Gilmour, Alison Julia (2010) Examining the 'hard-boiled bunch': work culture and industrial ...

295 Pages·2010·6.56 MB·English

by  Alison Gilmour

Gilmour, Alison Julia (2010) Examining the ‘hard-boiled bunch’: work
culture and industrial relations at the Linwood car plant, c. 1963-1981.
PhD thesis.

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Examining the ‘hard-boiled bunch’: work culture and
industrial relations at the Linwood car plant,
c. 1963 -1981
Alison Julia Gilmour
Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctorate of
Philosophy
Department of Economic and Social History
Faculty of Law, Business and Social Sciences
University of Glasgow
September 2009
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‘Peugeot’s biggest challenge at Chrysler will undoubtedly
come from the 9000 workers at the Linwood, Scotland, plant.
A hard-boiled bunch even by British labor standards.’
Source: Mitchell Library [hereafter ML], Linwood Box 10, N. White and A. Collings,
‘The Battle of Britain’, Newsweek, 23 (1978).
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Abstract
This thesis investigates the nature of work culture and industrial relations at the Linwood
car plant during the period 1963-1981. In Part One, Chapter One provides an overview of
the historical debate over the use of oral testimony as well as introducing the methodology
employed within the oral history project encompassed within the thesis. Chapter Two
provides an analysis of the nature of work at the Linwood car plant and the ways in which
this impacted on behaviour and attitudes in the workplace. This is further developed in
Chapter Three where the focus is on organisational mischief, and consideration is given to
the nature, consequences and explanations for this behaviour. The analysis developed in
Part One, focuses on the dominant explanations for problematic industrial relations based
on the notion of a ‘clash of work cultures’ due to an absence of intrinsic rewards in
automated assembly-line work. Within the thesis such dominant narratives are not entirely
supported by the Linwood sample, as a wide variety of attitudes towards work are
exhibited, leading the thesis to question the validity of the categories of intrinsic and
extrinsic reward.
In Part Two of the thesis there is a shift in focus as the analysis concentrates on
structures of authority at Linwood and the impact on industrial relations. Chapter Four
gives consideration to the influence of historical contingency on management decision-
making. Part of the 1976 government rescue package was a Planning Agreement
incorporating employee participation in management decision-making that articulated with
the Labour government’s manifesto commitment to industrial democracy. Yet throughout
the different phases of ownership, interactions between management and workers at the
Linwood plant explored in this thesis reveal a dichotomy between the rhetoric and reality
of industrial democracy and worker participation. The final chapter of the thesis offers an
exploration of shop floor industrial politics, and causes of strikes, to highlight the
narratives of tension underpinning interactions at Linwood. The thesis provides a nuanced
approach, highlighting variety of experience and importantly a complex interplay of
interests shaping work culture and the nature of industrial relations in the car plant.
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Contents
Abstract 3
Acknowledgements 5
Author’s Declaration 7
Abbreviations 9
Introduction 10
Part One: Reconstructing the Factory
Chapter One
Oral History: Reconstructing and Interpreting the World of Work 20
Chapter Two
Experiences of Work: A Clash of Cultures? 58
Chapter Three
Organisational Mischief: Employee Autonomy at Work 102
Part Two: Structures of Authority
Chapter Four
Managing Linwood: Company, Plant and Shop Floor 160
Chapter Five
Structures of Authority: Compliance and Coercion 219
Conclusion 260
Appendices
Appendix One: Interview Schedule 267
Appendix Two: Sample Details 270
Bibliography 273
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Acknowledgements
Completing a PhD has been a huge challenge yet I am grateful for such an opportunity. My
first and foremost thanks must go to the former workers of Linwood who were involved
through sharing their narratives. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing people’s experiences and I
believe the PhD to be greatly enriched by the inclusion of their testimony.
I would also like to thank staff at the Mitchell Library, National Library of Scotland, The
