The Automotive Industry in Hungary 217 Andras Tóth and László Neumann 1
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uaderni della QFondazione G. Brodolini 45 I Quaderni della Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini presentano i risultati dell’attività di ricerca svolta dalla Fondazione nelle aree che, nel tempo, hanno costituito gli assi fon- damentali delle sue iniziative culturali, occupazione, sviluppo locale, valutazione delle politiche pubbliche, politiche sociali, pari opportunità, storia. Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini 00161 Roma - Via di Villa Massimo 21, int. 3 tel. 0644249625 fax 0644249565 [email protected] www.fondazionebrodolini.it ISBN 978-88-95380-05-6 THE LABOUR IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY A comparison of the Italian, German, Spanish, and Hungarian Motor Industries edited by Paolo Caputo and Elisabetta Della Corte FondazioneGiacomoBrodolini Index Contributors 9 Introduction 11 Paolo Caputo and Elisabetta Della Corte Labour on the Defensive? The Global Reorganisation of the Value Chain and Industrial Relations in the European Motor Industry 17 Josep Banyuls and Thomas Haipeter 1. Introduction 17 2. Global reorganisation in the motor industry 19 2.1 From internationalisation to globalisation 20 2.2 Internal reorganisation in OEMs 24 2.3 Reorganisation of the value chain 28 3. Confronting the pressures of globalisation: industrial relations systems in flux? 35 3.1 New collective bargaining topics 35 3.2 Collective bargaining in regime competition: between centralisation and decentralisation 39 3.3 Changing actors and strategies 42 3.4 Collective bargaining along the value chain: towards a fragmentation of industrial relations? 46 3.5 Internationalisation of industrial relations 49 4. Conclusion: convergences, divergences and the defensive of work 51 References 56 5 The Automotive Industry in Germany 61 Thomas Haipeter 1. Introduction: Developments of the automotive industry and challenges for the systems of industrial relations 61 2. General relevance and historical development of the industry 63 3. Changes in the automobile industry since the 1990s 67 4. Changes in industrial relations 80 5. Conclusion 97 References 100 The Automotive Industry in Italy. Fiat’s Place in the Auto Industry 103 Paolo Caputo and Elisabetta Della Corte 1. Introduction: transformation of the automotive industry in Italy and its impact on industrial relations 103 2. General aspects and the importance of the automotive industry in Italy 104 2.1. Fiat Group and Fiat Auto 109 3. Changes since the 1970s 113 3.1. Technological changes, organization, work conditions and resistance 115 4. Internationalization and globalization strategies 120 4.1. Supplier relations 125 5. Some considerations concerning the union structure 128 6. The impact of changes on Industrial Relations 130 6.1. The role of European Works Councils 136 6.2. Working time flexibilisation 141 7. Conclusion 142 9. Appendix 145 References 149 6 The Motor Industry in Spain 153 Albert Recio Andreu, Josep Banyuls Llopis, Ernest Cano Cano, Raúl Lorente Campos and Maria Amigo Pérez 1. Introduction 153 2. General view of the Spanish motor industry 154 2.1. Historical evolution 155 2.2. Sector structure 161 2.3. Recent trends in production and employment 163 2.4. International position 171 3. Organization of the value chain 175 3.1. Position of the national industry in the international value chain 175 3.2. Net structure 177 4. Work organisation 183 4.1. Internal markets and organizational changes 183 4.2. Forms of flexibility in the use of the manpower 185 4.2.1. Temporary labour contracts and manpower adjustment 185 4.2.2. Working time 187 4.3. System of wages retributions 189 4.4. Differences in the work conditions between OEM and supply firms 190 5. Industrial relations 192 5.1. Unions and employers´ organizations: structures of the actors and internal organization 192 5.2. Collective bargaining topics and changes in the relationships among actors 195 5.2.1. Demands and employer strategy 199 5.2.2. Perspective and union strategy 201 5.3. European Work Councils 204 6. Conclusions 209 References 215 7 The Automotive Industry in Hungary 217 Andras Tóth and László Neumann 1. Automotive industry in CEE: restructuring, upgrading and clustering 217 2. Political discussions concerning the future of car industry in Europe 223 3. Industrial relations in CEEC car industry 225 4. Car industry of Hungary 229 5. Industrial Relations in the car manufacturing sector 238 6. Audi 244 6.1. Audi and its suppliers 245 6.2. Industrial relations at Audi 249 7. GM-Hungary 251 7.1. Recruitment policies 254 7.2. Production system of GMH 255 7.3. Industrial relations at GMH 261 7.3.1. GM-Hungary: factors which led to self-organization 261 7.3.2. Fight for recognition and for stabilizatio: Compromise at GM-Hungary 265 8. Suzuki 269 8.1. MS: lean production or mean production 273 8.2. Industrial relations: The siege of Suzuki 281 8.3. The developmenf of the company and the state of industrial relations 299 References 302 8 Contributors Maria Amigo Pérez, Autonomous University of Barcelona. Josep Banyuls Llopis, University of Valéncia. Ernest Cano Cano, University of Valéncia. Paolo Caputo, University of Calabria. Elisabetta Della Corte, University of Calabria. Thomas Haipeter, University of Duisburg-Essen. Raúl Lorente Campos, University of Valéncia. László Neumann, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Albert Recio Andreu, Autonomous University of Barcelona. Andras Tóth, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. 