Globalization, management strategies and workers: a comparative study of the brazilian pulp industry

Author(s)

Glicia Vieira dos Santos

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
• Defense date: 2005-02-18

Examining board members

Angela Maria Carneiro Araújo; Alessandra Rachid; Antonia de Lourdes Colbari; Leda Maria Caira Gitahy; Márcia de Paula Leite

• Advisor: Angela Maria Carneiro Araújo

Abstract

This thesis analyzes, from the perspective of the workplace and the frame of reference of employees, the effects of globalization and of productive restructuring on production, on the employees involved in industries that employ continuous processes and on the unions of the pulp and paper sector. The central hypothesis is that the changes linked to globalization have had a significant effect inside the factories, modifying the correlation of the strength of the many diverse players involved in production and they have also had a relevant mediating effect in terms of the participation of labor. The restructuring has reached a broad scope: going from the restructuring of the production chains, on an international scale, to the redefinition of the management strategies of the industries, and reaching beyond the industries internal boundaries through the changes brought on with respect to the communities and the companies that make up the supply chain and, also taking into consideration the reformulation of the strategies taken up by the unions. ¿Technical¿ management decisions that conceal a ¿political¿ dimension have altered the relationships of power among the bosses, engineers and other employees. The methodological procedures adopted include: bibliographical research as well as that of documentation, fieldwork, the analysis of statistics regarding the labor market, visits to factories and unions and interviews (AU)