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2007 | Book

Introduction Read chapter Read first chapter

The Invisible Chain

Constraints and Opportunities in the New World of Employment

Author: Jean-Pierre Durand

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

Companies and work have undergone significant change, and a new productive model has emerged. This book shows how the model works, showing its high degree of coherence in terms of the integration of functions within companies. This book creates a new and challenging theory of services, rooted in the concrete experience of workshops and offices.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Introduction
Abstract
To say that labour has changed is actually saying two things at once: on the one hand, the working conditions, the manner of working and the work itself have gradually been transformed; and on the other, the way in which society perceives labour — and employment — has changed significantly since the 1970s. Labour no longer holds the central position as it did for so long.
Jean-Pierre Durand
1. Reforming Corporate Structures: Integrating Reticular Reasoning and Tight Flows
Abstract
The main difference between the modern era and the period immediately following the Second World War is that not all of the goods and services being produced today will necessarily find purchasers. In the past, shortages forced people to wait a long time before they could finally receive, say, the car of their choice or the household appliance they wanted. Since the 1970s, these needs have been largely satisfied in industrialized countries with solvent populations. This has had the effect of intensifying competition among suppliers offering an ever-greater variety of cheaper and better-quality goods and services — which is why the credo price, quality and variety has become so important in companies’ daily lives. In reality, suppliers have been the main drivers behind this variety and quality agenda, much more than consumers have been. Suppliers try to use quality, and especially variety, to gain market share from their competitors. Customers did not ask the world’s three leading detergent manufacturers to come up with more than forty brands featuring almost identical levels of performance. Neither did the hypermarkets, which complain that an enormous amount of shelf space is being used up by products that are extremely similar in nature. Attributing responsibility for greater variety (and to a certain extent, higher quality) to suppliers instead of consumers has a philosophical and political significance that is akin to expressing praise for individuals or for individualism.
Jean-Pierre Durand
2. The Tight Flow Rules: Work under Time Constraints
Abstract
Tight flow, the universal form of the just-in-time method, was conceived by T. Ohno in the mid-1950s and subsequently systematized by Toyota. At the same time as it was being spread throughout the industrial world by the global implementation of Toyotism, managers and directors in the service sector also began to take note of its advantages. The results are now quite evident: in the fast food business by the conspicuous absence of hamburgers languishing on grills between the kitchen and the counter; in retail business, stocks are always on the move, aboard trucks plying between the suppliers and the hypermarkets; in air transport, the concept of ‘shuttles’ or even hubs (connecting centres between flights), have transformed passengers and their luggage into a vast, continuous flux. There are no more (or hardly any) stocks: workers, material and information circulate non-stop in a vast, quasi-Brownian movement. Mass production, with its stocks (one of the definitions of Fordism) has given way to a new production method characterized by its fluidity, constant movement and the elimination of stocks and buffers between the manufacturing and service centres. The tight flow can thus be seen as the systematization and, in particular, the generalization of just-in-time. As we shall see in the course of this chapter, by using the term ‘tight flow’ instead of ‘just-in-time’ (coined and applied to the logistics of the motor vehicle industry), we gain much in terms of abstraction and generalization in order to bring to light a whole new production paradigm and its massive spillovers on to society at large.
Jean-Pierre Durand
3. The Competency Model
Abstract
The transformations of work, which are at the very heart of the new and emerging ‘combinatoire productive’ introduced in Chapter 1, revolve around three essential components that together make up a single system: tight flow, teamwork and the ‘competency model’ — this last being one of the linchpins for the mobilization of the workforce. In effect, while the capitalist wage system meant the buying of employee time by the employer, the contract said nothing regarding working conditions or workload (except in the case of piecework systems). Consequently, the efficiency of the enterprise, according to the theory, required that work contracts be completed by the addition of a clause regarding the involvement and motivation of employees.
Jean-Pierre Durand
4. The Reshaping of Labour: Tight Flow and the Mobilization of Employees
Abstract
