does not provide teams with sufficient resources to fulfill their tasks. In this way every member of the team continually strives to minimise "dead time" simply to be able to reach the management's goals. For example, the management might allocate nine and a half minutes to a group of ten workers who are obliged to stick to this, even though they are already overworked. This is the second source of stress.
Thirdly, group pressure makes each member of the team work as hard as possible because otherwise the other members of the team are penalised. This is the third source of stress.
5. Flexibility of the workforce
The fifth aspect is the flexibility of the workforce. Because demand can vary, the workers have to adapt production virtually immediately according to demand. This might mean, for example, producing more cars with sunroofs if there is a greater demand for that. Or producing 960 vehicles per day for five days one week and then 1,152 vehicles per day for five, or six, days the next week. It is the worker who has to adapt.
Accordingly, Japanese workers tend to work a ten-hour day: a basic eight hours plus two hours overtime. If production is low, the two hours are cut. This brings problems for the workers because the overtime hours are paid at time-and-a-quarter. If there is no overtime there is a significant drop in the daily wage rate of 23.8%.
But that is not all. The workers have to be able to carry out various different jobs and are moved around the firm in rotation. They have to be multifunctional. Accordingly they are able to fulfill many functions in the firm and are sent wherever management may require.
6. The sub-contracting pyramid
The sixth aspect is sub-contracting. Toyota concentrates on vehicle design, assembly and the manufacturing of certain essential parts such as the engines. The rest is sub-contracted. The reasoning behind this is twofold.
The main purpose is to bring about the most favourable conditions for the capitalists in which they can manipulate the sub-contractors. The wages paid by sub-contractors are much lower: in Japan by between 20% and 50% depending on the firms. Working hours are longer: a worker at Toyota works 2 300 hours annually but a worker at a sub-contractor's typically works 2 800 hours annually or even more. In Japan staff in a sub-contractor's are usually not unionised. There is no trade union presence at all in the small and medium sized firms. The working conditions are often as bad as those in the third world. This situation is used by Toyota in order to continually push down prices among its sub-contractors, which has its impact on the workers who are exploited ferociously.
Furthermore, Toyota is able to adapt production according to demand thanks to the system of sub-contracting. It has set up a pyramid of sub-contractors, with the most important suppliers at the top and the others below. Those at the top supply the assembly parts direct, the others deliver to the sub-contractors who are higher up in the pyramid. Those at the top supply compound components which they assemble from the parts supplied by firms lower down in the chain. The top sub-contractors are relatively large firms, and working conditions are only slightly less favourable than those at the parent company itself. But conditions deteriorate progressively as one looks further down the pyramid. If there is a drop in productions, Toyota sends its staff to work at the first level of sub-contractors. They in turn do the same, sending staff to work for sub-contractors of the second order. And it is at the very bottom of the ladder that people lose their jobs. That is how Toyota is able to guarantee its workers a "job for life".
7. Participatory management
The seventh aspect is participatory management. In Japan this is supported by three events.
Firstly there was the elimination of radical trade unions in the ë40s and ë50s. They were replaced by timid organisations easily persuaded by the bosses arguments. In the case of Nissan it was the management itself which set up the new trade union organisation within the firm.
Then there was the quality control movement in the ë60s. It was out of this movement that Japanese vehicle manufacturers encouraged their staff to make suggestions which would improve the quality of the productivity (which actually means improving productivity) and they achieved the desired results.
Finally, Toyota developed a system of internal promotion which enabled workers to rise within the hierarchy: casual workers could receive permanent contracts, could go on to become team leaders, then foremen and even managers. The trade union participates in this system, for it is mainly made up of foremen.
With participatory management, the worker can become a sort of minor manager, someone responsible for the teams quality of production and who puts his effort into making sure his group meets its aims. In this way he has a tendency to deny his roots as a worker and to support the aims of the boss. René Maury, who interviewed the bosses of the big Japanese firms, wrote that, "... in the car industry, for example, a worker at Toyota looks down with contempt at the social conditions of his counterpart at Mazda, Honda or Nissan. A Toyota worker doesn't belong to the working class but to the Toyota empire, and this prosperity influences his own personal interests and those of his family. In the extreme, he will think to himself that if the other workers are unhappy it's just tough luck, our firm will get more and more competitive."
Participatory management arises from the application of fascistic industrial relations within a firm. It relies on transforming conscientiously workers into minor managers and also on a shift of the unions into a belt conveying management's objectives to the workers. Therefore the channel for workers to express their needs is removed. This comes together with increased repression of dissident workers who are either sacked or isolated in their job or sabotaged with the hope that they leave.
