PARTICIPATORY ERGONOMICS AND ORGANIZATIONAL-CHANGE

This study was done in the winding department of a synthetic fiber sec tor of a chemical plant. The department employed about 340 workers in three permanent shifts. The work consisted of winding fiber on a bobbi n. Each bobbin is a vertical machine: the fiber to be wound is placed in a holder near the floor and the thread passes through especial mech anisms going up to the position where the cone will be produced. Each operator has a different number of bobbins to control depending on the diameter of the fiber to be wound. Employee participation in an ergon omics intervention is always effective. This participation can range f rom very low (asking operators about their opinions on one or various issues related to their working conditions) to a higher level, where t he operators' role is much more active. In this latter case, the ergon omics intervention achieve better results (Maciel and Barreira, 1994). In this study employee participation was implemented from the very be ginning. The strategy was to form a group of operators, supervisors, m edical and engineering staff, and to weekly discuss issues related to ergonomics. The industry did not have a culture of employees participa tion, so the warmup period lasted about five months. The group receive d information on the industrial process, marketing conditions, mainten ance work, etc. After this period, the group started to discuss possib le solutions to their problems. However, as was expected, some of the main problems they had were the lack of communication inside the indus try and the organizational climate. There were also a number of machin e and operation problems that had to be dealt with, but the likelihood that the solutions to this later problems would be effective was rela ted to the solution of the first one. In view of that, the group decid ed to try a change in the working method, implementing semi-autonomous work teams. A pilot work team was formed by 12 operators (4 of each s hift) and worked during six months on an experimental basis. During th is period, the frequency of health complaints, production and motivati on were monitored and compared with a group of operators in the same c onditions working in a traditional manner.