Self-run workers please everybody

Press, 25 February 1977, Page 2

Self-run workers please everybody

Workers at the Woolston tannery of G. L. Bowron and Company, Ltd, yesterday expressed their satisfaction at the way the company’s pilot scheme of worker-participation has worked.

This follows the release of details of the scheme at the New Zealand Employers’ Federation convention in Auckland by a spokesman for the firm, Dr R. Mann. The scheme has been working in the clothing warehouse department since June last year and involves four women and two men, who have been with the company for between two months and 12 years. Two are members of the Meat Workers’ Union and the others belong to the Storemen and Packers’ Union.

“They’ve given their full co-operation. They’ve gone out of their way to help us,” said Mrs M. Bird, who has been with the company for four years, describing the role of the management. Dr Mann told the conference that over a period of three months the supervisor was withdrawn from the department, leaving the workers to run it themselves. They control their own quality supervision, work rates, overtime, working hours and output.

They elect for themselves a chairman who is their spokesman and point of contact for outsiders.

The position of chairman rotated, being held by each member of the group for one month only. They make joint decisions on various aspects of running their department and they hold a weekly meeting to review their situation with the manager to whom the department is responsible. The present chairman, described by the workers as “madam chairman.” is Mrs B. Smith, who with 12 years of service is the most senior worker in the department. She said yesterday that the scheme was the brainchild of Mr D. Bowron, general manager of the company. The workers refer to him by his first name, David. Mrs Bird could not recall any disputes in the department since she had been there. She said that the workers generally worked from 7 a.m, to 4 p.m. like all the

other workers in the plant, and they did little overtime. The workers seldom arrived late to work. “We feel honour bound to turn up on time. If we had a • supervisor perhaps we wouldn’t be,” said Mrs Bird. ■ “We feel we would be letting I ourselves down if we were ;late,” she said. Mr Bowron said that the department had the lowest rate of absenteeism in the I factory, and the workers 'claimed that their department also had the lowest worker • turnover rate.

The company has applied to the Industrial Commission for permission to pay ut a regular share of the savings that have been made. Dr Mann also described the operation of the company’s works council which he said had contributed to the successful running of the organisation and improved work satisfaction. He also outlined another experiment in worker participation — a committee of the manager and foreman, the union delegate and two elected by people working in the department. “They hold fortnightly meetings and the matters dealt with are wide-ranging, including such things as minor complaints, general discipline and the introduction of an incentive bonus scheme,” he said.

“Even though no incentive scheme has yet been introduced production rates have already increased. “Perhaps this is a reflection of the fact that additional interest is being taken in people working in the area. “Once the incentive scheme has been set up, we hope they will be able to make joint decisions on such things as controlling their own work hours, deciding numbers of staff to be employed to adequately meet production schedules, organising their own work system so tasks are shared out as fairly and as interestingly as possible.” And. said Dr Mann, New Zealand’s outmoded employment policies are just not good enough under today’s circumstances.

“People are demanding and will get a greater say in their own destinies ... we must become more peopleorientated. "Who should initiate these 1 changes? Should it be the

unions? Unlikely, the present system works quite well for them. Mr Muldoon and his party, particularly the reactionaries, appear to be more concerned with union bashing . . “Surely we as employers want to have the decisions in our own hands. Surely we want to be taking the initiative.”

Our industrial reporter comments that worker participation is not new in New Zealand, but that the scheme at G. L. Bowron’s is one of the best models of participation in Canterbury' at least. He says that a survey by the Labour Department in 1972 revealed that one firm in eight in the manufacturing sector said that they had some form of worker participation. A quarter of the companies had schemes on the lines of G. L. Bowron’s.