Lean Manufacturing: What’s At Stake for IUE-CWA

From globalization to bad trade agreements such as NAFTA, U.S. manufacturing has been hard hit. Since 1998, our country has lost 3.4 million manufacturing jobs.

In response, many manufacturers have turned to lean manufacturing. For most union members “lean” is a four-letter word that equates with losing even more good-paying, quality jobs.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Lean or high performance manufacturing can be an effective tool that results in job security – not job losses – by streamlining operations on the plant floor and in the front office.  In fact, manufacturers who don't go lean risk losing markets and jobs.

You can go lean while still insuring basic union values.  IUE-CWA offers its locals and their employers a proven lean program that brings workers and management together so the union has a role, employers listen to employees and workers have decent jobs with decent wages.  Union involvement increases the likelihood that lean will be successful by incorporating workers’ interests.

Lean Can Be Attractive to Union Members

With it's bottom-up approach, IUE-CWA’s Lean/High Performance program:

• Engages union members in design of work process and organization
• Gives employees more control over work organization
• Provides job security from company's new competitiveness

We need to think differently and work creatively to keep jobs.  When unions transform lean into Lean/High Performance, it works for employees and helps keep good jobs in the U.S.

Learn to Recognize Opportunities for Lean/High Performance

Local unions are in the best position to recognize the signs that a move towards lean manufacturing is likely, or needed. Here are some questions to ask:

• Are customers going to competitors?
• Are profits decreasing or turning into losses?
• Are there opportunities to obtain a new product in the plant?
• Is a major customer demanding lean as a way to reduce costs?
• Is corporate convinced that lean should be introduced to lower costs?