----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Grimes" <cgrimes at rawbw.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Monday, July 15, 2002 2:13 PM Subject: Re: Tight-Lipped Old Hands
>
>
> The history of the Boeing corporation does not comport with
any of the
> assertions given above. That's just one company.....
>
> It's way more complex than what you suggest... Ian
>
> ----------
>
> Yeah, whatta you want a textbook? This is e-mail.
================
I keep forgetting we're not on pen-l. :-)
> But I would add, the most likely scenario for Boeing success
(if it is
> a success) are the linkages between shop floor and the
engineering
> dept, where there is a constant interplay between design,
fabrication,
> and production, and where the distinctions and divisions of
labor (and
> wages) between high end technical fabrication and lower end
> engineering are blurred---and where management is intimately
engaged
> in both engineering and technical fabrication. This kind of
blurring
> of formal divisions is exactly counter to the high Taylorism
and
> extreme rationalization that Jim Farmeland noted.
=================
Well it seems the question is whether the end product drives that DOL rather than the explanations proferred as critiques of the development of Taylorism; from Braverman and Stephen Marglin. The 767 is inferior technology compared to what because Boeing management is more concerned with using technology to control effort etc. on the shop floor? That's problematic even as Boeing competes fiercely with Airbus.
> If you really want to do just-in-time, and other highly
rationalized
> systems you have to have a highly developed and highly
skilled work
> force. You can not do it with low skilled, low wage,
just-in-time work
> force that's called up and then let go, called up and let
go.... You
> can not do it with a highly partitioned, and highly
rationalized
> division of labor either.
==============
FedEx does it every day, complete with hiring temps for 60-90 days before Xmas -then letting them go- and a large part-time staff to track demand dynamics. In many places you find part timers working more hours than full timers, at a lower wage too because of lack of seniority. Mgmt. tracks package volumes and adjust their hours on a daily basis. Spreadsheets are the new form of shopfloor control. And because info technologies are used by just about everyone in the company, the very notion of deskilling is problematic as a referent with regards to what's going on in that labor process. Rather it's controlling access to what the spreadsheets are capable of printing out given the questions asked. That's as rigid a hierarchy as anything Taylorism came up with. Secrecy creates rents. Meanwhile huge numbers of employees in the company have no secrets, the info. tech can track when they stop and pee or talk too long with a customer or consume something the nanny state says they can't.
Ian