The Canadian Automobile Industry: Work Reorganisation and Industrial Relations Change
| Published date | 01 February 1990 |
| Pages | 27-32 |
| Date | 01 February 1990 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000001024 |
| Author | Tod Rutherford |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
THE CANADIAN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY 27
T
he divergence in the economic and
industrial relations development of the
North American auto-industry is assessed.
The Canadian
Automobile
Industry:
Work
Reorganisation
and Industrial
Relations Change
Tod Rutherford
Introduction
Less than 20 years after the signing of the Auto Pact
allowing conditional free trade in automotive products
between the United States and Canada, the 1980s
witnessed a marked divergence in the economic and
industrial relations development of one of the most
integrated sectors in North America. While American
producers have yet to recover in both output and
employment from the recession of the early 1980s, their
Canadian subsidiaries have enjoyed remarkable success.
Since 1980, investment in new plant and technology in
Canada has totalled
$10
billion and output and employment
are significantly higher than their previous peak of
the
late
1970s[1].
New investment has not just been confined to
the American-based "Big Three" (GM, Ford and
Chrysler) but has included Japanese and South Korean
producers such as
Toyota,
Suzuki and
Hyundai,
which have
established plants in Ontario and Quebec. Not only do
these latter firms represent increased competition for
North American-based manufacturers, but they are playing
an important role in diffusing many work organisation
innovations such as Just-in-Time/Kanban production and
team-working.
Most important from an industrial relations perspective
though, is that the 1980s witnessed growing tensions
between the US-based United Auto Workers (UAW) and
the Canadian
UAW,
which ultimately led to the breaking
away of the latter from its American parent and the
formation of the independent National Union of United
Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement
Workers of Canada
(CAW).
Since that time, the contracts
won by
the
CAW
from the
Big
Three producers have both
diverged markedly from, and been significantly better than,
those negotiated by the
UAW.
In particular, the
CAW
has
been
largely
successful
in maintaining a
post-war "Fordist"
type contract system which has included annual wage
increases and Cost of
Living Allowance
(COLA). However,
its American counterpart has increasingly been forced to
accept what some have termed a "Post-Fordist"
contractual system[2], with more contingent forms of
payment (such as profit sharing), in lieu of annual wage
increases as well as a marked shift towards more
decentralised plant-level bargaining.
Whilst the focus of this article is on developments in
industrial relations in the Canadian auto-industry, what
will
be stressed is the important links between industrial
relations and wider patterns of
uneven
development in the
North American auto-industry. Many current and
important industrial relations issues in the Canadian auto-
industry such as team-working
are
inextricably tied
up
with
work reorganisation and new
technology.
However, as will
be made clear, the development of industrial relations in
this sector
has
been and
will
continue to
be,
a major factor
in determining the form of work organisation
—
especially
as pressures to move towards more Japanese or flexible
working practices grow.
Fordist Production and Industrial Relations in
the Canadian Automobile Industry
Since the late 1970s, the North American automobile
industry has undergone perhaps the most significant
period of restructuring since the
1930s.
This restructuring
has challenged the "Fordist" pattern of
industrial
relations
which developed in the post-war period[3]. Fordist
production, i.e. the use of assembly-line pacing of tightly
specified and Taylorised work, created the basis of mass
industrial unions such as the UAW in both the US and
Canada in the late 1930s and 1940s. By 1950 though, an
accommodation between labour and management had
The author wishes to
thank John
Homes for
a
steady stream
of trans-Atlantic
information
and
useful
insights on the
Canadian
auto-industry. Responsibility for any errors remain with the
author.
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