Abstract
Over the past ten years, Brazil’s automotive industry has experienced important changes, triggered by the restructuring of its production sector worldwide. Initially, there was a significant upsurge in foreign direct investments allocated to new manufacturing plants from the mid-1990s onwards, establishing branches of all the main auto-assemblers in the country. Next, the companies decided to move away from the longest-established vehicle production area around São Paulo, instead opting for greenfield ventures in new regions. This was the context within which mature plants had to adapt to the flexibility criteria imposed by these new production strategies: these new plants were built in compliance with precepts of lean production, while workers and trade unions had to reorganise in order to deal with labour relations characterised by insecurity and new types of control on the factory floor.
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© 2008 José Ricardo Ramalho and Elaine Marlova V. Francisco
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Ramalho, J.R., Francisco, E.M.V. (2008). Labour Relations in the Modular System: Ten Years of the VW Experience at Resende, Brazil. In: Pulignano, V., Stewart, P., Danford, A., Richardson, M. (eds) Flexibility at Work. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230581937_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230581937_7
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