9 10 Introduction Paolo Caputo and Elisabetta Della Corte This project arose out of a common concern to conduct a critical analysis on the impact of globalisation on industrial relations and on work conditions in the European automotive industry. It is part of the EU-financed project (Dynamo research project no. CIT2-CT-2004- 508521) “Dynamics of national employment models” coordinated by the Institute of Work and Qualification of Gelsenkirchen. The automo- tive industry is one of the largest industries in the European economy, and it is a constant source of innovation in production and organisation- al systems. More than 12.5 million European families depend on auto- motive employment, with 2.3 million direct jobs and 10.3 million peo- ple employed in related industries and services. The automotive sector is also the largest private R&D investor in Europe. Every year vehicle taxes deliver e 360 billion in government revenues (3.5% of European GDP . In the past few decades car production has rapidly changed, pro- gressively expanding its influence across national, international and global borders, involving increasingly broader markets whilst maintain- ing a privileged relation with national ones. The Fiat case is a salient example of this trend. This work is based on cross-national comparisons, and it analyses these changes by focusing on large automotive compa- nies (OEMs: Original Equipment Manufacturers) with plants in Italy, Germany, Spain and Hungary. The investigation is based on interviews with experts of the sector, trade-union members and workers, and on theoretical studies and data research.1 The decision to compare four national sector studies has enabled analysis of different frameworks. Two countries have consolidated OEMs symbolising the Italian and 1 We wish to thank László Neumann, Andras Tóth, Thomas Haipeter and Josep Banyuls, for their national sector studies and fruitful discussions. 11 German styles (Fiat, VW, BMW, Mercedes). Instead, the other two countries are ones in which, at different times (the 1950s for Spain, the 1990s for Hungary), the takeoff of automotive production has depended on external investments. These various territorial contexts exhibit simi- larities and differences as regards not only productive system and work organization features but also the constraints and the advantages result- ing from different localizations. In the global production ‘chessboard’ investments shifts are driven by potential opportunities. Comparison has enabled us to verify hypotheses about the relocation of companies, and about the material advantages and benefits deriving from the flexible use of location (low labour costs, workforce acquiescence, weak trade-union relations, public facilitations and incentives, etc.). Localisation choices are changing: the global production network comprises nodes undergo- ing economic growth and recession, varying attractiveness of regions (as exemplified by Spain for the past, and by East European countries like Hungary for the present). The world map of production localizations is differentiated according to their advantages; the East European countries have growing internal markets and are located close to the continental markets (furthermore, despite admission to the European Union, the cost of labour is much lower in many of these countries, and given the wide- spread sense of social insecurity, workers are more submissive). The changes related to the globalisation of production in the car industry mainly concern three fields: factory organization, the structure of relationships among companies, and reorganisation along the value chain. The Fordist organization has been replaced by the just-in-time system, or lean production (zero stocks and zero lacks). The production, which concentrated in the past in very large plants, is now deverti- calised/decentralised but strongly interconnected within a network structure (decentralization without de-concentration, that is, without a loss of authority and control2). Taking account of these changes, the aim of this book is to answer various questions: What types of changes are produced by the globaliza- tion