Article Summary: Union leaders and the economic crisis: responses to restructuring
As the United States and the rest of the world face uncertain times in the way traditional businesses operates, this article presents untapped possibilities on a flexible and nontraditional workplace. The article, although published in 1994, and with its setting in Canada, is still prevalent today in the US, because the fall of the nations largest auto makers seem to be directly related to the cost of operating with a unionized labor force in the United States. The article summarized the key strategies that would be the wave of the future which included the use of part-time or casual labor, by contracting work out, or by instituting multi-skilling systems. In my opinion, the adoption of these new strategies will be a necessary norm for many successful businesses in the US as they are faced with finding new ways to streamline operations.
In a nutshell, the introduction of the flexible organization would allow the organization to be a producer that alters their operations based on the demand of the product, rather than attempting to increase sales when the demand is just not there. This strategy is that of “just in time", or (JIT) inventory strategies There will be no free lunches for employees who follow traditional models of those in the past with qualifications to do only one craft. For many years, workers of labor organizations earned a decent living regardless of how the corporation was fairing. With the new strategy of producing to the market, employees will find themselves having to have more than one avenue of income or skill in order to be continuously compensated. The idea of cross functional crafts are contrary to many lab ...