Empowerment or Enslavement?: Lean Production, Immigrant Women and Service Work in Public Hospitals

Abstract

This article examines the application of elements of lean production work organisation to service work. Lean production describes the Japanese car assembly manufacturing system pioneered by Toyota. Proponents of this production system claim that lean production has universal application and will have as dramatic an impact upon the organisation of service work as it is having on work organisation within the car manufacturing sector. An ‘ideal model’ of lean production for the service sector has been developed by Mathews (1992). This article critically assesses the impact of this interpretation of lean production within the service sector upon non-English-speaking-background immigrant women hotel service workers within two New South Wales hospitals. These workers assist nursing staff, clean, porter patients and prepare and serve meals. Lean production in the service sector results in contradictory outcomes for these workers. Increased job satisfaction from greater patient contact is constrained by an intensification of work effort and peer group surveillance. Furthermore, trade union support for lean production work organisation may undermine rank and file loyalty to the union.