Introduction

In the post-war period, during the apogee of Fordism, labor activists across Europe and North-America came up with new ways of articulating the relationship between the workers, the companies, and organised labor. In particular, the concepts of “autonomy” and “self-activity” gained popularity among intellectuals and labor militants who sought ways to improve workers’ conditions and change the societal system. As hubs of Fordist production, Detroit and Turin, though distant geographically, became important centres in the theory and practice of such unorthodox tactics to change the world.

This film conveys the complexity, at once both orderly and chaotic, of the Fordist production at the apex of its development. In this production environmnent new workers, often of migrants of southern background, were quickly socialised in a new form of industrial disciplines, against which the protest of the 1970s needs to be understood.

This extract from a longer Chrysler promotional film gives a glimpse of the Fordist Production Process at the peak of its hegemony. Barely disguided by the commentary about the miracolous productivity is the speed up of the assembly line, to which workers are forced to adjust. The film shows also the incipient demographics changes on the production line, with some black workers featuring among a predominantly white shopfloor workforce. Their presence will rapidly increase in the decade ahead.