Marx and Factory Occupations in Argentina

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  1. Introduction
  2. Production system in Argentina
  3. Forms of working organizations
  4. Workers and new labor relations
  5. New approaches to work organization
  6. Relations between two social classes
  7. Footnotes

Introduction

Argentina entered a new period of development and economic growth which had a great impact on its labor relations and the factory system. Industrial entrepreneurs struggled to achieve a measure of labor discipline that would allow them to accomplish the intensification of production for which the early factories had been established. Traditional work patterns such as those of agricultural workers or cottage weavers vacillated between periods of intense effort and leisure. Achieving sustained work activity meant battling the industrial laborer’s prevailing subsistence mentality. In an effort to protect themselves from the harsh demands that early industrial labor imposed on their bodies, workers alternated between intense spurts of activity and rebellion against confinement and discipline1. A combination of elaborate fines, threats, and punishments was utilized to overcome the ambivalence of the workers and the multitude of ways they used to limit output and exhaustion. Numerous historical accounts present a vivid picture of the difficulties faced by the industrial entrepreneurs and their managers in instilling work habits that would allow them to utilize more efficiently the capital invested in new machinery.

Production system in Argentina

Argentinean industrialists faced an even greater problem than their European counterparts. The early Argentinean working class was formed just prior to and after the Argentinean Revolution. Central to the cultural beliefs and values of Revolutionary Argentina was a view of human nature as inherently self-interested and seeking to acquire power over other people2. Controlling skilled workers presented a different problem for entrepreneurs. The knowledge embodied in the activities of the craftsmen distinguished their work from that of the laborers. Thus, while they looked down on the frolicking, drinking, and escapism common to many of the laborers, craft workers used their “functional autonomy” and management’s dependence on their know-how to limit or withhold compliance with prescribed standards of output and discipline3.

Forms of working organizations

Understanding the development of predominant forms of work organization requires a brief history of the emergence of the modern business enterprise. As the traditional family and financier-controlled enterprises typical of the last century grew in size and diversity, ownership and management of firms became increasingly divorced. The growing dominance of career managers who came to determine the structures and policies of the modern firm shifted the emphasis from maximizing current profits to long-term stability and growth. The continued existence of the enterprise became essential for the lifetime careers of professional managers. Thus, while mass distribution in Argentina was largely based on organizational innovation and improvements, breakthroughs in mass production relied on the development and utilization of more efficient machinery and higher quality raw materials along with the intensified application of energy4. “The adoption of continuous process machines that produced products automatically greatly increased output per worker considerably5. In the early 1990s, these new processes became widespread in the tobacco and the refining and distilling industries. The metalworking industries faced a bigger challenge. They relied on a greater variety of raw materials and needed to coordinate multiple subunits for the production of castings and moldings and the assembly of complex products such as stoves, firearms, sewing machines, and typewriters. As a result, interest shifted to organizational innovation to improve efficiency and productivity6. “While rather complex systems of internal cost accounting and controls were proposed and implemented in many production organizations, the basic weakness in these recordkeeping systems — the foremen’s or workers’ lack of interest in filling out the requested forms — was quickly recognized”7. In response, a number of metalworking firms developed what they termed gain-sharing plans, which offered workers and their foremen higher pay for increased output8.

Workers and new labor relations

Takeovers by workers led to a new production system and labor relations. Researchers described a scheme in which any reduction in unit costs achieved through improved equipment and plant design, more effective scheduling, and fuller use of the machines and materials would be shared equally between the company and the workers. Critics pointed out that the costs and the resulting savings should not, as was generally done, be based on past experience; rather, standard time and output should be determined “scientifically” through detailed job analyses and time and motion studies of the tasks involved. Applying the carrot as well as the stick, he argued for a differential piece rate; workers who did not meet the standard set would receive lower pay, while those who exceeded the rate would receive higher pay9.

