Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

KATHRIN REFERENCES LITERATUR LOER
automotive companies, particularly the OEMs,
have dug their own (economic) grave step by
step because of immense overcapacities over
the last decade. Of course, this picture is onedimensional,
as the problem of overcapacities is
not only caused by (independent) management
or executive decisions but is the result of
parallels in the development of the market
that complicate these decisions. To describe it
concisely: The opening of Central and Eastern
European countries opens new markets with
a huge demand and backlog in people having
their own automobiles. This is an example
of a (quite) unexpected potential to expand
for market changes during a short period of
time (van Tulder, Ruigrok 1998, Keune, Tóth
2005). As demand for expensive investment
goods such as automobiles cannot be exactly
predicted, the forecast of trends is sophisticated
and partly coincidently. As new competitors
enter the market and the automotive
industry is profoundly dependent on general
developments of national and international
economies and their rapid shocks and changes,
unilateral criticism against the OEM does
not cope with the complexity of the situation.
However, the impact of market instabilities,
the need for flexibility and fast adaptation
to new circumstances pressures workers and
employees in the sector as their employment
conditions are often seen as an “adjustable
screw” in the eyes of company management
( Jürgens 2005a, Jürgens 2005b, Jürgens 2004,
Kahancová, van der Meer 2006, Charron,
Stewart 2004). Another remarkable change is
related to cooperation between competitors in
the market that reach from buying syndicates
to joint production sites. On the other hand,
new competitors enter the international market
and discover Europe as an interesting economic
region (mostly cheap automotive producers
from emerging markets, India or China…).
In summary the transformation of the automotive
sector proceeds in different respects:
Growing cost pressure.
Changes regarding the terms and
conditions for workers in the sector.
Growth of new flexible employment
strategies, namely temporary employment,
which produces a segmentation of
employees with permanent staff, on
the one hand, and workers that accept
precarious employment conditions
(continuity, wage levels), on the other.
Organized labour is hardly achievable
and the counterpart of the management
weakened.
After years of implementation, the
concept of “lean production” and the
idea of a “breathing plant” are enforced
to cope with changing circumstances
(Schumann et al. 2006) 4 . The concept
aims at introducing terms of employment
that allow hiring and firing at short
notice, without difficult legal bindings.
Of course, this concept is judged very
differently depending on the perspective.
Employers recognize the need
to be flexible if they want to
stay competitive and search Seite page 67
for solutions in the range of
employment conditions as they
turn out to be the most extensive cost
factor. The employees’ perspective claims
the trend to capitalize the current market