WHO BENEFITS FROM LEAN PRODUCTION?
LANDSBERGIS: My main concern with your argument is the way it seems to hide the essential question: who benefits from these trends in methods of production? ADLER: You seem to think this is a purely rhetorical question, that the answer is obvious. I disagree with the “militant” view according to which only the bosses gain from these new methods. It just doesn’t ring true for the situation at NUMMI anyway. There is not a soul there who wouldn’t prefer working at NUMMI to working at GM-Fremont — and I think that is a pretty decisive test. LANDSBERGIS: GM-Fremont vs NUMMI — that’s a choice between lousy jobs and jobs that are somewhat less lousy. That’s not a fair choice. No one I know defended traditional working life under GM. The UAW under Walter Reuther tried for years to have a say about how cars were made, but were defeated in those attempts. We should be debating GM-Fremont vs NUMMI vs Saturn vs Volvo, if we want to see what kinds of methods workers would gain from. ADLER: OK. Th
