Work processes, quality standards and union participation in uruguayan industrial production

Abstract

The article focuses on the study of forms of work participation and the construction of the legitimacy of quality standards in different companies of the chemical and food industry in Uruguay. In the work, the results of the qualitative analysis conducted through interviews in four dimensions are discussed i) the relationship between quality standards and innovation ii) the relationship between competencies and organizational learning iii) the discussion around the criteria of legitimacy of the quality standards; and iv) worker participation and cooperation. The conclusions of the work are that the quality standards, although they do not substantially modify the Taylorist production matrix, constitute a form of technification of the labor process superior to that implemented in the classic forms of work organization of the import substitution industries, promote the development of more universal criteria for the evaluation of work and, in some cases, the possibilities of introducing re-Taylorization processes that, in any case, constitute more adequate forms than traditional paternalistic models.