Suchergebnisse

During the 1990s lots of books and reports have been written about lean production. However, in these the authors mostly refer to bluecollar workers. Thus, very little is written about lean production with reference to white-collar workers. This article outlines what happens to white-collar workers close to production when lean production is introduced, mainly with reference to the case of Sweden. What happens to work organization when the traditional bureaucratic organization is torn down? What kind of new demands are put on the officials? What will the demarcation line between blueand white-collar workers look like in the near future? The development of so-called complete teams seems to dissolve the old Taylorist division between manual and intellectual work.

The 'deconstruction' of the so-called Swedish model -a form of corporatism at the societal level has been very much discussed. New forms of work organization in combination with a rapid development of company level schemes for bonuses, profit-sharing, convertibles and employee share ownership may hit the core of the model, the solidaristic wage policy. In order to maintain the Swedish model, more or less modified, the unions probably have to improve their knowledge of work organization development, support their local bodies and make negotiations on new forms of work organization possible. To be able to prevent increasingly arbitrary wage differences the unions have to develop job classification systems, local job evaluation systems and overall wage statistics. If the unions do not succeed in this policy, the Swedish model will convert into a Japanese form of industrial relations, i.e. managerial corporatism.