The advent of the tight flow regime in most sectors and the consequent reorganization of labour, considerably modified work itself — its rhythms, the manner of approaching objectives, its relations with employees, and ultimately, the perception that men and women had of their work. In a certain sense, the necessity of keeping the work tight meant that employees had to put up with its constraints at any cost. Acceptance of the principle of tight flow automatically entailed the ‘natural’ acceptance of these pressures — what we term ‘naturalization of constraints’. The employees were obliged to meet all the demands positively, be it by using their competencies and commitment in the face of chance hazards, or by their presence at all times — which signified availability of time and flexibility of working hours.
Jean-Pierre Durand
5. The Fragmentation of the Labour Market and the Mobilization of Employees
Abstract
The labour markets are not just there, to be taken for granted — on the contrary, they are social and economic constructs that develop gradually, and change with the requirements of industries at any given time, while depending largely on the prevailing labour law (the government) or power plays between the labour unions and employers’ associations. Thus, while the general outlines are consistent within the OECD nations, each country has its own way of dealing with employment issues, especially the ‘atypical’ kind. For example, the UK has a much larger ratio of independent workers than the rest of continental Europe, which depends more on interim employment. For a long time, the labour market was seen as being divided between two distinct levels: on one side were highly qualified employees, with degrees and diplomas from universities and the French grandes écoles, and on the other, the poorer cousins, mainly from Third World countries, who had no qualifications to offer. There was also talk of it being split into the primary and secondary markets, or of being internal or external to the enterprise. In fact, the labour market is much more fragmented than that, and in truth should be talked of in the plural. The fragmentation of the labour market was not just the outcome of some incidental changes, but was in large part the result of the different ways that individuals reacted to the policies set down by their employers and the government.
Jean-Pierre Durand
6. Information Technology and the Service Industry: White-Collar Work
Abstract
In the more developed countries, the service industry has grown to such an extent that it has all but eclipsed other sectors. Having begun with the manufacturing industry, now agricultural activities have also come to depend so much on information technologies and the service industry that no clear demarcations can be made and we might have to abandon the model of three distinct sectors.1 In this chapter, we shall first deal with the question of how to define a service, then suggest some interpretations of the nature of the ongoing social transformations linked to the explosion of this tertiary sector. Along the way we shall also study the concept of a service relationship and try to deduce the possible changes in wage relations.
Jean-Pierre Durand
7. More Difficult but More Interesting Work? Intensification and Autonomy
Abstract
Sociologists of work and employment, managers, trade unionists, managers of human resources, corporate executives all have a different interpretation of the transformations that have so shaken our concept of work since the 1980s. But before going into these various interpretations, it might be better to step back a little and question the status of the researchers themselves, or rather, question the reasons that made them take up their investigations. We must also remind ourselves that a social reality, in this case the enterprise, can never be understood completely, and that its every fold, far from being a metaphor and revealing some aspect of reality, is in fact a screen that hides empirical reality.
Jean-Pierre Durand
8. Unionism and Globalization
Abstract
With the advent of the new ‘productive combination’ (see the Introduction), there has been a complete change in the way in which goods are produced and services are rendered (see Chapters 1, 2 and 4). Qualifications have been replaced by competencies (Chapter 3) and the very structure of employment has changed labour statutes and contracts (Chapter 5). The implementation of certain micro-social arrangements has made the increasing intensity of work acceptable and easier to bear (Chapter 7). Although unionism has been present throughout the course of this study, especially as an essential component of the wage relationship, it seems to have lost much of its weight and does not wield the clout it used so effectively in the previous Fordian system.
Jean-Pierre Durand
Conclusion
Abstract
The speed and extent of the changes brought about by capitalism in its utilization of labour pushed capitalism into the next phase of its development, characterized by the search for solutions to the crisis of accumulation between 1975 and 1985; by the globalization of the economy; and by the advent of non-material technologies.
Jean-Pierre Durand
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
The Invisible Chain
Author
Jean-Pierre Durand
Copyright Year
2007
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Electronic ISBN
978-0-230-28690-0
Print ISBN
978-1-349-28496-2
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230286900

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