Right To Work at the Chattanooga VW Plant

Volkswagen in Tennessee: Productivity’s Price

March 12, 2015 / Chris Brooks

EFFICIENT RUTHLESSNESS

One of VW’s core lean tactics is “workforce flexibility”: competitive pressure from temps or part-timers.

At the Chattanooga plant, permanent employees work alongside “temporary” workers, some of whom have actually worked there for years. Pitted against one another, both groups fear to speak up.

Workers are routinely pushed to their physical and emotional breaking points. From management’s point of view, this maximizes productivity.

“Every employee there busts their arse and is injured and is working through the pain because they don’t want their job taken by a temp,” Amanda says. “It is made clear to all of us that we are easy to replace.”

That’s lean production in a nutshell: ruthless efficiency, produced by a system of efficient ruthlessness. Workers are deliberately stretched to their limits, by a combination of competitive pressure, inadequate training, repetitive stress, and rotating shifts—so that the weakest links can be identified and eliminated.

Another central component is the “team model.” Plant workers are grouped into teams of six and expected to work with management to continually find new ways to increase their team’s productivity. The “team” aspect encourages peer pressure.

It’s a never-ending loop. If you break down from stress, you’re out the door—but if no one on your team is breaking down, then the team’s load should be increased, for instance by removing a worker.

All the pressure to boost production means safety and training get short shrift. Much of the onsite training falls informally to team leaders or other assembly line workers—already overburdened by their own workloads.

“Assembly line work is very nuanced and complicated,” said one VW team leader I spoke with. “It has to be practiced to be understood.” When a worker who hasn’t been properly trained is pushed to pick up the pace, the results can be catastrophic."

LINK

More at the link. Those workers need a Union.