The fascistic aspect of Japanese industrial relations is not surprising. Participatory management in Japan is modelled on Sanpo. Sanpo used to be a workers' organisation in the late ë30s and during the war. It brought together directors, managers and employees and aimed at discussing strategies to improve productivity just like the quality circles did in the ë60s. Sanpo was set up by the military in Japan in order to harness people's enthusiasm for their project of colonial expansion. It was based on the Arbeitsfronts from the German nazis. Also it was the first time that Japanese workers were enrolled in mass "workers' organisations".
8. Increasing exploitation
Toyotism in its application leads to a formidable increase of exploitation. This very model has been prevalent in the car industry (and elsewhere) in the US since the late ë70s and in Europe the late ë80s.
From assembly line workers' comments one quickly realises that the intensity of work has sharply risen in the last few years. Workers from Renault Vilvorde (Belgium) explain that after their nine-hour shift they get home, switch the television on and fall asleep within minutes, shattered as they are. As a worker from Opel (General Motors Belgium) writes: "By the end of a working week I look older than my 77-year-old mother." Such views are not isolated.
Teamwork is seen as empowering by capitalists and reformists alike. It allows workers to express their views and improve their work. Subcontracting creates jobs. These are mystifying views.
Laurie Graham worked in a Japanese plant in the US for 6 months, the SIA Subaru Isuzu Automotive joint-venture in Lafayette, Indiana, where teamworking is highly developed. She explains that what teamworking really means is the increased control by management over the actual production process by workers. According to her this control is implemented in 3 different ways:
1. members of the group are self-disciplined; production constraints set by management are internalised in each worker as a share of the total work for that group;
2. the group exercises pressure on each of its members; if a member's work falls below standards the group forces them to increase their contribution by threatening isolation or even rejection from it;
3. Japanese team leaders and foremen supervise production work.
Most interestingly Laurie reveals how the internalisation of production quotas leads to accepting more intensive work and therefore greater exploitation. She tells her own experience: "At some point it just became impossible to perform the required amount of work and I was constantly running behind. Even though I knew that the quotas set by the group manager for my particular work were not realistic, I felt guilty and I feared that other team members would blame me for keeping behind." She also explains how the whole group weights on any member that is continuously behind.
Therefore team working has nothing to do with more pleasant work that is performed with mutual solidarity. Rather it is an alienating system of exploitation where management's demands of increased productivity and intensity are internalised in the group. In the extreme workers are overexploited but they get to forget their very exploitation. The consequence that follows, like the "karoshi" in Japan, is death by overwork.
Work intensification has been measured concretely in US factories. In a Japanese subsidiary company implementing Toyotism actual working time is on average 57 seconds per minute against 45 seconds in American factories (General Motors, Ford, Chrysler) implementing old fashioned production methods. This represents a 26.7% increase in working time. This time was previously used by workers to pause briefly, have a smoke, or have a word with a colleague. Toyotism has made all this impossible. Since Toyotism, car production plants have become custodial hell.
The same goes for sub-contracting. It allows car manufacturers to benefit from miserable working conditions in smaller firms where trade unions offer less protection. These are the benefits:
Additionally, sub-contracting allows management to divide workers, that is to say to classify them in ever different categories. Workers do not work in the same factory any more, or maybe they do, but have a different employer. It also allows for individualisation of workers by giving them each a specific position. Furthermore, there is individualisation of the hope for reward by management; every worker hopes to earn a higher category in the hierarchy.
Dividing workers like this is a capitalist attempt to break class solidarity between workers. Workers are individualised. Their circumstances are individualised Their category is individualised. Each worker belongs to a single team in which they strive to avoid being blamed by others. In this way capitalists are more able to impose their rules on the workforce. They encounter less resistance towards new working methods. Anyone who wants to resist is less likely to get support from individualised workers and so it is easier to dismiss them.
9. Fighting for world domination
Thanks to this increasing exploitation, Toyota switched from being a tiny manufacturer producing a few thousand vehicles per year, to being a giant, number three in the world, making almost 5 million cars per year. Its share of the world market is approaching 10% and its goal is to overtake Ford, currently number 2 in the world. Toyotism enables such an aggressive approach.
The same went for Ford between 1910 and 1930. Thanks to Fordism (standardisation of components, rationalisation of individual work and assembly lines) Ford became number one in the world. Between 1915 and 1923 every other car was produced by Ford.
Capitalism feeds off the exploitation of workers. Exploitation delivers a company's profits. The firm which sets up the most labour-exploitative system and relies on it (through sub-contracting, for instance) acquires a competitive edge over its rivals. That firm gets to lead the world market. This shows how the development of capitalism goes hand in hand with the reinforced exploitation of workers.