National Archives, Modern Records Centre, Glasgow Transport Museum and the Rootes
Archive Centre. I am greatly indebted to Cliff Lockyer at the Fraser of Allander Institute
for allowing unfettered access to his collection of materials from the Linwood plant as well
as his research notes from a project undertaken in the early 1980s.
I would not have been fortunate enough to undertake my MPhil and subsequent PhD
without the financial support of the Economic and Social Research Council, the Economic
History Society and the Centre for Business History in Scotland at the University of
Glasgow. Furthermore, the Department of Economic and Social History at the University
of Glasgow provided an encouraging atmosphere in which to undertake the PhD. I owe
thanks to all staff and fellow postgraduates for academic and personal support provided
over the last four years and during my undergraduate studies.
I was lucky enough to benefit from the expertise of three supervisors over the course of the
PhD: Dr Jim Phillips, Professor Arthur McIvor and Dr Duncan Ross, and I am grateful for
their guidance. Special mention must go to Jim Phillips, who was primary supervisor
throughout my MPhil and PhD degrees, as well as playing a significant role in my
undergraduate university experience. The thesis would not have been finished without his
delicate balance of encouragement and pragmatic criticism.
I want to thank all family and friends who have supported me, especially for the
considerable hospitality offered by friends when I was researching in the East Midlands
and in London, significantly Lauren Ellison and Jane Hamilton. Gillian Nelson merits
particular thanks: we met during Freshers’ Week in 2000 and now share an office thus
experiencing the vicissitudes of PhD life together. Also Mr. Melvyn Haggarty, former
Principal Teacher of History at Paisley Grammar School, for whom I have the greatest of
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respect as a teacher and friend, and owe thanks for nourishing in me an appreciation of the
importance in what we can learn from history.
Simon Bennison has provided support in many ways and has only ever known me to be a
PhD student, thus the best way to thank him was to finish the thesis.
I could not have completed the thesis without the support of my immediate family.
Gordon, David and Erin have endured an increasingly absent-minded big sister but their
humour and youth have been a welcome distraction.
At the centre of our family is my mum providing unrelenting support. Her immense
strength and can-do attitude mean she is a constant source of inspiration in my life and for
these reasons the PhD is dedicated to her.
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Author’s Declaration
I declare that, except where explicit reference is made to the contribution of others, that
this thesis is the result of my own work and has not been submitted for any other degree* at
the University of Glasgow or any other institution.
Signature
Alison Gilmour
*Chapter 5 includes primary data deployed in a different context in an MPhil dissertation submitted
at the University of Glasgow in 2005 ‘“A hard boiled bunch even by British labor standards”: A
study of workplace unionism at the Linwood car plant, circa 1963-1981’, and publication ‘The
Trouble with Linwood: Compliance and Coercion in the Car Plant, 1963-1981’, Journal of Scottish
Historical Studies, 27 (2007), 75-93.
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Linwood Plant
Source: FAI, Papers of Cliff Lockyer, Box 11, Linwood [pamphlet]. ‘Linwood’, Company
Pamphlet produced by Rootes Motors Scotland Limited. Not dated but estimate this was
produced around 1969.
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Abbreviations
ATMS Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs
AEU Amalgamated Engineering Union
AUEW Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers
CAB Car Assembly Building
CP Communist Party
CRPS Central Policy Review Staff
EEC European Economic Committee
EEF Engineering Employers’ Federation
EPP Employee Participation Programme
ETU Electrical Trades Union
IRO Industrial Relations Officer
JRC Joint Representative Council
MDW Measured Day Work
MNC Multinational Corporations
NUVB National Union of Vehicle Builders
PAWP Planning Agreement Working Party
PBR Payment By Results
SEEA Scottish Engineering Employers’ Association
SWP Socialist Workers Party
TAC Talbot Action Committee
TGWU Transport and General Workers Union
TUC Trades Union Congress
UCS Upper Clyde Shipbuilders
UMB Unit Machine Block