Word: frasers
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...drive cars due to appear next year to spearhead a reversal of the company's decade-long slide and return it to solid profitability by 1981. Said lacocca after the Administration's announcement: "It's a vote of confidence we needed." Added Auto Workers Chief Douglas Fraser, who is joining Chrysler's board as part of a deal struck by his union to help the firm: "The Government is taking a very positive step, assuring the jobs of nearly half a million American workers...
...even if management actually listens to Fraser, his presence on the board will not signal a new age for the management of America's firms...
...argued that putting Fraser in the board room is not intended to create democratic factories. Indeed, this is the whole point. Unless Fraser uses his new position to begin the process of real, lower-level democratization, he will advance the cause of "industrial democracy" in a very limited way. Employee commitment and motivation to work hard to help the beleagured company will likewise remain largely unaffected...
...Fraser and the UAW do seem aware of the limitations of board representation in isolation. Buried inside the stories about Fraser's nomination to the Chrysler board were a few lines describing another union proposal, which would establish joint worker-management committees on all levels within Chrysler. The committees would cover such issues as plant closings and locations, product planning, and pricing. The UAW justifies such a committee structure by claiming that Chrysler has "for too long ignored the potential input of Chrysler employees in favor of the decisions of a few individuals, whose poor judgment repeatedly led to monumental...
...should lobby vigorously for worker committee sub-structure incorporated into the number three auto-makers' hierarchy. It will have far more impact on workers' daily lives and thus perhaps on productivity and the company's financial health, than Fraser's appointment to the board of directors ever will. A committee structure grafted on traditional factory floor organization will not attack the core problem--a rigid hierarchy of command in which workers are treated like children--told exactly what to do, how to do it, and how fast. Such treatment only destroys worker motivation and cripples productivity...