A shift of power to robots at Renault
Page 34
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
ROBOTS at the Renault factory at Douai work on two eight-hour shifts, with three shifts in the press shops. This human arrangement has, I understand, been reached under an agreement between the management and the National Union of Robots (not to be confused with another organisation with similar initials). As Charles d'Arleque, union secretary, remarked with some acerbity (although he didn't know what the word meant): "We are not machines, you know."
I gather from members of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers who visited the plant that, according to the management, the human workers are on the best of terms with their mechanical colleagues. Indeed, 600 more workers have been taken on since the introduction of bionic man although a mechanical blackleg can do the work of three trained men.
A shared passion for football — that universal bad language — probably allows the robots to get away with it.