Report: vehicles built by low wage, chronically absent UAW workers are less reliable

The Detroit News

Interesting article if you can get behind the paywall. In this case, it may be prudent to avoid trucks and jeeps built in Warren, MI, by "new production operators, hired as part-time supplemental workers, begin at $15.78 per hour...when they can make $17 per hour working in a restaurant or $18 per hour at a food warehouse."

It's not surprising that workers who are paid such paltry wages would not be the most conscientious. Furthermore, if the plant hires 100 supplemental workers, 20 to 30 actually might show up. The rest say to hell with this.

This isn't new; I remember back in the 70's/80's when cars from the Big Three were dodgy because half the workforce was smuggling booze, coke and weed into work or hitting the bars on lunch hour. They actually had it broken down to cars built on certain days and shifts were better than others. Fridays were bad

Right?

Everything else in our life is built by low wage workers,the shirt of your back is made by somebody making $2 per day.

I tried that before with employees,it does not matter if you pay them double or half of the going rate,amount of the wage does not equate to quality of production of employees.

The term of - It’s hard to find good help has been around for centuries.

It’s the conditioning of employees telling management that they have to prove to the employee how much they are worth to them verses the opposite.

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Originally Posted by jcole

This isn't new; I remember back in the 70's/80's when cars from the Big Three were dodgy because half the workforce was smuggling booze, coke and weed into work or hitting the bars on lunch hour. They actually had it broken down to cars built on certain days and shifts were better than others. Fridays were bad

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Fridays and Mondays.

I've noticed quality declines across the board since Covid started. Even the venerable Coca Cola brand was turning out pull tabs that pulled off before opening the can. Oddly, packaging was hard hit. Lids are screwed on too tight to open without tools. Various companies are using substitute packaging for their products. Odd color changes for no apparent reason.

The Great Resignation has created a Great Training Shortage. ;)

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Originally Posted by Jimaz

The Great Resignation has created a Great Training Shortage. ;)

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^ That comment is HUGE actually.

This work from home nonsense will prove catastrophic in 5 - 10 years.

Very little of what one needs to know in order to do their jobs well is learned in college [if any]. Most is learned on the job from the older workers.

What happens when those older workers who know everything about their job aren't in the same building as the new hires? Not good.

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Originally Posted by jcole

I remember back in the 70's/80's when cars from the Big Three were dodgy because half the workforce was smuggling booze, coke and weed into work or hitting the bars on lunch hour.

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Agreed. And probably it wasn't just workers on the factory floor but everyone up the food chain, foremen, supervisors, managers, local union officials, honchos at Solidarity House, corporate executives, etc. By the early 70's drugs were everywhere. Nixon was an alcoholic. Opium was flowing-in from Indochina seems.

My last good American car was a 1967 Dodge Polaris made in Hamtramck by workers who must have been sober.

I clearly remember that time marking when I walked away from American made cars. There's not such a clear demarkation anymore [Kia's are pretty ratty - per all the recalls - seized engines, BMW - Burns My Wallet, etc.].

Too bad for the Chrysler-Fiat/ Stillantis empire. Add to that those Italian engines shoved under the hood and weak transmissions. Umm, eh-no.

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Originally Posted by jcole

This isn't new; I remember back in the 70's/80's when cars from the Big Three were dodgy because half the workforce was smuggling booze, coke and weed into work or hitting the bars on lunch hour. They actually had it broken down to cars built on certain days and shifts were better than others. Fridays were bad

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Originally Posted by Rocket

^ That comment is HUGE actually.

This work from home nonsense will prove catastrophic in 5 - 10 years.

Very little of what one needs to know in order to do their jobs well is learned in college [if any]. Most is learned on the job from the older workers.

What happens when those older workers who know everything about their job aren't in the same building as the new hires? Not good.

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Alex Atwood, the chief executive officer of tech startup GravyWork, told the Journal that his Virginia-based company may have to pay an estimated $500,000 in total costs after a former software engineer worked remotely for long stretches in California and Texas without telling him.

https://www.businessinsider.com/remo...n-fees-2022-11

Even notice how the media has been reluctant to post the thousands that are being laid off on a daily based across the country.

I remember recessions in the 70s 80s 90s 2000s where you could not find a job because there was none,the cycle has always been there,we had a good 7 year run and now it will be time for the cut backs and mass layoffs.