In the new system, the function of the general foreman, the key figure in a traditional factory organization, could not be competently performed by one individual. Instead, these tasks should be “scientifically” subdivided and moved to a planning department. The factory as a whole should be administered through a number of highly specialized functions. Marx writes: “But suppose the amount of national production to be constant instead of variable. Even then, what our friend Weston considers a logical conclusion would still remain a gratuitous assertion.”10 While the proposal for extreme specialization proved unacceptable to many manufacturers and was criticized for its focus on task analysis, which neglected the synthesis of the organization as a whole, many of concepts were integrated into the organization of the modern Argentinean firm11.

The knowledge of the worker could be carefully studied in action and explicated in order to yield its secrets. Work tasks had to be observed, analyzed, and measured in meticulous ways in order to discover “the one best way” for doing a specific task. The new management translated new relations into step-by-step detailed instructions for workers that went as far as prescribing when a worker had to sit down and relax in order to preserve the body’s capability to work over an extended period of time. Marx admits that a worker: ‘is an imaginary member of an imagined sovereignty, divested of his actual life and endowed with an unactual universality”12

With the application of these five principles, a structure of work was created narrow enough to eliminate the individual worker’s discretion and independent judgment, presumably leaving the worker no choice other than to follow the prescribed “right” way to do the job. It was the development of corresponding logistic principles incorporated in moving assembly lines that actually signaled the broader transformation of previous craft production structures to the modern mode of mass production. Inspired by the assembly line concept, combining mechanized and highly fragmented tasks with management control over the work pace and production output. The function carried out by the worker became subordinate to the function of the machine. Direction and guidance were built into the technological design and the resultant work system13.

From a Marxist perspective, takeovers were aimed at establishing managerial control and coordination over the work process on the assumption that this would improve efficiency and quality, he believed, along with many of his engineering colleagues, that workers’ attempts to restrain their efforts was perfectly rational and in line with their own interests. Thus, he proposed that the productivity increases to be gained from more efficient task organization should be shared in the form of the differential piece rate system14. Management frequently intensified the pace of effort by changing piece rates as workers learned to meet the standards. In general, workers showed little enthusiasm for the new system of machine-paced labor, though the application of new methods improved on the strenuous ways of accomplishing tasks in many cases. Mars writes: “The values of commodities are directly as the times of labour employed in their production, and are inversely as the productive powers of the labour employed”15. Success in supplier-dominated markets depended on the ability to increase output at a relatively low price based on largely standardized products and far-reaching mechanization of the manufacturing process. The growth and economic payoffs in mass production, modeled after working principles over the following decades, firmly established this approach to industrial production in the Argentinean workplace. It continues to be the dominant form of work organization today, although its limitations are becoming increasingly obvious in the rapidly changing economic and social environment16. Marx wrote: “The bureaucracy is a circle from which one cannot escape. Its hierarchy is a hierarchy of knowledge. The top entrusts the understanding of detail to the lower levels, whilst the lower levels credit the top with an understanding of the general, and so all are mutually deceived”17

These changing assumptions about human nature did not challenge the structure of work. Rather, the focus shifted to the work environment and worker management18. The growing industrialization, in part a result of the integration of production principles with production methods, had increased the standard of living such that people started to focus on more than material subsistence. In other words, workers could “afford” to be social beings, reflecting needs other than mere material concerns. The human relations created by takeovers contributed to the strengthening of managerial authority, which had been badly shaken by the economic changes. McLellan agreed with the necessity of unity of purpose and central authority19. “Since the capitalist and workman have only to divide this limited value, that is, the value measured by the total labour of the working man, the more the one gets the less will the other get, and vice versa. Whenever a quantity is given, one part of it will increase inversely as the other decreases”20. However, takeovers and management principles continued to dominate the process of production, with workers having little or no influence over the content of their work. If anything, the view of management as “the guardian of special knowledge,” able to understand information and its implications for coordination, administration, and profitability, carried with it the responsibility to protect the rights of ownership, while workers could not be trusted to act in ways that supported the well-being of the firm Central to the human relations approach was the improvement of the organizational climate, stemming from the assumption that motivation increases if workers feel good, and that workers feel good in a pleasant environment with supportive social relationships. The work environment thus was not to be organized so as to narrowly channel work efforts and prevent deviation, but rather to create the conditions conducive to performance21. Personnel departments now aimed toward sustaining work output by fostering communication, often through superficial improvements of the work environment. As critics have suggested, the worker continued to screw in the same two bolts all day long, but the drudgery was now sweetened by a radio playing in the background, flowers on the table, and an occasional friendly word22.

