Surrendering the Shop Floor Means Surrendering the Future by Charley Richardson, Labor Notes
Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, is famous for having said that if he had his way, he would put his factories on barges and drag them around the world, in search of the lowest wages and least regulation.
Jack Welch’s dream of infinitely mobile factories is one in which the workforce has been made irrelevant—where workers have little or no control over the production process, have become replaceable cogs in a management-controlled machine, and have lost key sources of leverage.
In many ways Jack Welch’s vision is becoming a reality, as advances in technology and work organization allow management to take increasing control over work processes and ultimately put work on “electronic barges” (through a combination of computerization and telecommunications)—moving it around the world at will. The failure of unions to take on the restructuring of the workplace is a disaster for workers’ future.