People think today will last forever,it never does,the great resignation was about those who were close to retirement decided to just advance the timeframe,the rest that do not want to work or feel it is their right to dictate terms to employers will be getting a sharp dose of reality.

Most of the machine and metal shops around me that I have used for years,have shut down because the average workers hit retirement age during the pandemic,the only thing that is really going to happen in the future is we will become a service economy that will only support a bloated $15 per hour wage,but with the technology it is easy enough to replace them with robots.

Remember when they kept talking about the new normal?

This is our new normal that blows China out of the water,we get to pay high prices for crap verses what we were doing in the past with paying low prices for crap.

Besides there are plenty flowing across the border,they work hard,are willing to learn and only ask for fairness in return,why waste time messing about with entitled American workforce.

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Originally Posted by Zacha341

I clearly remember that time marking when I walked away from American made cars. There's not such a clear demarkation anymore [Kia's are pretty ratty - per all the recalls - seized engines, BMW - Burns My Wallet, etc.].

Too bad for the Chrysler-Fiat/ Stillantis empire. Add to that those Italian engines shoved under the hood and weak transmissions. Umm, eh-no.

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There was some good cars built in the 80s but at the higher end of the spectrum,I think the manufacturers were still stuck in the 60s n 70s where the majority of the buying public bought a new car every couple of years and never put 80,000 miles on them,so they were never built to last,that’s why you could not give an American car away that had 100,000 miles on it.

Money was tight,it was a recession,if you were not in the snow trade,so people were looking for cheap,the first Hyundais were junk,they had a lot of imported just to break into the American market cars that were cheap junk also.

The Suzuki Samurai had a sticker on the firewall that clearly stated - Manufacture life expectancy of this vehicle does not exceed 50,000 miles.

At least they were honest.

The low budget cars were junk,but the higher dollar ones were a lot better quality.

Buick gran national,Chevrolet MC SS,full bodied Cadillacs,even the Chevrolet cavalier was a decent little car,until it thought it was a Cadillac.

The Escort,Citation,Aries K cars,Pontiac Ferio with the 4 cyl,low budget Cavalier etc were all just cheap easy to produce cars that were high profit margins and were not built to last.

The biggest thing with the 80s cars is one had to pay attention to what drivetrain was actually in it and ones to avoid.

Dodge caravan,great vehicle as long as they did not put the 2.2 liter,the Mitsubishi 3.0 or even the Chrysler engine in it.

Okay great vehicle as long as you did not need an engine in it,but yet you could take a Honda Prelude put 200,000 miles on it and still sell it for more then you could for an American car with 80,000 miles.

But that was what the buying public expected,and that’s what they got and never expected it to make it to 80,000 miles.

I think with the influx of technology,the 90s was far worse.

Yeah, I meant to qualify/ specify my comment was mostly towards compact cars I was driving then. Had a Chevette and what-nots over span of few years -- ugh! Switched to Japanese and was amazed with the longevity, quality and amenities they packed into their small cars.

Full size Buick Century great and drove forever on the other hand!

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Originally Posted by Richard

There was some good cars built in the 80s but at the higher end of the spectrum,I think the manufacturers were still stuck in the 60s n 70s where the majority of the buying public bought a new car every couple of years and never put 80,000 miles on them,so they were never built to last,that’s why you could not give an American car away that had 100,000 miles on it....

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I had mechanic shops back then and a car lot,I was running 10 year old preludes and accords with 150,000 miles up to Minneapolis from Florida and averaging $5000 per car,nobody thought twice about the mileage but a comparable American car at the time over 100,000 miles,nobody wasted time with them.

I switched to a Honda/Acura shop and doubled my rates,in those days I had it worked out with the new Honda dealer they gave me all of their trade ins,it pissed a lot of people off at the auction,if you saw 10 Hondas for sale in the newspaper 9 of them were mine,I used to pay other people to sell them from their house because the newspaper would only allow you to sell 4 cars a month.

The South was not as loyalist as the north,Hondas were the yuppy cars that replaced the Volvo.

Honda/Acura,the same exact thing broke on all of them,so they were easy.

In the south it’s the heat that kills engines,all of those lower spectrum cars all it took was for the electric radiator fan to quit while you were stuck in traffic and it would blow the head gaskets.

Outside of the rust,I would have never had an issue buying a northern car with high miles,because they stay cool in the winter months.

Rusty bodies,clean interior with strong drivetrains in the north verses,clean bodies but sun trashed interiors,paint and engines in the south.