New approaches to work organization

At the same time, employee skill and knowledge gained in importance; operator mistakes on the capital-intensive, technologically advanced production equipment became increasingly costly. In the context of a booming economy, a tighter labor market, social unrest, and the emergence of post-materialist values, many workers became unwilling to follow the detailed instructions and orders inherent in takeovers work organization. Absenteeism and turnover were rampant in the auto industry and the blue-collar worker blues became a much-discussed topic. Based on these notions, the design principles of job rotation, job enlargement, and job enrichment emerged. The managers focused on job enrichment since, as he pointed out, zero plus zero still equals zero, as in the case of simply rotating different monotonous and unsatisfying jobs, for example. He emphasized that jobs had to be enriched so as to include planning, preparation, and control tasks in addition to mere execution functions. Conceptually, this indicated a radical departure from new principles of strict separation of planning/control and executing functions. According to the proponents of job enrichment, work motivation was no longer to be regulated through technology and/or external motivation systems. Instead, workers were to be encouraged to “regulate” themselves, to take on responsibilities and become interested in their work23.

Even before the emergence of the Argentinean job enrichment movement, another approach radically departing from human relations developed in Europe. In the British coal mining industry, which provided the central source of energy at the time of postwar reconstruction, stagnant productivity, labor disputes, and high worker turnover prompted a number of research projects conducted by scientists24. The focus was on improved labor-management relations and the diffusion of innovative work practices and organizational arrangements, in an effort to increase productivity without major capital investments. In this context, the almost accidental discovery of a new approach to organizing work led to the formulation of a set of principles that became the foundation of the takeover’s systems approach. In this perspective, organizations were viewed as consisting of both a social and a technical system, each of which functions according to different rules and thus has to be regulated and organized according to different principles. Finally, the concept of socio-technical systems designs implied that the system as a whole cannot be optimized through independent optimization of solely the social or the technical system; the integrated or joint optimization of both systems leads to the optimal functioning of the organization as a whole25, 26. The optimal functioning of open, continuously changing systems is seen as predicated on the degree to which the resources and competencies for controlling the work of different organizational units are returned to the members of that unit. The principle of motivation through task orientation rather than external control is enhanced in relatively independent organizational units that allow increased scope for the self-regulation of workgroups. Acknowledging that individuals are guided by varying goals and motivations, work has to be organized in a manner that allows different individuals to satisfy varying needs and to develop new goals and aspirations. And rather than enriching jobs in consultation with external experts, employees themselves are to plan and regulate their work activities by means of direct participation based on the principle of self-design27. This conceptualization of human nature and work leads to forms of work organization aimed at the development of competencies by giving workgroups the scope and latitude to complete tasks based on their own planning and guided only by specified deadlines and standards. There is no longer a “one best way” for doing things; rather there is discretion and decision latitude rooted in the recognition that different paths might equally well28. Petras writes: “At first, this “internal union” functioned clandestinely to avoid being identified by the union bureaucrats and fired by the employers. The organizers raised demands for job protection, worker power in the factory, better working conditions, an end to lying by trade union functionaries, and most important, open discussion and votes in factory assemblies”. 29

Though often highly successful in terms of productivity increases, workplace safety, and worker commitment, various factors prevented the widespread adoption of this approach. In particular, work rules rooted in traditionally adversarial labor-management relations, management’s reluctance to share control over work organization, and the expanding economy in many industrialized countries during the sixties provided little impetus for change. A breakthrough came with the Norwegian Industrial Democracy project30. A lag in industry modernization had slowed Norway’s economic growth compared to other countries of the region. These economic difficulties, combined with surging union demands for worker participation and control, led to a number of sustained takeovers. Yet the diffusion of production systems declined as workers lost interest in designs focused on changes in job distribution and wage systems rather than on workers’ concerns. Similarly, in implementing projects developed jointly by union and management, conflicts between union and management goals became evident. Largely management-dominated designs led unions to shift their focus to a collective resource approach, involving researchers, workers, and union representatives in the design of technologies linked to opportunities for skill development and expanded influence on the organization of work31.

