The organization of the work within the groups varies. In some groups the older people have been reluctant to let go of their old jobs. But in a very short time they have added on tasks that are connected to the job so that they develop their skills without really noticing it. The goal is that everyone in every group should be able to do all the tasks in the group.

The autonomous groups make people develop. Take one guy they had, who was considered to be stupid. He was a bit peculiar, about ten years behind in his mental development, very fixed to his mother. He had been mobbed at school and he didn't have any friends on the job. He was put on simpler and simpler tasks. He worked so slow that he couldn't be considered an ordinary worker, part of his wages were paid by the government.

Now this same guy does one of the most complicated jobs they have at Almex, he builds ticket machines for parking lots. He is still slow, but he is careful, and he never does anything wrong, which compensates for his lack of speed. His self-confidence is better. He is no longer suspicious like he used to be. And he is now accepted as a worker. Even though he still is a bit peculiar and has virtually no personal friends he is an accepted member of the group. "This is wonderful," he said to me. "This is the best thing that ever happened."

Another example: How much faith do you think an employer usually would put in two 18-year-old women and a 26-year-old he thought of firing a couple of months ago? Not much I would say. But during the vacation period, when everybody else in their group was away, these three women assembled three very complicated machines of an unusual model and delivered them on time--even though they had to order new parts for it, as they were sent parts for another model. They were challenged, they met the challenge and now they know that they can do things that nobody really trusted them with.

People have grown into their new responsibilities. In the beginning the contact person had to perform most of the foreman's old job, fill out order forms for parts, distribute the work, etc. Now people fill out their own forms and get themselves the parts they need.

The office of contact person is also to be rotated.

Now you say--what is the difference if I have a contact person or a foreman who tells me what to do. For the people in the autonomous groups there are many differences:

1. A contact person is chosen--and can be dismissed--by the workers. A foreman is appointed by the management and is not easy to get rid of.

2. A supervisor has closer ties to the management, whereas the contact person is a member of the workers collective.

3. The supervisor doesn't take part in the actual production and never really becomes a member of the group.

All the workers I talked to at Almex praised their freedom in the autonomous groups. They told me that they now thought it was fun to go to work, that they had started to talk much more with their colleagues, even about personal matters. Quite a few of them had become very good personal friends, and had started to see each other in their leisure time, too.

In a study made, 91 per cent of the workers, in the autonomous groups stated that they thought the system was good or very good, 9 per cent thought it was neither good nor bad and none of them thought it was a bad system.

I would call that a success. And the board of the Metalworkers local, which is behind it all, certainly calls it a success, even though they are fully aware that they haven't solved all the problems, even at Almex. But the changes they have seen in people have been reward enough, and it makes them continue the fight to develop the autonomous groups even further.

And it really has been a fight.

Just a couple of weeks ago a rumor started among the white collar workers that one of the autonomous groups didn't work, that production had virtually stopped. This was quite untrue. But it shows that the autonomous groups are not so firmly established that they cannot be challenged by the opponents.