Word: gm
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...sure, automaking has become such a globalized business that the nationality of cars is increasingly blurred. GM owns 38% of Japan's Isuzu, 50% of South Korea's Daewoo Motors, 50% of Sweden's Saab-Scania and 5% of Japan's Suzuki, and shares some manufacturing operations with both Toyota and Suzuki. Those alliances give GM global reach, but the automaker was in danger of evolving into little more than a holding company if it did not relearn how to manufacture competitive cars in its own plants...
Saturn's best hope is that it represents a profound change in the way GM manages its people. But the difference is not technological. Saturn's cavernous, mile-long Tennessee factory is a medium-tech plant, as are many of the most efficient facilities in Japan. The core of Saturn's system is one of the most radical labor-management agreements ever developed in this country, one that involves the United Auto Workers in every aspect of the business. The executive suite in Spring Hill is shared by president LeFauve and U.A.W. coordinator Richard Hoalcraft, who often travel together...
Beyond sharing power at top levels, the labor agreement established some 165 work teams, which have been given more power than assembly-line workers anywhere else in GM or at any Japanese plant. They are allowed to interview and approve new hires for their teams (average size: 10 workers). They are given wide responsibility to decide how to run their own areas; when workers see a problem on the assembly line, they can pull on a blue handle and shut down the entire line. They are even given budget responsibility. One team in Saturn's final-assembly area voted...
Saturn's workers were recruited from U.A.W. locals in 38 states and carefully screened. By accepting a job at Saturn, they gave up their rights ever to work for any other GM division. Instead of hourly pay, they work for a salary (shop-floor average: $34,000), 20% of which is at risk. Whether they get that 20% depends on a complex formula that measures car quality, worker productivity and company profits. In the company's first year, employee salaries will depend largely on car quality. If a team produces fewer defects than the targeted amount, its members will receive...
...result is that Saturn has attracted a younger, more entrepreneurial crew / than other GM divisions. The average age of a Saturn worker is 38, vs. 43 for the whole company. Saturn's work force is 20% female, slightly higher than the portion at GM as a whole. Many workers say they were drawn by the prospect that Saturn could compete on an equal footing. "The thing that most interested me was the idea that we could beat the Japanese. That's why I came here," says James Archibald, 34, a line worker in body fabrication, who pulled up stakes...