Acted upon and acted through: Unions, consent and contestation vis-a-vis High Performance Work Systems in the automobile industry

Abstract

Comparing Canadian, German and Swedish automotive unions, this article examines why since the 1990s unions have increasingly accepted High Performance Work Systems (HPWS). 'External' factors such as globalization, outsourcing and state neoliberal policies are important, but drawing upon Gramsci and Burawoy, the article adopts an 'internal' perspective emphasizing (a) how the mystification of the wage relation is a basis for capital's workplace hegemony and (b) the role of union agency via 'defend and restore' and 'modernize and adapt' strategies. The article argues that by incorporating union resistance, HPWS has acted through unions as much as it has acted upon them.

Robots and unions: The moderating effect of organized labour on technological unemployment

“…Specifically, we investigate the moderating role of trade unions in shaping the effect of industrial robots on industry-sector employment and unemployment. Applying a series of within-between random effects models on data from 27 European countries and the US over 1998–2019, we are able to directly investigate the role of institutional context – in this case, union density as a broad measure of institutionalized worker power – in affecting the employment outcomes that have been at the centre of recent academic research and policy discourse (Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2020; Dauth et al, 2021; Graetz and Michaels, 2018; Rutherford and Frangi, 2021). Our findings produce several conclusions.…”

“…Research suggests that labour market dualization may indeed have become stronger in countries with greater unionization, as trade unions have sought to maintain the achieved rights of core workers but accepted the deregulation and flexibilization of non-standard employment as firms are under economic pressure to cut labour costs (Simoni and Vlandas, 2021). Rutherford and Frangi (2021) posit that the only feasible long-term strategy for automotive unions in Canada, Sweden and Germany during the post-1990s era of high performance work systems and capital-intensive production has been to 'modernize and adapt', in other words to accept employment flexibilization, deregulation and higher work intensity as the manufacturing sector attempts to remain competitive in global markets. On the flip side, in weakly unionized countries such as the English-speaking liberal market economies and Central-Eastern European countries the insider-outsider gap is smaller not because the outsiders are better off, but rather because the insiders are also weakly protected (Chung, 2019).…”

“…In contrast to the Keynesian hegemony of the 1960s and 70s, wage bargaining in manufacturing has shifted from a positive-sum game to wage moderation in service of global competitiveness, making it difficult for the working class to achieve anything greater than 'modest but deferred gains' (Simoni, 2013;Rutherford and Frangi, 2021). This also implies the expansion of insideroutsider divisions, as highly educated workers are rewarded for complex non-routine skills such as management and coordination, or advanced technical skills such as robot maintenance and programming (Eurofound, 2018;Dauth et al, 2021).…”

“…As technological innovation pushes down the unit cost of production and increases the share of tasks for which robots out-compete low-skilled labour, it becomes more difficult to justify the labour costs of large blue-collar workforces (Acemoglu, 2003; Chigbu and Nekhwevha, 2020). In contrast to the Keynesian hegemony of the 1960s and 1970s, wage bargaining in manufacturing has shifted from a positive-sum game to wage moderation in service of global competitiveness, making it difficult for the working class to achieve anything greater than ‘modest but deferred gains’ (Simoni, 2013: 331; see also Rutherford and Frangi, 2021). This also implies the expansion of insider–outsider divisions, as highly educated workers are rewarded for complex non-routine skills such as management and coordination, or advanced technical skills such as robot maintenance and programming (Dauth et al, 2021; Eurofound, 2018).…”

Do union strategic influence, job security and the industrial relations climate matter for the adoption of high performance work systems?

“…Survey-based studies looking at HPWS traditionally gathered data from management respondents, and more recently employee perceptions of management practice, however few studies have directly consulted union representatives (see Boon et al, 2019 for a review). There have been valuable studies based on union respondents, which have usefully provided insight into the role of unions in organisational processes and outcomes, including HPWS (Bacon and Blyton, 2007;Rutherford and Frangi, 2021). Martinez Lucio and Stuart's (2002) study of the rhetoric and reality of partnership agreements, for example, draws on a survey of union representatives, which included questions on HR practices.…”