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FEATURE

U.S.S.R.

CANADA

Sergei Yerofeyev, a 35-year-old telecommunications
4 worker, sees workplace democracy as a civil right, soon to
be formally enshrined in pending legislation providing for
enterprise workers to elect supervision from team leaders
to plant managers.
‘‘First, the individual worker no longer feels like a cog in
the wheel, so our interest in the plant’s overall
performance grows. Also, managers’ dependence on
workers assessing their performance creates a democratic
atmosphere, and it clears the way for more career
J openings for those with the skills, talent and willingness to
lead.”” The draft law is now being discussed in the trade
union movement and throughout the Soviet Union. Some,
like steelworker team leader Vladimir Kurbakov, 37,
welcome the idea but can see a few pitfalls. ““We can already discipline a manager

> who ignores our interests by exercising our trade union veto over any personnel
matters, safety, bonuses or welfare decisions. In my view what we need is greater
union militancy, with true workers’ leaders on our committees and us backing them
to the hilt . . . So far I don’t think we're completely using the mechanisms available
tous.”

Experiments in extending democracy into production
management have been taking place for some time in
selected regions throughout the country. Recently 4,000
were nominated for elections to be the manager in a
minibus plant in Soviet Latvia, the RAF plant in Jelgava.
One plant in Riga has been electing its foremen and
section chiefs since 1971 and its team leaders since 1984.
When it is legislated throughout the country, auto worker
Yevgeni Solonitsyn points out, economic decision-making
will be broadened. ‘*The point is that manager
effectiveness isn’t only a question of more democracy, it
means real collectivity in management and an opportunity
for workers to directly influence the development of the
economy.” The 55-year-old Solonitsyn expects the
reforms to allow his factory to produce more housing, day care and sports facilities
from the growth in enterprise profits. ‘We'll be the ones deciding how and on what
to spend the surplus.”

Rank and file criticism is being highlighted in Mikhail Gorbachev's openness and
restructuring process and this fits in with the channels Soviet workers have at their
disposal for criticism of management. Says Solonitsyn: ‘‘ Any criticisms are
normally raised at the team level, then they’re expressed by our representative at a
public meeting. Sometimes a veteran will go right to the supervisor and tell him the
team’s opinion. It works. With 34 years seniority, I occasionally do it myself.”

, Sergei Yerofeyev agrees: ‘‘Personal contact is the most
often used channel for workers’ criticisms. But I wouldn’t
say it’s 100 per cent effective. For example, one time the
team leaders’ council authorized me to talk to the plant’s
chief engineer, but that didn’t settle the issue. Then I
raised the matter at a meeting of our party organization, of
which the chief engineer is also a member. As a result
management took a decision based on our council’s

= recommendations.”

Once legislated throughout the country, electing section
chiefs and team leaders will present workers with some
YEVGENI tough choices, says Solonitsyn.

SOLONITSYN ‘Will I vote for a shop superintendent who cuts my
bonuses and gives me rotten jobs?”’, he asks. ‘Frankly, no. But suppose he/she’s
only bad to me and a few others? Suppose he/she gets a wage hike for the other
thousand workers under the new system? Clearly, most of the workers will vote for
him/her, leaving me no option but to adjust’’.

As far as the election of managers is concerned, Kurbakov wants to see them
elected for a two-year term, instead of five-year terms as the bill proposes.

SERGE!
YEROFEYEV

VLADIMIR
KURBAKOV

For 32-year-old Patty Abrams, workplace democracy has a hollow ring to it.
‘‘We don’t really have rights on the job, we're treated like children who are granted
little privileges once in a while.”” The London (Ont.) long distance operator speaks
of the intense pressure of constant job measurement and management harassment,
and of the toll it takes both on the workers, causing stress-related illnesses, and on
the union’s morale.

‘‘When the pressure is really up and you try to talk to the members during breaks
about union matters, they don’t want to talk about anything. They just absolutely .
need that 15 minutes break to ‘veg out’ and rest’’, says the vice-president of
Communications and Electrical Workers Local 46.

With a union contract up for renewal, and to facilitate the completion of Bell
Canada Corporation’s drive to replace its permanent full time staff with temporary
part timers, management has launched a QWL-type of program it calls ‘*Rolling Out
Changes’’.

‘It really should be called ‘Ruining Our Chances’. It’s actually a QWL program
but they won’t admit it.””

The ROC committee is the latest in a long line of joint worker-management
committees that trace back to Bell’s once-treasured employee association, which
the CWC put out of business when it gave Bell workers a fighting union.

‘“This committee can undercut the union particularly where contract language is
vague. The message coming through to the members is that if you have a complaint,
don’t go to the union and file a grievance, go to the ROC committee person, he or
she’ll straighten it out.””

Forty-four-year-old Don Quinn, an oiler at General Motors’ St. Catharines
engine plant and an active member of Local 199, Canadian
Auto Workers, is clear on workplace democracy.

‘The only structure we have to provide any measure of
democracy in our plant is the union and the grievance
procedure. Anything the corporation throws at us with
their so-called ‘new concept’ (QWL-like programs), is
usually loaded with fish hooks. What they give you with
one hand under the so-called new concept, they usually
take away behind your back.”

Though GM has been unable to bring it to St.
Catharines, the corporation has been promoting what it
calls the ‘“Team Concept’’, a response to tech change and
new production methods reorganizing production groups
into smaller units.

‘They claim it gives the worker more autonomy. They can move to different
jobs, supposedly making the work rules more flexible, but what it really means is
speed up, crossing job classifications, and I can see potential safety problems.

On its own, as the Soviet model shows, the work team isn’t necessarily a bad

idea, the auto worker says, but GM’s interest in it is limited to boosting production
and squeezing out fatter profits.

‘The corporations try to channel all your thoughts into the complete operation,
so you’ll work at any job you're told to. Say you're on a team, and someone takes
time off because they’re sick or whatever. That worker isn’t replaced, the rest of
the team take up the slack. :

‘That puts the onus on team members to pressure each other about things that
are management’s responsibility and builds in the potential for division among the
workers.”

Tied to the Team Concept is the threat that unless workers comply, their jobs will
disappear in the name of international and corporate competitiveness.

‘“They’re saying that if you produce quality products your job will be secure, but
. the U.S. where they have 11 plants working under this concept, nine are shutting
lown.

‘‘It’s pushed at us as a new concept, but what’s new is the cosmetics. Their target
is to weaken the unions. They want to reduce the shop floor level of union
representation and they hope to reduce the union’s role in the plants to merely
administering the contract.’’ — M.P.

18 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 29, 1987