Once again, a combination of economic forces and changing values gave rise to a new way of conceptualizing work and work organization and experimentation with new organizational choices. In the United States, these forces have only recently come into focus. Rapid technological change, quality instead of quantity of output as the key competitive element in an increasingly global economy, the shift from a producer- to a consumer-oriented market, and the changing expectations of an increasingly educated segment of the workforce have created an environment in which companies are forced to search for new ways to assure organizational success and survival. Petras underlines that “The Marxist trade unionists criticized the left parties–including their own–for engaging in politics with a “pail over their heads”: their own slogans echoed in their ears, and they confused the echo of their own voices with what the vast majority of workers were thinking and saying.”. 32

Marxist theory states that these structures and processes have a powerful influence on the characteristics and behavior of the organizational members. People in rigid and bureaucratic organizations tend to develop rigid and bureaucratic personalities; if the organization does not change, people are not likely to change either33. Organizations that are flexible and dynamic tend to “reproduce” similar characteristics in their employees. While characteristics of work and organizational design reflect the changes in the economic, political, and social environment, rather than replacing each other, different elements of the design approaches discussed here tend to coexist in various combinations in today’s organizations or in different industrial contexts34.

Competition is also intensified by the increasing globalization of economic exchange relationships and markets. Resulting changes in the size and variety of markets require quick responses and adaptation to new demands. Delayed or inadequate reactions to changing demands are likely to decrease competitiveness in the global economy. The ability to respond adequately to these challenges and to develop proactive strategies requires flexible forms of production and organization. High value-added production processes in adaptable and flexible organizations place new demands on employees’ skills, competence, and commitment to organizational goals. As the need for physical labor input decreases, the nature of skill is redefined. The traditional view of labor as a variable cost factor becomes contradictory to the training and ongoing competence development required for these different, often mental inputs35. Working-class abilities, in concert with the application of new technology, become a source of creativity, problem-solving, and improved decision-making in support of productivity, quality, and flexibility. The question of whether new technology is an opportunity or a threat is really the question of how new technology is designed and applied in work systems. Properly implemented, with a view toward enhancing human performance and creativity, the adequate application of new technologies offers new opportunities for improvements in workplace design and work organization36.

More recently, the production concepts underlying the sweeping success of the manufacturing industry, both at home and in the growing number of production facilities abroad, have caught the attention of Argentinean as well as European managers. Heralded as the model for the manufacturing process of the future, automotive and electronics manufacturers, who in the fifties and sixties sent their executives to the United States to learn about making cars and TVs have become the destination of a reverse pilgrimage. Thousands of Argentinean managers, sometimes accompanied by union leaders, have visited the new economic powerhouse, determined to discover and, it is hoped, to adopt the secret for success. The social, cultural, political, and economic context characterizing post-revolutionary countries also played a key role. The close cooperation between government and industry and a capital financing system that decreases dependence on short-term profit-oriented shareholders reduce the pressures for quick profits in favor of long-term product development and marketing strategies37. Furthermore, a more homogeneous, almost universally literate population, close ties between the education system and the employment system, and an employment relationship in which the destiny of the worker is closely linked to that of the employer (lifetime employment, seniority-based wage rates) engender a mutual commitment and incentive to invest in worker training and skill development38.

Relations between two social classes

In sum, takeovers in Argentina changed the nature of work and relations between two social classes: the working class and the bourgeoisie. Critics of takeovers and new products have argued that to ignore all these important factors or to subsume them under the concept of lean production reduces its utility for companies operating under different economic and cultural conditions. The influence of the manufacturing system on efforts to improve competitiveness and to adapt traditional mass production to changing technologies, markets, and customer demands has been considered in the United States and, increasingly, in Europe. Yet, takeovers in Argentina have emerged in the manufacturing sector that must be contrasted with the lean production approach, as they appear much more promising from the perspective of participatory work design and competence development. Class struggle in Argentina takes a peaceful form and did not lead to confrontations between worriers and the “bourgeoisie”.

