Gilmour, Alison Julia (2010) Examining the 'Hard-Boiled Bunch
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Gilmour, Alison Julia (2010) Examining the ‘hard-boiled bunch’: work culture and industrial relations at the Linwood car plant, c. 1963-1981. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1830/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Examining the ‘hard-boiled bunch’: work culture and industrial relations at the Linwood car plant, c. 1963 -1981 Alison Julia Gilmour Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctorate of Philosophy Department of Economic and Social History Faculty of Law, Business and Social Sciences University of Glasgow September 2009 2 ‘Peugeot’s biggest challenge at Chrysler will undoubtedly come from the 9000 workers at the Linwood, Scotland, plant. A hard-boiled bunch even by British labor standards.’ Source: Mitchell Library [hereafter ML], Linwood Box 10, N. White and A. Collings, ‘The Battle of Britain’, Newsweek, 23 (1978). 3 Abstract This thesis investigates the nature of work culture and industrial relations at the Linwood car plant during the period 1963-1981. In Part One, Chapter One provides an overview of the historical debate over the use of oral testimony as well as introducing the methodology employed within the oral history project encompassed within the thesis. Chapter Two provides an analysis of the nature of work at the Linwood car plant and the ways in which this impacted on behaviour and attitudes in the workplace. This is further developed in Chapter Three where the focus is on organisational mischief, and consideration is given to the nature, consequences and explanations for this behaviour. The analysis developed in Part One, focuses on the dominant explanations for problematic industrial relations based on the notion of a ‘clash of work cultures’ due to an absence of intrinsic rewards in automated assembly-line work. Within the thesis such dominant narratives are not entirely supported by the Linwood sample, as a wide variety of attitudes towards work are exhibited, leading the thesis to question the validity of the categories of intrinsic and extrinsic reward. In Part Two of the thesis there is a shift in focus as the analysis concentrates on structures of authority at Linwood and the impact on industrial relations. Chapter Four gives consideration to the influence of historical contingency on management decision- making. Part of the 1976 government rescue package was a Planning Agreement incorporating employee participation in management decision-making that articulated with the Labour government’s manifesto commitment to industrial democracy. Yet throughout the different phases of ownership, interactions between management and workers at the Linwood plant explored in this thesis reveal a dichotomy between the rhetoric and reality of industrial democracy and worker participation. The final chapter of the thesis offers an exploration of shop floor industrial politics, and causes of strikes, to highlight the narratives of tension underpinning interactions at Linwood. The thesis provides a nuanced approach, highlighting variety of experience and importantly a complex interplay of interests shaping work culture and the nature of industrial relations in the car plant. 4 Contents Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 5 Author’s Declaration 7 Abbreviations 9 Introduction 10 Part One: Reconstructing the Factory Chapter One Oral History: Reconstructing and Interpreting the World of Work 20 Chapter Two Experiences of Work: A Clash of Cultures? 58 Chapter Three Organisational Mischief: Employee Autonomy at Work 102 Part Two: Structures of Authority Chapter Four Managing Linwood: Company, Plant and Shop Floor 160 Chapter Five Structures of Authority: Compliance and Coercion 219 Conclusion 260 Appendices Appendix One: Interview Schedule 267 Appendix Two: Sample Details 270 Bibliography 273 5 Acknowledgements Completing a PhD has been a huge challenge yet I am grateful for such an opportunity. My first and foremost thanks must go to the former workers of Linwood who were involved through sharing their narratives. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing people’s experiences and I believe the PhD to be greatly enriched by the inclusion of their testimony. I would also like to thank staff at the Mitchell Library, National Library of Scotland, The National Archives, Modern Records Centre, Glasgow Transport Museum and the Rootes Archive Centre. I am greatly indebted to Cliff Lockyer at the Fraser of Allander Institute for allowing unfettered access to his collection of materials from the Linwood plant as well as his research notes from a project undertaken in the early 1980s. I would not have been fortunate enough to undertake my MPhil and subsequent PhD without the financial support of the Economic and Social Research Council, the Economic History Society and the Centre for Business History in Scotland at the University of Glasgow. Furthermore, the Department of Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow provided an encouraging atmosphere in which to undertake the PhD. I owe thanks to all staff and fellow postgraduates for academic and personal support provided over the last four years and during my undergraduate studies. I was lucky enough to benefit from the expertise of three supervisors over the course of the PhD: Dr Jim Phillips, Professor Arthur McIvor and Dr Duncan Ross, and I am grateful for their guidance. Special mention must go to Jim Phillips, who was primary supervisor throughout my MPhil and PhD degrees, as well as playing a significant role in my undergraduate university experience. The thesis would not have been finished without his delicate balance of encouragement and pragmatic criticism. I want to thank all family and friends who have supported me, especially for the considerable hospitality offered by friends when I was researching in the East Midlands and in London, significantly Lauren Ellison and Jane Hamilton. Gillian Nelson merits particular thanks: we met during Freshers’ Week in 2000 and now share an office thus experiencing the vicissitudes of PhD life together. Also Mr. Melvyn Haggarty, former Principal Teacher of History at Paisley Grammar School, for whom I have the greatest of 6 respect as a teacher and friend, and owe thanks for nourishing in me an appreciation of the importance in what we can learn from history. Simon Bennison has provided support in many ways and has only ever known me to be a PhD student, thus the best way to thank him was to finish the thesis. I could not have completed the thesis without the support of my immediate family. Gordon, David and Erin have endured an increasingly absent-minded big sister but their humour and youth have been a welcome distraction. At the centre of our family is my mum providing unrelenting support. Her immense strength and can-do attitude mean she is a constant source of inspiration in my life and for these reasons the PhD is dedicated to her. 7 Author’s Declaration I declare that, except where explicit reference is made to the contribution of others, that this thesis is the result of my own work and has not been submitted for any other degree* at the University of Glasgow or any other institution. Signature Alison Gilmour *Chapter 5 includes primary data deployed in a different context in an MPhil dissertation submitted at the University of Glasgow in 2005 ‘“A hard boiled bunch even by British labor standards”: A study of workplace unionism at the Linwood car plant, circa 1963-1981’, and publication ‘The Trouble with Linwood: Compliance and Coercion in the Car Plant, 1963-1981’, Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, 27 (2007), 75-93. 8 Linwood Plant Source: FAI, Papers of Cliff Lockyer, Box 11, Linwood [pamphlet]. ‘Linwood’, Company Pamphlet produced by Rootes Motors Scotland Limited. Not dated but estimate this was produced around 1969. 9 Abbreviations ATMS Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs AEU Amalgamated Engineering Union AUEW Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers CAB Car Assembly Building CP Communist Party CRPS Central Policy Review Staff EEC European Economic Committee EEF Engineering Employers’ Federation EPP Employee Participation Programme ETU Electrical Trades Union IRO Industrial Relations Officer JRC Joint Representative Council MDW Measured Day Work MNC Multinational Corporations NUVB National Union of Vehicle Builders PAWP Planning Agreement Working Party PBR Payment By Results SEEA Scottish Engineering Employers’ Association SWP Socialist Workers Party TAC Talbot Action Committee TGWU Transport and General Workers Union TUC Trades Union Congress UCS Upper Clyde Shipbuilders UMB Unit Machine Block 10 Introduction Source: http://www.scran.ac.uk Accessed 1 September 2009. The Duke of Edinburgh and Lord Rootes at the official opening of the Rootes factory in Linwood, May 1963. 11 Introduction A new era When Prince Phillip officially opened the new Rootes Group car plant at Linwood on 2 May 1963, it was perceived as a remedy for unemployment levels associated with Clydeside. Providing