SAAB Goes Belly UP

What we learned at SAAB ?

It was November of 1974 that six autoworkers embarked for Sweden to work at the SAAB Plant in Soedertaelje. The 1970s was a time of large experiments in how to give workers a greater control of the work. There were self managing work-teams, skunk works where groups of workers,engineers were sent off to develop new products. The objective was simply to give workers a sense of their own achievements in the work process. The new ways of working was considered an attack on boredom and low moral that was causing increased low quality output especially here in the US. At the time it was very common to compare the poor quality output of American manufacturing plants to the Japanese or the Germans.

The autoworkers hadn’t been in Sweden for a few days when McGeorge Bundy President of the Foundation called me, ”Schrank what are we doing in Sweden? I am getting calls from the Swedish Embassy wanting to know who sent these radicals here to stir up trouble?” I needed to convince my bosses at Ford that I was not responsible for whatever was going on in Stockholm. “No I did not set up any kind of shenanigans that was taking place there. Oh, let me get back to the story.

As a Program Officer at the Ford Foundation I was able to create a program called,”American Workers Abroad.” I thought that it would be very educational to have workers from the US. go to work in some of the “New Age Workplaces” in Europe. I was familiar with the work of sociologists and economists writing about the assembly line but none of them actually worked there. Professionals who don’t understand the culture of the workplace writing about it instead of it. The six auto workers chosen by the U.A.W. came right off the assembly line. They went to work at the SAAB plant. Bob Goldman went along reporting on their experience. He was instructed to meet with the six every evening for debriefings on what they had learned. (There is a Ford Foundation publication on the program.)

The idea for sending workers to experience the new ways of working was to get feedback from people who could compare their traditional workplaces to the new ones. At SAAB they had given up the engine assembly line in favor of having a team of two workers assemble a whole car engine. That required close attention to sequences and tools. When they finished they could sign their names to a nameplate on the engine. The whole experience was to contrast it to the old engine assembly line. Volvo had built a plant in Kalmar where a team of workers would do the final car assembly in the same way.

Look, it was not my idea to put the American auto workers on a Swedish TV interview show. The interviewer asked them to talk about their observation on the new workplace. I feel certain that the television folks were sure they were going to glow in great praise for their pioneering workplace experiment. Alas it was not to be.

The first bombshell that fell on the viewers was from a Chicano from Cadillac. “You know” he says, “ In the US we’re discriminated against because we have a dark skin. In Sweden you get discriminated if your very blond.” As described to me the poor interviewer is totally non plused, don’t know where to go. As he presses forward the US auto workers say,” Look, we noticed that none of the people on the engine assembly are Swedes. So, we start asking around They're all Finns. Who can’t even live here but go back home for the weekend. When we asked the Swedes why they don’t want to do the team assembly they say it’s to hard.” I thought, wow this program is wonderful we are getting some honest to goodness feedback. Of course the Swedes who don’t do to well with criticisms are furious. Hence the phone calls to Bundy.

Okay, This was not a unanimous view of the six. Others said they liked working the engine assembly because it made the day go quicker because you had to think about what you are doing. Another said “and after you do 50 or 100 engines then what?” Some preferred the line precisely because it required no thought just repetitious motion that left you free to think about what’s wrong with my bowling game or whose gonna win the World Series or of course sex.

I learned once again that workers have very different ideas about how the work in the workplace should be done. Charlie Chaplin Modern Times about the assembly line was a great movie. BUT there are thousands of laid off auto workers would be very happy to get back on the line.

Footnote I have written a book called, “American Workers Abroad” MIT Press 1979.
We sent nurses to Britain as well as policemen. The former to experience the National Health Service. The latter to experience community policing out of the cars. Longshoreman to work in the most automated Port Rotterdam. Sailors to work on a “democratically run ship.” Great stories from all of them.