The International Journal of Human Resource Management 3:2 September 1992 Beyond survival: the implementation of new forms of work organization in the UK and German steel industries Jonathan Morrisy PaulBlyton, Nick Bacon and Hans-Werner Franz Abstract This paper outlines and analyses the major changes in work-force organization that have been introduced by British and German steel producers in the past decade, against a backcloth of retrenchment in the industry, new product development and technological change. Including multiskilling, a reduction in demarcation and team-working, these changes have had a major effect upon the composition of the work-force and the nature of work undertaken at the shopfloor level. While these changes have had a common broad trajectory, they have been introduced at a different pace and in different forms. The contrasts are provided not only at the international level, but between plants in the same countries. The paper further outlines the response of trade unions to these changes and the implications for industrial relations at the shopfloor level. Introduction The steel industry has undergone fundamental changes over the past decade, including a scaling down of capacity, substantially reduced manning, the introduction of major technological change and a move to far higher-quality standards. As a result of these developments, and accompanying them, there have been major changes in work organization (Blyton, 1992; Franz, 1991).' Indeed, it could be argued that, if anything, work-forces in the steel industry have undergone even greater change, including modifications to traditional working methods in the light of technological change (particularly in areas such as casting); the develop- ment of new forms of work organization involving fewer skill and job classifications and reductions in demarcation (blurring craft/operator lines and multi-skilling); reorganizing craft and production work (team 307