In May 2000, the Spanish motor manufacturing company SEAT celebrated its 50th anniversary. Here, we review the history of this important firm, which was initially closely controlled by the Franco regime, for which it was a model company. It later became a thorn in the regime's side, due to industrial disputes. When democracy was introduced, SEAT went through a serious crisis, but after modernisation and merger with Volkswagen, it once more became a model for much of the industrial sector.
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In May 2000, the Spanish motor manufacturing company SEAT celebrated its 50th anniversary. Here, we review the history of this important firm, which was initially closely controlled by the Franco regime, for which it was a model company. It later became a thorn in the regime's side, due to industrial disputes. When democracy was introduced, SEAT went through a serious crisis, but after modernisation and merger with Volkswagen, it once more became a model for much of the industrial sector.
SEAT, the largest motor manufacturing company in Spain and the largest employer in the country in the 1960s and 1970s, was set up 50 years ago in May 2000. The Franco regime was initially reluctant to set up this company because car production, like communism, was for Franco a symbol of the most feared disease that Spain could suffer: industrial modernisation, which had converted "this people of peasants and conquistadors inspired by Castilian spirituality into a society plagued by materialism", a society that he was determined to bring back to the straight and narrow path.
When the banks and forward-looking ministers managed to convince him, Franco insisted that the factory should be located in Extremadura or Burgos- anywhere other than the little-favoured Catalonia- but the pressure of the Italian FIAT motor company and the fact that Barcelona was an optimum location finally convinced him. The factory had to be a model company for the regime, combining production, work, order and peaceful industrial relations.
Taylorism and strong political control
In the first few decades the production cycle of SEAT was continuous and rigid, from the manufacture of the first part to the moment when the car was driven out to the car park. Casting, pressing, bodywork, painting, mechanics and final assembly were synchronised in line. The jobs were highly compartmentalised, often requiring only a few seconds, which allowed unskilled labour to give maximum performance from the first day.
The organisation was highly controlled and authoritarian. Most of the first workers came from rural areas, which made the leaders of the regime think that they would be politically reliable. Furthermore, in the first few years labour organisation was almost military, with a control that prohibited even the most innocent conversation. Many of the middle and top managers were ex-armed forces personnel, the internal security guards carried shotguns, and there were dozens of informers on the payroll.
However, in 1964 things started to change due to the need for mass production, symbolised by the SEAT 600, and a very technical version of "Taylorist" work organisation was applied: intensification of work, long assembly lines and interruptions only with explicit permission. The management's reply to the first demands for individual breaks in assembly line work was to "go to the toilet before work and when you clock out". Between 1964 and 1970, there were major technical changes involving the semi-automation of many processes. However, in general the company was highly dependent on FIAT, which sent SEAT part of its surplus technology. This disadvantage was compensated for by a continual increase in the pace of work.
Poor working conditions, fairly good wages
The workload at SEAT was dictated by the speed of the line processes or the dictates of management. In the early years the working rhythms depended completely on the decisions of the management. A turn of the screw was sufficient to raise the speed of production lines, often taking advantage of moments of euphoria such as wage increases awarded in collective agreements. However, the first workforce protests occurred at this time, and after the "850 strike" in 1967 against frantic production rates, the company began to use more "scientific" methods, such as time and motion studies. At the beginning, the time and motion officers were faithful servants to the company, but when some of them began to take their work seriously, the time and motion office "levelled out" the data. On individual machines, the activity times were increasingly saturated and obligatory waiting times were used for the worker to perform tasks of checking or preparation, or even to operate another machine. The working conditions were unhealthy: noise, heat and cold, damp, dust, toxic substances and accidents were habitual in the working environment.
In comparison with other companies, the wages at SEAT were high, at least until the mid-1970s, though they were partly linked to work performance, though bonuses, overtime, production rates etc. However, due to this high pay, the workers did not mobilise against the poor working conditions for a couple of decades.
From a model company to a nightmare
The 1967 strike was nipped in the bud by the dismissal of 10 workers. The conflict had been triggered by the frantic working rhythms in the assembly of the SEAT 850 model, and the driving force had been the first Workers Commissions (Comisiones Obreras), which had been present in the company since 1965. Despite the repression, working rhythms were revised because it was no longer possible to ignore the mobilisation of workshop 7, with 7,000 workers.
There followed two years of "peace", because the state's Public Order Court (Tribunal de Orden Público) did not rest. However, from late 1969 many SEAT workers were prepared to fight for the annual collective agreement, the reinstatement of workers dismissed after strikes, and the recognition of basic rights. The workforce rose to 30,000 workers. There then began a highly conflictual period that lasted until the spring of 1977. The enormous concentration of workers became a nightmare for the regime. The National Institute of Industry (Instituto Nacional de Industria, INI) the official trade union and the Ministry of Labour were nervous whenever the time came to renew the SEAT collective agreement, because the calling of a strike could lead to panic in official circles. The rigidity of the production cycle meant that a strike in one section could paralyse the whole production in a few hours. It was not just a question of stopping the factory. Barcelona would be paralysed by the enormous demonstrations that went from the factory to the centre of town. The whole metalworking sector and the whole Catalan working class would be mobilised and they were sometimes joined by workers from Madrid, Asturias and the Basque Country. These mobilisations were violently repressed, as when the worker Antonio Ruiz Villalba was shot by the police in 1971. The company had become a model of the struggle by the Spanish working class.
Crisis and transformation
Following the introduction of democracy in Spain in 1976, the merger of SEAT with the German-based Volkswagen in 1982 led to a fairly successful period. SEAT-Volkswagen obtained an international market, but it still had problems due to the lack of modern technology. These problems were partly solved before the privatisation of the company in 1986. The INI invested ESP 400 billion in the company, and as a result of the privatisation Volkswagen acquired 51% of the shares. From then until 1991 the company showed good results.
However, as of 1992, poorer results forced the company to introduce redundancies, to open a more modern plant in Martorell (near Barcelona) and to close the old factory in the Zona Franca.
Today, SEAT has about 14,000 workers (though the workforce fell as low as 12,500 in 1995), less than half the number it employed in the 1970s. In a highly changing and competitive motor manufacturing market, the recovery of SEAT has been due not so much to the merger with VW as to the massive direct and indirect funding that it received from different levels of government in Spain.
Commentary
Like all companies, SEAT uses temporary employment. In recent years the trade unions, as in other companies, have tried to achieve improvements in employment in exchange for concession on flexible working hours and other issues. In fact, in recent years the total volume of employment has risen and the percentage of temporary employment has fallen.
Today the working conditions in the company are among the best in the country, though the management has maintained constant pressure to introduce innovations in work organisation (ES0006292N). Both the improvements mentioned above and the acceptance of innovations in work organisation are partly due to the negotiating capacity of the trade unions at SEAT, with a membership of over 90% of the workforce (Fausto Miguélez, QUIT-UAB [and author of the book, Seat la empresa modelo del Régimen, Dopesa, 1977])
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (2000), 50 years of SEAT reviewed, article.
