The Y Files

Good Stuff Moose - thanks for sharing...

There are still top-heavy organizations everywhere - not just GM or Auto in general..

I used to work there & one area was that to schedule conference calls globally, you had to go through the "conferencing" staff - just a large group of ladies who gave you the #, and initiated the calls....that's all they did.

I said one day that this was old-school & why the heck did we have the extra overhead to go through to do this, while you could easily enlist in something like the AT&T global conferencing center (which is free)...I was told to keep it to myself, 'cause the last person who suggested dismantling our call center was discharged..

I left soon after

BTW - what's that picture of in this blog entry?

Because those union workers would have to find a different job if you dismantled the conference center. And the UAW does not want any worker to be out of a job, even if that job is to sit there and read a book.

You're welcome, CUTiger. Thanks for commenting and for sharing a story of your own.

The picture for this blog entry is the site of a demolished GM factory near the Grand River in Lansing, Michigan. I choose this image because of the final sentence in the caption. (Click here to go to the source).

"But the automaker's new factories here are more efficient and better-suited to survive in the hyper-competitive automotive industry."

Ah, the irony. A company's technology can be state-of-the art, but that won't do much good if its business practices are unsound.

As a rejoinder to part one of this interesting discussion I suggested that Taylorism has had a profound influence on work, how it is done, and what is expected of the worker.

I myself believe that one strength of the Toyota company factory floor Human Resources management is that workers are apparently moved around from one job to another.

There may well be only one way to do a certain job, that is most efficient, but being allowed at the least, to do more than one job, even if managed, timed, and directed in the same way, autocratically, gives to even the dullest workers a source of pride, and felling of security.

In the human experience, when alive, to be trapped and lost at the same time, is what real horror and hell on Earth is.

There is a very strong creative impulse inherent to humanity in general, and humans as individuals.

Dam that up in a company, and the company will self destruct.

I am using the word "Company", for that is what essentially is the "Tribe".

We are likely aware that there is a real and dangerous nature to the Corporate Life.

Corporations buy Companies, and wreck them more often than they make them better, from my observation.

At any rate, if I had control of GM now, I would conduct an experiment.

My experiment would be this: I'd put a "Suggestion Box" in every work area, and I'd put on that box the Name of the Suggestion Officer to go and see with the suggestion.

You know CR4 is well designed, and it really is addictive, and it is sort of too bad it is not a money making company for some of us addicts.

In a way what I propose as an experiment at GM, replicates how I can post anonymously, or post under my Avatar name.

Work is the great spiritual quest, for the material necessities.

When you create a situation where only a certain "class" get paid for their ideas, then you create a situation where you get little from those who do the work, even if they like the work.

This is an interesting discussion, and I would love to write a book about how to lead a company by combining "cooperative principals, and autocratic principles" so all have as members of the company a feeling of shared freedom, instead of shared misery.

Thanks for your comments to both Parts 1 and Parts 2 of this series, Transcendian.

There's another great book about the American auto industry that I've read but didn't mention - and I think it's one you might enjoy. It's called Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line.

Here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say in its review:

"In a voice often as powerful as the riveting gun he wielded in the 1970s and '80s in a Flint, Mich., General Motors assembly plant, (Ben) Hamper nails down the excruciating boredom of a shoprat's life on the line."

I can't speak for Mr. Hamper, of course, but after reading his book, I think he might agree with your statement that "In the human experience, when alive, to be trapped and lost at the same time, is what real horror and hell on Earth is."

True enough Moose, I used to work with a guy that worked on the line at Ford in Flint back in the day. He told me his job consisted of picking a part off a conveyor, turning 90 degrees, setting the part down on an engine as it passed and screwing three or four screws. I cannot possibly imagine doing that for an entire 8 hour shift, much less for years. I'd go postal before the day was out. This would have been a prime example of a job for a robot. But NOOOOOOO! A HUMAN had to do that job because the UAW said so.

Transcendian, I think I would further extend the experiment by abolishing the union. (not that that would ever be allowed!) Far, far, FAR too many excellent and worthy suggestions would go down in flames as soon as the shop stewards chimed in and destroyed them. Prime example, the issue of moving filing cabinets that Moose mentioned. How much time money and energy was wasted by having to issue a work order, and waiting around for maintenence to send a crew to do the job, when it would have been so much quicker and easier for someone to go grab a hand truck and just do it.

The UAW made this mess, and the taxpayer is having to clean it up, but the fundamental problem (the UAW) persists, so what is going to happen is a year or two from now, the whole cycle will repeat and the taxpayer will be asked to pay twice the value of the company to bail it out yet again.

It would have been cheaper and less painful to simply let GM go bankrupt, cancel all of the UAW contracts and pension plans, sell the company off piecemeal and let the remains rise from the ashes anew, unencumbered by all the union deadweight. But the socialists would never let that happen, there is still some of that OPM (Other People's Money) out there to steal.

Thanks for the comments, Rorschach. Yeah, the filing cabinet episode was outrageous. I was 20-something years old at the time, and certainly fit enough to move one myself. The guy who showed up to do the work wasn't exactly thrilled that we had bothered him anyway.

Did you tell him to take it up with his shop steward? =b

I'll be honest with you Moose, I would not last long in Michigan, I'd have punched every shop steward I came across in the nose. Were I running a business and someone approached me about unionizing, I'd either be moving to a right to work state or I'd be looking for a place to stash the body of the union organizer.

