We’ve got all kinds of idled/closed Auto facilities.

Love to have ya in the Great White North!!

BTW, my first week on the job as a Production Engineer in a Japanese transmission company I went down the line and worked every station. There is not better way to get an idea of what a worker does than to do the job. Note, this was a non-union shop. The union shops I’ve worked in if an engineer picked up a part or did any sort of “production” work they would have a grievance filed against them for taking work from a union employee.

As I said, I’ve also worked for UPS as a teamster. When I was brought into the office to discuss a problem with my performance, my union rep didn’t ask me what had happened or what I did. He simply told me to be quiet and let him do the talking. He then proceeded to tell the manager that I simply hadn’t done what they claimed. He even went so far as to accuse the management team of logging into my scanner and misrouting packages to sabotage the union! I then spoke up said that was crazy, I had screwed up, and would try to do better in the future. Again, the union rep told me to be quiet and then went on a tirade about how even if I had screwed up it STILL wasn’t my fault because obviously it if I made a mistake it was managements lack of training that was the root cause! After the meeting I was chewed out for speaking up and admitting fault. I was told never to admit fault even if I was at fault. He also threatened that if I was going to be a troublemaker they would make my life difficult. We all needed to be team players and team players did what their rep said, didn’t do any extra work, and didn’t work too hard.

As an engineer I’ve seen union reps stick up for an employee that was hiding beer in their car and drinking at lunch and breaks. I’ve also seen them oppose terminations for those that steal, or falsify time records.

What if that slow worker can’t keep up because they have been on the job 25 years? In my experience those with the most seniority move to jobs that require the least amount of work. The most difficult jobs are left to the new guys. However, that isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about laying off enthusiastic worker that always does their best and goes the extra mile. Instead we are forced to keep an adversarial slacker that lives by the motto “work to the contract” and only does the bare minimum. It happens all the time.

Recently I applied for a design position at Zero Motorcycles. I didn’t get the job despite the fact that I have a degree in industrial design and am working as a design engineer in automotive and electric vehicle industries, and modify and restore motorcycles. Their reason I didn’t qualify for the job: no experience with designing electric motorcycles.

Someone working the line for 25 years knows how it always has been done and can get it done. Fresh talent (i.e. college kids) have training and ideas on how things can and should be done. Both have equal value to a company; one for immediate results and the other for future strategy.

-todd