Transforming Worker Representation: The Magna Model in Canada and Mexico

The emergence of internationalized production in the context of weakening state regulation of labour rights and of increasing employer dominance in industrial relations systems raises significant questions about the nature and future of worker representation. A crucial issue is the transferability of company-specific models of worker voice across national boundaries. This issue is the focus of this case study of Magna International, a leading member of a small group of transnational automotive parts manufacturing firms that are central to the contemporary restructuring of the international automotive industry. The paper compares the transformation of worker representation at Magna in Canada and Mexico. In crossing international borders, the Magna industrial relations model has taken on national and local features of the host country. However, the underlying industrial relations structure is one which has elicited a successful reconfiguration and containment of much, although by no means all, of the adversarialism inherent in labour-management relations. This reconfiguration has aligned worker representation to an essentially unitarist project oriented to management’s productivity goals. More than merely suppressing independent unions, Magna has constructed a coherent, management-dominated model of worker representation in both Canada and Mexico. The paper concludes with an assessment of the implications of this model for independent unionism. Resume L’emergence de la production internationale dans le contexte d’affaiblir la reglementation des droits syndicaux et d’augmenter la dominance patronale dans les relations industrielles souleve des questions importantes a l’egard de la nature et de l’avenir de la representation ouvriere. Une question fondamentale est le caractere transferable des modeles precis de la voix des travailleurs a travers les frontieres nationales. Elle represente le theme principal de cette etude de cas de Magna International, membre preponderant d’un petit groupe d’entreprises manufacturieres internationales des pieces d’automobile, essentiel a la restructuration contemporaine de l’industrie automobile internationale. Cet article fait la comparaison de la transformation de la representation ouvriere a Magna au Canada et au Mexique. A travers les frontieres internationales, le modele des relations industrielles de Magna avait pris les caracteristiques nationales et locales du pays d’origine. Toute-fois, la structure fondamentale des relations industrielles est celle qui avait declenche une reconfiguration reussie et un confinement de la plupart, mais en aucune facon la totalite, du caractere adversaire inherent dans les relations ouvrieres patronales. Cette reconfiguration a aligne la representation ouvriere a un projet essentiellement unitariste axe sur les objectifs patronaux de production. Bien plus que de supprimer les syndicats independants, Magna a construit un modele coherent avec dominance patronale de la representation ouvriere au Canada et au Mexique. Cet article se termine avec une evaluation des implications de ce modele pour le syndicalisme independant.