If you're getting the idea that I'm anti-union, you'd be absolutely correct. Unions served a purpose at one time, but that pendulum has swung so far to the other side that at this point in time they are nothing but a destroyer of companies and deserve nothing but total and utter destruction.

It's weird for me because I worked with IATSE, Nabet, and Independents. SAG, (Screen Actors Guild) did a lot of work to get me 8 grand.

I've worked with amateurs and professionals.

Amateurs lost or broke my tools, and professionals stole them.

I guess there isn't anybody that hasn't taken a bite out of me.

Of course I could not make a car by myself.

Maybe we do need to send cars out in boxes to be put together by the children, as if it was like a Heathkit radio.

At least the duct tape institutionalized stapler personality would excel at sending the boxes.

In aviation it was common for airlines to go bust, and others to buy the assets, and sell them in South America, or somewhere.

One of my rules is to not believe in any position "Too Much".

In my working life, I have been hurt by Unions, and helped by Unions.

What now will be interesting to work out is the relationship between the now government owned GM, and Ford.

In my working life I was caught up when one Union, wanted to crush its competing Union.

During the same period I was in conflict with Teamsters.

You say it would have been cheaper and less painful to let GM go bankrupt, and then go on to say UAW contracts, and pension plans ought to be abrogated.

Weight this out.

The UAW got a deal, had contracts, and was attempting to actually give some security to "deadweight".

There is not a one of us who has not been deadweight, or will not become deadweight.

If your country won't protect you, and sells you out, then you may well have motives to join a Union.

The majority of working people do not want to steal from others.

Many of the companies that are in difficulty in the US, have been simply looted by those at the top.

If you are in real favor of abrogating Union contracts, then go all the way and say you are in favor of abrogating any contract that is inconvenient.

Tell the CEO, he is paid to much and you are canceling his contract.

What's a poor Ford to do?

You mean like abrogating the contracts between the secured debtors of Chrysler and giving the whole thing to the UAW in violation of bankruptcy law? or abrogating the contracts between the GM bondholders and GM and giving them nothing?

In bankruptcy the union contracts become null and void, so do pension plan contracts. Airlines have done it over and over again. This is straight Bankruptcy law 101. Secured debtors however get first crack at the the assets of the company. This too is bankruptcy 101. Now one could argue whether bankruptcy law is in fact right or wrong, but what we are talking about is codified into law. What is going on in Detroit and in DC is not. It is blatantly illegal.

Deadwood do not have a right to a garanteed job, nobody does. you either provide a productive and neccesarry service or you go darken someone else's door. You have the right to life liberty and the persuit of happiness, but only to the persuit, actually obtaining it is your problem, not mine. I should not be forced, upon penalty of imprisonment, to pay GM or Chrysler twice what the company is worth to save the job of a man who's sole responsibility is to move filing cabinets or paging engineers, or a woman who arranges international conference calls at a yearly salary plus benefits probably on the order of close to $120,000 after you factor in all the hidden overhead when the same function could be done for free by an operator at AT&T and who's salary is already folded into the monthly charges for phone service.

Yes, I've been deadwood before, everyone has. That is when the boss comes in, hands you a box, tells you to clean out your desk, and tells you he's sorry but he can't afford you anymore. Is it better to let me go and save the jobs of everyone else or to keep me on and and bring the whole company down a few months later? Who wins in that scenario? Nobody. Am I happy I lost my job? of course not! But I at least understand why it happened and hold no ill will against anyone (unless it happens because someone did something patently stupid or illegal, like agreeing to a union compensation contract that is obviously going to put the company in bankruptcy...)

Nice piece....
_{You spoiled one bit for me by elaborating on Sue the Duct tape lady...I'd gone somewhere else entirely.}

_Del

I presently work in a GM manufacturing facility. Your story about using duct tape to outline the stapler isn't unusual. GMS, or Global Manufacturing Systems is a way for all plants to do the same thing no matter where they are located. One of these standards is outlining the location of all equipment, not just the stapler. We use a thin green tape. The computer, the printer, the stapler, the phone, the wastebasket, the inbox, etc all are outlined with green tape. Some plants even have an arc on the floor to outline where the door swings open. Once the light fixture above my desk quit working and needed replaced. Two millwrights had to come and move the desk out of the way so that two electricians could bring in a ladder to change the light. That's 4 guys making $30 per hour to change out a light. One of the electricians made sure that he stepped on top of my desk and left footprints all over the desk and all of my papers I was working on. I don't know about nails in the parking lot, but I do know of broken windows. I have been here on Sunday and seen guys here on double time playing solitaire on the control monitor of one of the presses. I have also seen guys kicked back sound asleep in truck repair on a Sunday. They were there because there were fork trucks being used so there had to be a repair person just in case the fork truck broke down. I still see people sitting around the production equipment with ear phones on their heads while they watch movies on portable DVD players. The list is incredibly long.

Welcome to CR4, Guest. Thanks for sharing your own story about working for GM. Hope you'll come back and join us as a registered member. It's free, and you can subscribe to stories so that you can be notified automatically whenever there are more comments.

Best,

Moose

Actually, I am a registered member. I just wanted to be anonymous for this particular posting.

What? You don't want you tires slashed or windows busted out by union thugs?