Trabalho, práticas de emprego e eficiência produtiva: aspectos da experiência norte-americana recente

Resumo

This paper is aimed at Identifying new employment practices developed in
USA since the early eighties. It is particularly concerned with the factors that
induce productive efficiency. The article assumes that the development of employment
practices, in order to increase productivity and competitiveness, is
based on workers cooperation and involvement in the production process, on
the one hand, and on employment security and social equity, on the other. Evidence
actually shows that a proportion of industrial establishments in USA
have introduced new forms of work organization as well as human resources
management. This represents a break with the employment practices prevailing
under fordist accumulation regime. The diffusion of work teams, and of
quality circles, as well as of new practices as regards to education and trainning
of the labor force, combined with new forms of performance related pay,
suggest a reshaping of the USA industrial relations away from those of the
Golden Age. Nevetheless researches show that features of the past still persist.
This is the case of lack of employment security, the intensity of supervision
at workplace level as well as the conflictual character of labor relations. The
paper suggests that the new employment practices carne alongside the old
ones, the later hindering both the diffusion of the former and the increase of
productive efficiency.