Introduction

In his fable, La Fontaine sets the unbending pride of the oak, the king of the forest, against the yielding humility of the reed; and it is the oak in its pride that is brought low by the storm. Here, however, we shall be arguing that if the assembly line has flourished and become all-powerful, it has the flexibility of its associated work relations to thank for its growth and good fortune. It is the social network – or rather complex of networks – that surrounds the line which combines with the rigidity of the latter to sustain it. The names applied to this dialectical unity, such as flexibility, multi-skilling, tacit skills and so forth, give only an imperfect account of the richness of social life on the line. For in both the laborious physical exertion, and the satisfaction that work can bring, it is the density of social networks that gives the assembly line its life. Unofficial complicities between members of the team, a shared history of long employment, ethnic and generational solidarities, mutual assistance in the face of difficulty, the sharing of risk, the comradeship of past struggles, all these go to form the intricately intersecting networks of relations that make life on the line liveable and tolerable.