Underneath my 91 GMC 1 ton,there is not a speck of rust on floorboards or bolts but with 87,000 miles I just put a new motor,front end,complete interior including dash assembly.

Do not even have to change a tie rod end on a 200,000 mile Honda .

I was 18 when I started working at the Dodge truck plant in Warren in 1967. I credit my parents for what I’ve accomplished in life because of how I was raised. We lived near 6 Mile & Davison, a blue-collar Catholic neighborhood of wood framed homes. Dad worked at the Dodge plant then and mom stayed home with me and my brother. I was taught to be at work on time every day and be ready to work, not hung-over from a night of drinking. And to do the best I could without complaining. Sounds simple and it works. I got drafted in 1969, came back to work in 1971, got a Diemaker apprenticeship in 1975 at the Chrysler Vernor Rd. Tool & Die plant. I’m retired now living in Arizona. It hurts me to see what has happened and I blame it on the breakdown of the family unit. I could say more about that but….no.

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Originally Posted by CassTechGrad

It hurts me to see what has happened and I blame it on the breakdown of the family unit.

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Agreed. Why say more when Dave Chappelle will say it better than we can?

When I was a kid I worked summers at the Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne. 14 weeks of doing whatever management told me to do. I ended up working everywhere in that facility except the paint room. Long story short, we pushed so many trucks off the final assembly line [[because they wouldn't start or had parts missing or had something hanging that shouldn't have been) that they had to create a team of inspectors to either figure out what was wrong or missing, or they would further push the trucks out into the yard. Fridays and Mondays? Sure.

[QUOTE=Vitalis;629803Long story short, we pushed so many trucks off the final assembly line [[because they wouldn't start or had parts missing or had something hanging that shouldn't have been) that they had to create a team of inspectors to either figure out what was wrong or missing, or they would further push the trucks out into the yard. Fridays and Mondays? Sure.[/QUOTE]

Summers in a truck plant probably made your hair stand on end with the mere thought of lifetime employment in a factory. Did you move on to less chaotic work?

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Originally Posted by Henry Whalley

Summers in a truck plant probably made your hair stand on end with the mere thought of lifetime employment in a factory. Did you move on to less chaotic work?

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Isn’t Vitalis the stuff that would make your hair stand on end, too?

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Originally Posted by canuck

Isn’t Vitalis the stuff that would make your hair stand on end, too?

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LOL! Vitalis was one of my go-to greaser products before I discovered Bryl Cream. And when the Beatles came along, I wanted my hair to lay flat.

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Originally Posted by Henry Whalley

LOL! Vitalis was one of my go-to greaser products before I discovered Bryl Cream. And when the Beatles came along, I wanted my hair to lay flat.

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Do they even make those products anymore? LOL

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Originally Posted by Cincinnati_Kid

Do they even make those products anymore? LOL

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Probably not. I used to love the smell of Bryl Cream. Wanted to be like Kookie on 77 Sunset Strip before realizing I was more like Maynard G. Krebs on Dobie Gillis. And my fate was to wed someone like Zelda Gilroy. LOL

Sure do....
https://www.amazon.com/Vitalis-Hair-...15007174&psc=1

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Originally Posted by Cincinnati_Kid

Do they even make those products anymore? LOL

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Originally Posted by jcole

Sure do....

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They may be keeping Bryl Cream in production just in case Elvis isn't really dead. Or to entice Kim Jong-un to defect. LOL

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Originally Posted by Henry Whalley

They may be keeping Bryl Cream in production just in case Elvis isn't really dead. Or to entice Kim Jong-un to defect. LOL

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Kim has a roster of proper hairstyles that North Koreans can’t deviate from. He’s the only one that doesn’t have a reason to defect; he gets to choose any hairstyle he wants, out of the norm, so to speak.

A little dab’ll do ya would help his image, though. Lol.

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Originally Posted by CassTechGrad

It hurts me to see what has happened and I blame it on the breakdown of the family unit.

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This article is about how in a time of abundant job opportunities, one of the lowest paying jobs you can find is attracting the lowest levels of talent. Sounds like an efficient market at work, if you ask me. I'm not sure how mom and dad staying together would have changed that. I don't mean to pick on you. This thread is full of bad takes. I don't feel like responding to them all, so I just picked one.

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Originally Posted by detmsp

This article is about how in a time of abundant job opportunities, one of the lowest paying jobs you can find is attracting the lowest levels of talent.

