_http://www.truthout.org/030509G#1_ (http://www.truthout.org/030509G#1) The causes of the euphemization of the automobile industry's social movement are various. The first lies in the significant reduction of the number of employees, and, in particular, of workers on production sites over the last thirty years: Renault-Flins, which produces the Clio, went from 23,000 employees in the 1960s to 3,500. At Peugeot-Sochaux, manpower has fallen from 42,000 employees in 1978 to a little less than 18,000 today. These reductions are not only the result of technical progress that substituted robots or automation for people; these drops in manpower come both from outsourcing to regions with lower manpower costs and sub-contracting (manufacturers no longer produce more than 30 percent of value-added internally, versus 70 to 75 percent during the 1970s). At most sub-contractors, and especially at second and third-tier subcontractors, there are no unions, but very high levels of part-time workers hired and fired at the complete pleasure of management. Salaries may be 30-50 percent lower than those obtained at the manufacturers. To summarize, the globalization of the automobile industry's markets and of the capital likely to invest in it tend to align the work conditions and salaries of industrialized countries with those of lowest-bidder countries. And that alignment began at the same time as the explosion of that organizational revolution which occurred almost unnoticed in France, that is, the "Japanization" of production with the generalization of the principle of just-in-time inventory management. That principle rests on the disappearance of work-in-progress and buffer stocks that would allow workers to "breathe" on the production line. The end of work-in-progress means that if a single link out of 100 to 200 (men or work stations) fails, the whole line stops, entailing significant cost-overruns. This increased fragility of the production process is purposeful and constitutes a vicious cycle constructed by company management to mobilize its personnel; moreover, this organizational model involves a drastic reduction of manpower. This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from _http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ (http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) **************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)
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