Das Auto: The Germans, Their Cars and Us Page #4

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especially those who

remembered the war -

the Germans' new-found success

was deeply disturbing.

You know how me dad feels

about the Germans -

won't even accept a lift

in our Audrey's Volkswagen.

So what was the secret

of the Germans' success?

How did they do it? It wasn't

just about the design and branding.

There was something deeper -

something that goes to

the very heart of the story

about why British

manufacturing declined,

whereas our German competitors

went from strength to strength

and are still going strong today.

Ever since the '50s,

German firms have been renowned

for their excellent labour relations

and tremendous productivity.

Even today, they make extraordinary

allowances for their workers,

as the top union negotiator

Stephan Wolf explains -

very quickly.

TRANSLATION:
We have come to

a clear agreement with the company

that employees can switch off their

smartphones after working hours,

so they can enjoy their spare time.

This initially was

a contentious issue

between the company

and the work councils,

but we managed to push

our opinion through,

as the company profits from employees

who are able to relax

and recover after work.

So if you work for Volkswagen,

you clock off,

and after 6:
15, there's

no danger of getting a call,

an e-mail, or even

a text from the office,

until just before

your shift the next day.

Somehow, I can't imagine

many British businesses

agreeing to that one.

In all major German companies,

the workers representative

is provided with the staff car

and an executive office.

And despite the management

trappings of his office,

he's very much a union man.

German law has long required

that every firm has

its own works council.

And that, instead of

fighting the management,

they work together,

in a spirit of mutual trust.

They even hold board meetings

with VW's management,

discussing the future

of the company.

Again, hard to imagine many

British firms signing up to that.

MUSIC:
"Rock On"

by T-Rex.

Now this is the key

to the difference

between the Germans and us.

And it's all a question of class.

Post-war Britain was a society

drenched in class consciousness

all the way from the factory floor

to the wood-panelled boardroom

and the men who led our car unions

saw themselves as class warriors,

standing up to the bosses

on behalf of the workers.

But their German counterparts

were very different,

they saw themselves as partners,

working with the management,

and responsible, not just to their

members, but to the national good.

We wants deeds not words, you see,

otherwise we're coming out.

I will not yield to threats

by politically-motivated scum.

Ah! I don't think my members

would appreciate that, nomenclature!

Well, that's what they are,

isn't it? Marxist scum.

Oh, yeah. Reds under the handbags -

I'll flush 'em out!

Right, we're all coming out then.

You're all sacked.

Right, you bastard!

Inside Britain's

troubled car factories,

there wasn't much talk

of the national good.

In 1968, our remaining

car-makers had been merged

into one gigantic company...

British Leyland.

With 48 factories

and 190,000 workers,

this would be our secret weapon

to fend off the foreign invaders.

Instead of having the scattering

of Rover agents, Triumph agents,

BMC agents,

Leyland agents and so on,

we'll be able to provide

a tight, compact organisation,

which will enable you to

get parts, service and sales

anywhere throughout the world.

MUSIC:
"I Saw The Light"

by Todd Rundgren

Right from the start,

BL ran into trouble.

Almost every week saw more strikes,

led by a new generation

of union militants.

Immediately the decision for action

is endorsed by the membership.

All of those in favour, please show.

ALL:
Yeah!

We'd have preferred

not to have gone on strike.

We had no alternative.

NEWSREADER:
In the Midlands,

the motor industry is,

of course, the big employer.

But recently, well, it's been

going through a pretty bleak time.

Last month, for the first time ever,

foreign car-makers grabbed

half the British market.

Of course, there were strikes

in German car plants too.

But you could count them

on the fingers on one hand

and still hitch a lift

home in a new Golf.

It's easy to blame Leyland's woes

on a handful of union extremists.

But Britain's car workers

didn't just want more money...

they often wanted more

professional respect.

The problem that we've had

in the country for so many years

is that being an engineer

or being a mechanic

is not a respected profession,

it's seen as somebody who bashes

a hammer against a piece of metal -

it's not credited with

any skill at all and not regarded.

Whereas, in other countries,

and Germany in particular,

you will find they're all

professors and doctors

and they are so highly qualified.

While Britain's car workers,

sick of their primitive conditions,

were fighting the class war,

Germany's factories were

being radically modernised.

David Buckle worked

on the steel press line

in the Cowley plant in the mid-'70s.

On behalf of his union,

he went on a fact-finding mission

to VW's Wolfsburg plant in 1977.

And what he saw there blew his mind.

Unlike here, where we worked

on individual cars,

they had a huge round table

and there was a car door

on each point of the crucifix...

that was one set of car doors.

While one operator

was working on one door,

robots were working on the other.

We hadn't had robots

in this factory,

we knew nothing about robots. Right.

Today, Cowley's Mini plant has

more than its fair share of robots.

Of course, we could have installed

robots earlier if we'd wanted.

The tragedy, though, was

that British Leyland shrank

from radical modernisation -

not least because they knew that

the unions would never stand for it.

Meanwhile, the Germans

were racing ahead.

Mercedes, for example, were already

working on cruise control,

airbags and anti-lock braking.

You could even buy

a bulletproof Mercedes 600.

British Leyland's cars

weren't even rustproof.

'This was our answer...

'the Austin Allegro.

'Unfortunately, the ads were

the best thing about them. '

# Allegro has vroom for five

# Allegro has vroom for five... #

By now, British Leyland had become

the embodiment of what the Germans

were calling "the British disease".

Every year, cars like this one,

the infamous Austin Allegro,

with it's square steering wheel

and Spanish Rose interior,

were making thumping losses.

Every week there were more strikes.

And what made

the Allegros failure so resonant

was that across much of British

industry it was the same story -

complacent management,

chaotic production,

militant workers,

and yet more strikes.

Indeed, if there's one statistic

that speaks volumes

of the difference between

Britain and Germany in the '70s,

it's this one.

In 1978, for every day

that German manufactures

lost to industrial action,

we lost ten!

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