The Global Vehicle Assembly Industry and Its Periphery: A Comparative Study on the Work Reconfiguration in Brazil

Since its very beginning, the vehicle assembly industry has been known as leading-edge in terms of technological and organizational development. The incorporation of Taylor’s approach by Fordist assembly line has become a hallmark of modern factory, a paradigm which has spread for other industrial sectors, reaching even organizations from tertiary sector. On the second half of 20^th century, the vehicle assembly industry was once more in the forefront in terms of organizational changes: Toyota system has spread all over North-America and Europe as a novel way to organize work in factories, being grounded on ideas such as leanness, flexibility and just-in-time. Such innovations, supported by microelectronics, extrapolate industrial and productive changes within factories, opening room for industrial re-territorialization. In this process, big transnational corporations have been developing new organizational networks, rearranging their value chain, and, at same time, relocating automotive assembly lines from big industrial cities to small cities with weaker trade union tradition, known as greenfields, what have resulted in changes in many areas of social life in those places. Such is the research context of this paper. Our main aim is to analyze the insertion of two assembly factories in two new industrial areas – Iracemápolis (SP) and Goiana (PE), guided by the following questions: which model(s) of management of labor process and workforce are adopted in those units? To what extent toyotism has been in use? Are there traits of taylorism-fordism? What kind of hybridisms exist in those factories? To what extent the local culture penetrates in those productive spaces, fostering resistance or adjustment mechanisms? What are the differences between the two assembly factories? The research is in process and initial data shall be presented in this Congress.