“The necessity -from a technical point of view - for control and, consequently, for domination, can be overcome without too much difficulty in small and medium-sized enterprises; it cannot be overcome in large enterprises except by effecting changes which are all the more difficult to implement since they affect both the enterprise's hierarchical structure and its technical (and spatial) organization. William F. Whyte provides a number of examples to show that organizations can be modified so that workers enjoy their work, espouse the aims of the enterprise and mobilize the reserves of productivity and skill they usually keep to themselves. The success of this kind of reorganization necessarily presupposes, first, a relationship of between and organized labour, second, recognition of the workers' ability to organize themselves, take the initiative and participate in , and third, financial involvement of the workers in the results of their labour. Sooner or later, however, this policy of 'participation' or co-management - of which the Scanlon Plan was one of the best example; and one in advance of the 'quality circles' of thirty years later -meets with the following difficulty: for job security to be guaranteed, the volume of sales must increase at the same rate as the productivity of labour. A duly motivated , however, can achieve staggering increases in: productivity (increases of 20 per cent per annum over a period of several years in the examples cited by Whyte). The volume of sales, however, cannot continue to increase at such a rate. The point inevitably comes when management decides to reduce the workforce in order to reduce costs, thus regaining sole ownership of the enterprise's decision-making power. The 'partnership' of labour and capital is thus destroyed at one fell swoop; the workers realize their co-operation with the management has been a swindle; and antagonistic class relations are re-established.”
“A system of co-operation between workers and management cannot survive, therefore, unless management effectively guarantees its employees job security, by which I mean employment for life. It is on th...”
André Gorz
“The image of the enterprise as a place where employees can achieve personal fulfilment is therefore an essentially ideological invention. It conceals the real transformations that have taken place, na...”
André Gorz
“Enterprises are adopting a strategy of flexible response on two levels simultaneously: the firm's stable core of employees must be functionally flexible; the peripheral workforce, for its part, must b...”
André Gorz
“This revaluation of the image of the worker rests, on the part of the employers, on a rational calculation: it is not only a question of winning. the loyalty of an elite of workers they cannot do with...”
André Gorz
“The ideology of work and the ethics of effort therefore become cover for ultra-competitive egoism and careerism: the best succeed, the others have only themselves to blame; hard work should be encoura...”
André Gorz