This is related to my battle with The Precious...
Everything on the car is clearly meant to be easily assembled.
Getting it apart?
Not so easy.
Why might this be?
Union labor.
WHAT? you ask?
Say you're GM and the UAW goes on strike for a 20% raise. While they're striking you're not manufacturing. No building the cars, no cars to sell.
So you agree to give them their raise and now you've got to figure out how to get, at least, 20% more productivity out of them to make it worth paying them 20% more.
So you hire engineers, whom you will reward with layoffs when the unions notice you haven't been funding the pension plan fully, to design parts which require very little time to assemble.
These parts you have made off-shore, where there aren't unions but there are skilled craftsmen to to the tedious subassemblies.
So you end up with a car that snaps together and can use just about anyone who can remember to breathe and can stand unassisted for a whole shift.
But that comes at a price.
Simplifying the assembly means that it can likely be automated. Go ahead and strike.
00011010001 is a machine. It doesn't get pissed off. It doesn't get happy, it doesn't get sad, it doesn't laugh at your jokes. It just runs programs. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel
pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, it just runs programs.
Click here to submit $0.00 US for a lifetime subscription
Posts
Comments
Friend was a lower management person at a GM plant for a while. So union-controlled that when a machine broke down, no one was allowed to touch the machine except the union-designated machine mechanic.
ReplyDeleteImpossible to have a worker do something not explicitly within their minutely-described job description which usually ran through 10 pages or so to describe how to pick up Part A and connect it to Part B using Part C. God forbid they pick up a broom and sweep or pick up trash at their work station.
Or say Left Rear Doorhanger is out sick or drunk or whatever, Union says shop cannot bring in a right rear doorhanger to fill in until they get another left rear doorhanger in. So oftentimes interns or lover management fill in for missing assembly workers, well, until someone calls in a union steward and Union Hell Descends.
Yes, there are reasons for some unions to still exist. But most of them could easily go away and the world would be better.
Unions are one reason why one of the biggest employers in my hometown not only does not exist, but the ruined site is now a scrapyard. And the UAW and ancillary unions are one big reason why the auto industry has been moving out of Michigan. Michael Moore is an idiot.
ReplyDelete