Footnotes

  1. Bagchi, A. K. Neoliberal Economic Reforms and Workers of the Third World at the End of the Second Millennium of the Christian Era. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 41 (2000), 43.
  2. Hollander, Samuel. The economics of Karl Marx : analysis and application. (Cambridge University Press. New York, 2008), 72.
  3. Kuczyniski Jurgen. The Rise of the Working Class. (New York: World Univ. Library, 1990.), 98.
  4. Bellofiore, Riccardo, Roberto Fineschi. Re-reading Marx : new perspectives after the critical edition. (Palgrave Macmillan. New York, 2009), 41.
  5. Wynia, G. W. Argentina: Illusions and Realities. (Holmes & Meier,1992), 34.
  6. Braverman Harry. Labor and Monopoly Capital.( New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004), 87.
  7. Sawers, L. I. The Other Argentina: The Interior and National Development. (Westview Press, 1996), 51.
  8. Wynia, G. W. Argentina: Illusions and Realities. (Holmes & Meier, 1992), 55.
  9. Scholl, Ann; Arrizabalaga, Facundo. Reclaiming Democracy: A Lesson from Zanon. New Politics, 10, 1, (2004) pp. 110-112.
  10. Marx Karl, and F. Engels. 1972, Selected Works in One Volume. (New York: International), 168.
  11. Sawers, L. I. The Other Argentina: The Interior and National Development. (Westview Press, 1996), 72.
  12. Marx Karl, and F. Engels. 1972, Selected Works in One Volume. (New York: International), 68.
  13. Petras, James. Popular Struggle in Argentina: Full Circle and Beyond. Monthly Review, 55, 4 (2003), pp. 22-37.
  14. Roemer John. A General Theory of Exploitation and Class. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1992), 87.
  15. Marx Karl, and F. Engels. Selected Works in One Volume. (New York: International, 1972), 202.
  16. McLellan, David. Marxism after Marx. (Palgrave Macmillan. New York), 2007, 33.
  17. Marx Karl, and F. Engels. Selected Works in One Volume. (New York: International, 1972), 31.
  18. McLellan, David. Marxism after Marx. (Palgrave Macmillan. New York, 2007), 42.
  19. Ibid., 23.
  20. Marx Karl, and F. Engels. Selected Works in One Volume. (New York: International, 1972), 217.
  21. McLellan, David. Marxism after Marx. (Palgrave Macmillan. New York, 2007), 76.
  22. Lichtenstein Nelson. Labor’s War at Home: The CIO in World War II. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999.), 72.
  23. Elster Jon. Making Sense of Marx.(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 38.
  24. Geschwender James. Class, Race & Worker Insurgency: The League of Revolutionary Black Workers. (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990), 57.
  25. Gorz André. Farewell to the Working Class. (Boston: South End, 2002), 32.
  26. Braverman Harry. Labor and Monopoly Capital. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004), 82.
  27. Form, William H. The Internal Stratification of the Working Class: System Involvements of Auto Workers in Four Countries. Argentinean Sociological Review, 38, 6, (1973), pp. 697.
  28. Elster Jon. Making Sense of Marx.(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 22..
  29. Petras, James. Popular Struggle in Argentina: Full Circle and Beyond. Monthly Review, 55, 4 (2003), 22-37.
  30. Lichtenstein Nelson. Labor’s War at Home: The CIO in World War II. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999.), 72.
  31. Braverman Harry. Labor and Monopoly Capital. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004), 62.
  32. Petras, James. Popular Struggle in Argentina: Full Circle and Beyond. Monthly Review, 55, 4 (2003), 22-37.
  33. Lichtenstein Nelson. Labor’s War at Home: The CIO in World War II. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999.), 72.
  34. Geschwender James. Class, Race & Worker Insurgency: The League of Revolutionary Black Workers. (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990), 38.
  35. Geschwender James. Class, Race & Worker Insurgency: The League of Revolutionary Black Workers. (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990), 41.
  36. Ibid., 77.
  37. Geschwender James. Class, Race & Worker Insurgency: The League of Revolutionary Black Workers. (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990), 27.
  38. Ibid., 65.
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