Review of Human Resources (1999) by Enrique S — 19 May 2014

An excellent film that states the human side of the cost of manufacturing with issues that have been around since Dickens first wrote about them in Hard Times. Although without the high drama and theatrics of Norma Ray, this French film states the problem just as succinctly.

Here the issue is a newly proposed 35 hour work week that management says will result in new jobs, and more pay for less work. The failure to institute the new scheme might result in closing the factory.

The unions say the opposite--the pay will be less and the workers will have to work faster to get the same amount of work done in 35 hours that they used to do in 40, there will be no new jobs and benefits will be cut, as will overtime, plus there will be dismissals.

Management gets an intern trainee to make up a "questionnaire" on the problem that one union official finds highly suspicious, and to which she strongly objects. The naive young trainee believes his boss's statement that the workers should feel good about being asked for their opinions, which management really wants.

But like the Prague Spring and Mao's Cultural Revolution in China, the opinions are really asked to use as a means, along with closeness to retirement, for deciding which employees to fire. The resulting war between management and union brings out family conflict when the trainee's father is fired after 30 years on the job and the father-son conflict, along with the working class father's feelings of inferiority compared to his college educated management son, takes the forefront.

Shades of D.H. Lawrence!