Produzione a ciclo continuo. Modalità di lavoro e trasmissione del sapere in una fabbrica post-fordista

Abstract

In this article, I discuss some forms of production and of knowledge transmission in the Fiat-Sata factory located in Melfi, where I conducted fieldwork between 2010 and 2014. By relaying on workers’ narratives, I describe how the manual dimension of work - the ways of making production - is intertwined with its intellectual component and more precisely with the technical know how of workers. I show, first, how various categories of workers may be differently affected by the flexibility and rigidity of the lean production. Second, I prove the existence of a common ability of adapting to the labour process, which occurs through a personalisation of work. Finally, emphasis is laid on individual and collective tactics that workers use to control the times of the production process by translating their technical knowledge into informal practices of resistance.