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I'm not sure that working at Chrysler, even at the lower "tier" wage qualifies as "lowest paying jobs you can find" :confused:

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Originally Posted by detmsp

This article is about how in a time of abundant job opportunities, one of the lowest paying jobs you can find is attracting the lowest levels of talent. Sounds like an efficient market at work, if you ask me. I'm not sure how mom and dad staying together would have changed that. I don't mean to pick on you. This thread is full of bad takes. I don't feel like responding to them all, so I just picked one.

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I should explain my posting in more detail related to the “It hurts me to see what has happened and I blame it on the breakdown of the family unit” remark.

The two phrases that I focused on were: “it may be prudent to avoid trucks and jeeps built in Warren” and “workers who are paid such paltry wages would not be the most conscientious” I mentioned that my mother & father impressed upon me the importance of doing the best you can and taking pride in your work, no matter what that might be. So if todays workers do not possess that same work ethic then it’s safe to assume that they are not getting the proper support in the home.

As a side note: Henry Whalley, I don’t get the meaning of Dave Chappelle reply.

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Originally Posted by CassTechGrad

So if todays workers do not possess that same work ethic then it’s safe to assume that they are not getting the proper support in the home.

As a side note: Henry Whalley, I don’t get the meaning of Dave Chappelle reply.

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You and I are probably about the same age. In addition to having a nurturing family, I grew up in a world with a future that could be had through honest work effort. It's very different now AFAIK. I just feel grateful that my grandparents left Poland prior to the Great War. Grateful that my parents, my siblings, and I lived our lives in a sweet spot, an historical anomaly. Detroit may have been the wealthiest city in the world full of opportunity when I was growing up. For me it's a chicken or egg question as to which came first, the death of opportunity or the death of work ethic and ruination of the family unit.

P.S. Just meant that Chappelle has a knack for making trenchant social observations couched in humor. I don't have the knack. And I don't have any profound insights regarding the American family unit or lack thereof. My observations are just hackneyed cliches.

Obviously, drugs and booze and other vices entered factory life in the late 1960's. I always thought it was related to Vietnam.

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Originally Posted by Vic01

I'm not sure that working at Chrysler, even at the lower "tier" wage qualifies as "lowest paying jobs you can find" :confused:

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"new production operators, hired as part-time supplemental workers, begin at $15.78 per hour...when they can make $17 per hour working in a restaurant or $18 per hour at a food warehouse."

The headline even calls them "low wage" workers. Not a lot of places paying less than $15/hour these days.

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Originally Posted by CassTechGrad

So if todays workers do not possess that same work ethic...

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That's a big if. I bet your grandparents thought your generation was lazy. It happens to every generation.

I'm guessing on your age... but I bet you were of one of the generations that could completely pay for college tuition by scooping ice cream in the summer [[as opposed to coming out of school with $100k in debt) or just get a factory job that paid well enough to buy a house and a few cars, raise a family, take vacations, have your health care covered and a pension to take care of you in retirement [[as opposed to making $15/hour, garbage benefits and no pension).

There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it was great for you. But it's a little hard to take the "people today are lazy" schtick when it's really easy to see that people coming up today have it objectively harder than previous generations. Real wages have been stagnant for decades, while the cost of housing, education and healthcare have skyrocketed. And let's not forget that pensions are a thing of the past and that no young person can actually count on getting any of their social security money back in retirement.

Also, why are we acting like lazy workers is a new thing? It's not like UAW quality has been amazing and just recently took a nosedive.

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Originally Posted by detmsp

I'm guessing on your age... but I bet you were of one of the generations that could completely pay for college tuition by scooping ice cream in the summer [[as opposed to coming out of school with $100k in debt) or just get a factory job that paid well enough to buy a house and a few cars, raise a family, take vacations, have your health care covered and a pension to take care of you in retirement [[as opposed to making $15/hour, garbage benefits and no pension).

...it's not like UAW quality has been amazing and just recently took a nosedive.

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Agreed, I grew up in that generation of unnatural or ahistorical opportunity. MAGA's think it's a birth right but it never will return. Now life's a hard slog as has been the case for most of human history outside Eden.

P.S. With regard to Big Three vehicles, the workforce has been degraded with all manner of vice and permissiveness. But the engineering has been inferior as well. It seems like after eight decades Jeeps would have been engineered into perfectly reliable transportation rather than perennial junk.

