The Great Con of the "Team" Concept

The implementation of the team concept at the Big Three automakers beginning in the 1980's has eroded union solidarity and conditioned workers to think like management.

One of my favorite labor quotes comes from CIO titan, John L. Lewis. The imposing, bushy eye-browed labor leader who dominated the movement for so many years in the early part of the twentieth century had the following to say about the reality of the relationship that exists between management and workers; “Labor and management may be partners in theory, but they are enemies in fact.”

The quote goes directly against everything autoworkers at the Big Three automakers today are told about how they must co-exist with their bosses.

Since the 1980’s the UAW and auto executives have advocated for a system known as the Team Concept. Labor Notes co-founder Jane Slaughter wrote about the Team Concept in this article from 1990, but the program basically boils down to the idea that what’s good for the corporation is good for its workers and that workers must be willing to continually work harder for less in order to save their jobs due to competition.

If you are an autoworker reading this right now, then what you experience on the assembly line every day is essentially the Team Concept on steroids. Since the implementation of the concept in the 1980’s, both the corporation and our UAW leadership have doubled down on the ideology. And while one can easily understand why the auto corporations would insist on continuing this approach given how it’s allowed them to wring as much profit as possible out of its workforce, our union leadership’s continued advocacy for such an anti-worker system is disturbing.

Here’s a statistic that I reference quite often, but one that I believe truly illustrates how the auto corporations have exploited their work forces for decades; in 1970, General Motors employed 400,000 UAW members. In 2022, GM employs less than 50,000. Yet, under the team concept, workers are still told that they must work even harder and more efficiently if they hope to secure future products at their facilities.

GM made $10 billion dollars in net profit in 2021, this despite a parts shortage and a global pandemic. However, workers are still expected to become even more productive or else suffer the consequences of potentially losing product and/or having their plant closed down.

The team concept has so eroded solidarity within our union over the last forty years that Locals compete with one another to see which one can offer the corporation the most concessions in hopes of attaining product (this process is called whipsawing). Whichever Local loses the concession war sees their plant shut down. Whichever Local “wins”, ends up lowering the standard at their work facility, and thus, the standards at every corporate-wide facility as well.

We are to the point where we as union workers aren’t merely competing with workers in other countries — we are competing with our fellow UAW brothers and sisters at other Locals as well.

Recently I spent a few days looking over the contract at my Local between the company and the union. As one would imagine, the Team Concept features prominently throughout. It’s a document littered with such verbiage as ”innovative work approaches”, “competitive cost”, “continuous improvement” and so on and so forth — nicely worded jargon that means continued worker exploitation at my plant.

Part of the contract reads;

“During negotiations, the parties (corporation and union) discussed several initiatives for enhancing competitiveness, job security, team concept and implementation of Global Manufacturing System (GMS).

”The cornerstone of this agreement (between corporation and union) is Team Concept, in that the parties recognize that the catalyst for our success is our employees. The goal of team concept is to provide a world class quality product at a competitive cost by providing opportunities for all employees to have input in their work environment. The purpose of teams is to involve employees in the work process to improve performance and enhance product quality and working conditions, develop employee pride, job satisfaction and personal growth.”

Pride, job satisfaction and personal growth? Do you feel pride as management treats you like a number on a page and a machine on the assembly line? Do you feel satisfaction when the company continues to add more work to your job? Do you feel personal growth as you are continually expected to miss time with family, friends, or activities you are passionate about because the company has zero respect for your personal time?

Under the “Responsibilities of Team Members” section of the contract, workers must “support cost reduction in areas of material, LABOR, scrap, and process supplies, etc.” One of our contractual responsibilities as a team member is to help the company find ways to cut jobs out of our plant — to help them cut our union brother or sisters’ jobs to help the company’s bottom line. Keep in mind, the company made $10 billion dollars last year.

The truth is that there’s absolutely nothing team-oriented about the Team Concept. It’s a one-sided partnership that always favors management and one in which the only time workers have a voice in decision-making is if they find ways to extract more profit out of the process for the company at the expense of you and me. It’s an inhumane and exploitative system that looks impressive and compassionate when written down on a piece of paper or when described in a conference room presentation. However, the reality — which I’m guessing almost all auto workers would attest to — is something much different.

Which brings us back to that quote by John L. Lewis. Whether workers want to admit it or not, Lewis’ words are a cold, hard uncomfortable truth. Corporate executives will do everything in their power to extract as much labor as possible from their employees. Their desire to increase profits from year-to-year is insatiable. GM may have made $10 billion in 2021, but rest assured, CEO Mary Barra is looking for ways to make sure the company’s shareholders get an even bigger return on their investments this year — to the detriment of the very workers who generate those billions of dollars of profits.

As it has for decades, the Team Concept will play a big factor in helping Barra do just that. The big wigs at the Big Three are banking on union members continuing to cut each others’ throats at the alter of corporate greed.

It’s an act that is about as anti-union as it gets.

As UAW members, it’s time we finally reject the imaginary “partnership” known as the Team Concept.