Labor Unrest & the Geographical Restructuring of the World Automobile Industry, 30's-present

[Hannah Bell]

INTRODUCTION
The thesis of this paper is that the world automobile industry has been characterized by a half-century-long trajectory of labor militancy and capital relocation during which automobile production (in its "Fordist" incarnation) together with a characteristic corresponding form of labor militancy, have spread across the globe.

This trajectory has been propelled by three major waves of militancy among the world's autoworkers: (1) the CIO struggles of the 1930s, (2) the "resurgence of class conflict" in Western Europe in the late 1960s, and (3) the emergence of "new union movements" in Brazil, South Korea and South Africa in the 1980s. Each of these rounds of labor struggles have prompted managerial responses, including the restructuring of production and the relocation of capital. And each round of restructuring and relocation has undermined workers' bargaining power in the sites of disinvestment/restructuring at the same time that it has created and strengthened new working classes in the sites of new investment.

The response of automakers producing in Western Europe to the startling successes of the workers' movements was analogous to the US corporate response to the CIO victories of the 1930s and 1940s: intensive restructuring of production (including the rapid robotization of labor-intensive tasks), attempts to promote "responsible unionism," and the relocation of production. For Volkswagen a strategy of shifting investments to more peripheral locations in Southern Europe (especially Spain) and South America (especially Brazil and Mexico) took precedence. Overall, foreign direct investment from Germany increased fivefold between 1967 and 1975 (OECD 1981, Ross 1982, Silver 1992: 80). At Fiat, on the other hand, massive robotization projects were pursued, including the complete automation of engine assembly (Volpato 1987: 218).

The effect on the bargaining power of workers was also analogous to the US case. By the early 1980s labor movements in Western Europe (including auto workers) were generally on the defensive and the promotion of "responsible unionism" was abandoned. By 1980, Fiat was able to bypass the workers' councils and unilaterally implement a policy of aggressive automation and rationalization that reduced the number of employees from 140,000 to 90,000 (Rollier 1986: 117, 129). The gains of the late 1960s had been largely overturned.

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