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Originally Posted by detmsp

And let's not forget that pensions are a thing of the past

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Boomers: Companies can't afford to offer pensions anymore. We need to cut them.

Also Boomers: Of course, only after we fully guarantee ours first....

Many of the factors related to work ethic today also existed in the 1960’s but the changes to the family unit is something that can be measured. I just Googled that phrase and got this from the Hill in 2021:

“American families with children living with a single parent has tripled since 1965. 75% of these single-parent families are headed by a mother only. In 2020 25% of all US children were living in single-parent home. That is nearly three times the level in 1960 of 9 percent. Single parent homes in the US are more than three times the worldwide level of 7 percent.”

It's the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.

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Originally Posted by CassTechGrad

In 2020 25% of all US children were living in single-parent home.

It's the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about

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Agreed, but what about the other 75% of children not living in single-parent homes? Can't we presume that at least some of them have good work ethics? Nevertheless, the automakers pay them low-tier wages -- lower than fast food workers. And Washington is like a zero-parent household.

So, there are elephants in the room. People may want to talk about them, but nobody knows what to do about them. It's like talking about the weather :[

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Originally Posted by CassTechGrad

Many of the factors related to work ethic today also existed in the 1960’s but the changes to the family unit is something that can be measured. I just Googled that phrase and got this from the Hill in 2021:

“American families with children living with a single parent has tripled since 1965. 75% of these single-parent families are headed by a mother only. In 2020 25% of all US children were living in single-parent home. That is nearly three times the level in 1960 of 9 percent. Single parent homes in the US are more than three times the worldwide level of 7 percent.”

It's the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.

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I think you have a LONG way to go before you are acutally demonstrating that single parent families are causing workers to be lazy and not take pride in their work. For starters, you haven't actually shown that workers are lazier today than they used to be. I doubt that assertion myself. I don't remember hearing about people in the 60s taking "gig jobs" to earn extra cash to pay the rent. But even if it is true, you haven't shown that it was caused by single parent families.

The number of Taco Bells in America is also "something that can be measured". The number of Taco Bells has skyrocketed since the 70s. Maybe that's the cause of this laziness you think you see?

All in all, it feels like a bunch of pearl clutching and looking back at the past with rose-colored glasses.

One parting thought... have you considered that maybe the "strength of the American family" hasn't changed much? Maybe the real change is in social attitudes that forced people to be together when they shouldn't have been. The pressure to get married because of an accidental pregnancy and the pressure for a woman to stay with a man who is verbally or physically abusive is surely much lower today than it was back in your "good ol days".

The good old days for the average family was really post war and only until the late 50s and it was regional,From the advent of the car Detroit was the anomaly and it’s unskilled workers earned the highest wages in the nation for everybody else there was no social services,so you either worked or you starved.

The family nucleus within the African American community was destroyed by design,there was divorce back then,the reasons for have now changed.

A lot of it seems to be motivation,if you do not have to have a work ethic and you still get paid or have a social safety net to back you up the lazy are more inclined to be lazy.

You see that more so in the good times where you can leave a job and have another within the hour but the cycle of bad times always comes back around,there is another one coming up,it has no choice because what is happening is unsustainable,what happens how attitudes change when it gets back to,I can walk from this job into another within minutes to if I walk from this job there is not another one waiting and I will lose everything I have gained.

Not sure about the pressures on women then verses now,my mother was married and divorced 4 times back then,maybe back in the 20s it was different,but I do not think so.

People choose to support being a majority service economy and the low wages it brings,cannot really complain about having to work 3 jobs while turning around and supporting the very thing that forced you into that position to start with.

When somebody comes along to try and change that,the majority followed the cue of those who wanted things to remain the same and also did everything in their power to make sure things remain the same,then get mad because things remain the same.

People are a part of a society they choose to create.

In the early days I took jobs that totally sucked and hated every second,but I had no choice but to keep my mouth shut and do my job until I put myself in a better position so I did not have to be at the bottom of the barrel.

What the younger generation does not seem to understand is it has always been a struggle and nobody was never handed anything or expected it,nobody ever times when children are born,and if it took working 3 jobs to support them people did it.

That’s the way it has always been if you were not born rich,you struggled until you hit your 30s and were more established.

People talk about how bad it is in this country,but no matter how bad it gets,you personally always have the opportunity to make it better,unlike many other countries.

Thats why millions risk life in order to cross that border every year.