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

[CassTechGrad]

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.

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.

[Henry Whalley]

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.

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.

[Henry Whalley]

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

[detmsp]

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

"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.

[detmsp]

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

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.

[Henry Whalley]

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.

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.

[sirrealone]

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

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....

[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.

[Henry Whalley]

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

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 :[

[detmsp]

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.

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".

[Richard]

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.