MODULE 7: SOCIOLOGY OF WORK, INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AND LAW SECTION 1: THE CAPITALIST LABOUR PROCESS: The Flexible Firm

THE FLEXIBLE FIRM:

The flexible firm, that is a firm which strives to operate along flexible specialisation principles, is looking for three kinds of flexibility:

1. Functional Flexibility:

• Employees can be re-deployed quickly and smoothly between activities and tasks.

2. Numerical Flexibility:

• It allows the headcount to be quickly and easily changed in line with fluctuations in the level of demand for labour.

3. Financial Flexibility:

• Pay and other employment costs reflect the state of supply and demand in the external labour market.
• Pay flexibility means a shift to new pay and remuneration systems: one that is performance-base, not the rate-for-the-job.

Adapted from John Atkinson, "The Changing Corporation," p.19 in David Clutherback (ed.)., New Patterns of Work, Gower, Aldershot, 1985

The Core Group:

This consists of fulltime permanent career employees, such as managers, designers, technical sales staff and craftsmen. Their employment security is won at the cost of accepting functional flexibility.

First Peripheral Group:

These are full-time employees with less job security , in the sense that they are offered a job, not a career. This group consists of clerical, supervisory or component assembly occupations.

Second Peripheral Group:

Employees in this group combine functional and numerical flexibility. The approach is to maximise flexibility while minimising commitments to the workers with respect to job security and career development.

FLEXIBILITY AND CONTROL:

M Kelley (1989) evaluated competing claims in 1015 plants of which 43% used automated - programmable computer-controlled machinery. The results are summarised below:

NEO-FORDISM:

Neo-Fordism constitutes attempts to go beyond Fordism without negating its fundamental principles. It sees mass production and flexible specialisation as ideal-type models. Hybrid forms of productive organisation are common. It involves:

• restructuring of tasks;
• a leap into automation;
• increased internationalisation of production.