MODULE 7: SOCIOLOGY OF WORK, INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AND LAW SECTION 1: THE CAPITALIST LABOUR PROCESS: From Fordism to Flexible Specialisation

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT ACCORDING TO F W TAYLOR:

Also known as Taylorism, this concept emerged in the United States in the first two decades of the 20th century. Its fundamentals are:

• The principal object of Management is to secure maximum prosperity.
• Maximum prosperity can exist only as a result of maximum productivity, in other words, when each person and each machine are turning out the largest possible output.
• The best Management is a true science resting upon fundamental principles.

Taylorism still dominates the world of production.

These fundamental principles are:

• Management must take over the planning of work.
• A science must be developed for each element of a person's work.
• The most prominent single element is the task idea: "this task specifies not only what is to be done, but how it is to be done and the exact time allowed for doing it".
• When a worker does a task correctly, he or she receives an extra 30-100% on the wage.

EMERGENCE OF HUMAN RELATIONS SCHOOL (IN USA):

By the 1920's and 30's, Taylorism was no longer able to satisfy capital's requirements. This was because:

• No account was taken of monotony, human fatigue or social needs of workers.
• Industrial psychologists and sociologists were called upon - The so-called Human Relations School emerged, popularised by Elton Mayo.
• The Human Relation School is based on the assumption of rootlessness of individual in industrial society and the need for belonging and togetherness.
• Mayo concluded that workers achieve higher productivity if supervision is more relaxed and democratic.
• This led to extensive training of supervisors in gentler leadership and better communication (early 40's).
• Further, Unions were accepted as legitimate representatives in the late 1940's.

Braverman (1974): Scientific Management Based On Three Principles:

1. Dissociation of the labour process from the skills of the workers.
2. Separation of conception from execution.
3. Control of each step of the labour process and its mode of execution.

Note that 1 and 2 entail deskilling, while 3 entails control.

Braverman's argument is that Taylorism stripped workers of craft knowledge (deskilling) and autonomous control over the labour process. This led to the degradation of work in the 20th century, a process not unnoticed by workers, but it was apparently unable to stop (or reverse) the process. Since Taylorism still dominates the world of production, the practitioners of "human relations" "are the maintenance crew for the human machinery".

FORDISM:

In 1914 Henry Ford introduced assembly line production in motor-car manufacture. This was a new system of work organisation. Fordism is a system of mass production of commodities along Taylorist principles. It emerged at about the same time.

It is accompanied by the regulation of the economy to ensure a sufficient demand for the mass consumption of commodities.

In the late 1960's Fordism ran into its own limitations: South and East Asian countries first became mass production imitators, then went beyond it and by developing flexible specialisation, posed a challenge to the existing developed industrial nations. Thus

• the mass consumer goods markets became saturated;
• Fordism reached its technical and economic efficiency limits;

FLEXIBLE SPECIALISATION:

Flexible Specialisation emerged in the 1980's in the West. Its main features are:

• it is based on flexible, multi-use equipment and multi-skilled workers;
• its production methods are "human centred";
• it perceives labour not as a cost that is to be minimised, but as a resource whose potential is to be maximised;
• it concentrates on production of many different products of high quality based on ongoing innovation and continuous improvement.

Contrasts between Fordism and Flexible Specialization: