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Title: Lean, mean and dangerous
Author: Solidarity Federation
Date: Spring 1998
Language: en
Topics: workplace struggles, Direct Action Magazine
Source: Retrieved on November 30, 2004 from https://web.archive.org/web/20041130181935/http://www.directa.force9.co.uk/archive/da6-features.htm
Notes: Published in Direct Action #6 — Spring 1998.

Solidarity Federation

Lean, mean and dangerous

Quality has become the tantra of managers everywhere. Quality is the

buzzword that masks relentless, increasingly rapid capitalist

‘restructuring’ on a global scale.

This is especially apparent in the vehicle making industry. The “Quality

Revolution” began with the “Toyota” or “lean” system of production, and

then spread like a cancer that unions have been unable to stop. And it

is in the same sector that QS-9000 is now aggressively being

implemented.

QS-9000 is based upon ISO-9000’s international quality standards, which

date back to 1987 and have been adopted in over a hundred countries.

ISO-9000 incorporated central features of the lean system. Indeed, its

proponents boldly proclaim that its standards “were established to help

companies improve operating efficiency and productivity and reduce the

costs of inconsistent quality”. Insofar as the pursuit of continuous

improvement is a fundamental feature of ISO-9000, it raises the spectre

of never-ending relentless restructuring and scrutiny of job

productivity.

ISO-9000 is particularly ominous because it is a vehicle for

standardisation. Standardisation means bosses expect workers to adhere

rigorously to corporate “best practices” in carrying out their job

responsibilities. This, in turn, means that workers must adhere to

meticulously documented sets of procedures designed to optimise the

efficiency of work processes and profits, all in the name of striving

for “quality”. It also means everyone is measured and monitored, and

information on productivity, compliance, etc. can be maintained to allow

easy decisions to be made when the next ‘restructuring’ comes.

Boat-rockers are out first.

ISO-9000, like the lean system, implicitly assumes that workers and

bosses have identical interests and goals and that these interests and

goals are those of the corporation. This is apparent in the way that

under ISO-9000 standards “Everyone is expected to be a quality control

manager.” Workers and bosses are accordingly expected to be focused in

the same direction. Variance or deviation have no place in this

monolithic framework.

QS-9000, like ISO-9000 before it, incorporates key features of the lean

system. It harmonises the quality systems of the U.S. Big Three

automakers with additional input from other truck manufacturers, in

order to firmly entrench and further develop the direction of the

quality systems throughout the industry and its suppliers. QS-9000

stipulates that “a continuous improvement philosophy shall be fully

deployed throughout the supplier’s organisation”. Consistent with this,

QS-9000 emphasises “teamwork” and “employee involvement”. It envisions

workers belonging to cross-functional or multi-disciplinary teams where

every worker can do the job of every other worker on the team (for

‘flexibility’ purposes).

Workers are encouraged to take part in the development of job

instructions and the formulation of company procedures and policies;

QS-9000 envisions workers becoming “process improvers”. This means

workers are expected to help our bosses discover which parts of our jobs

are “non-value added”.

Needless to say, quality systems generally do not seem to improve

quality of work or quality of health and safety provision – or quality

of worker wages. Indeed, quality systems may actually overshadow the

health and safety provisions in place, replacing them with more emphasis

on new quality paperchase systems.

In short, QS-9000 means that our bosses will not only expect but will

require us to help find ways to standardise and intensify the work

process in order to get us to do much more. QS-9000, like ISO-9000,

seeks to continuously increase the rate of exploitation of our labour

and continuously improve corporate profits.