Quote:
Originally Posted by AtomicLabMonkey
Laugh at the cartoon all you want, but I find zero good reasons why line workers should be making more and have better benefits than the degreed engineers designing the cars they're building. I've talked to Ford engineers, it's common.
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The cartoon doesn't make me laugh really. I think it is illustrative.
I have been a degreed professionally-licensed engineer in manufacturing for over 20 years, and have worked with many many "line workers" in 20+ factories in the US, Canada, France, and Germany - some union, most not. I have also done things like "production manager", "maintenance supervisor", "machine shop supervisor". For the first 10-12 years of my career some of those workers, if not most of them, made more in annual pay than I did, even though they barely made it out of high school (or didn't). Usually this happened because of most or all of the following reasons:
- they rotated shifts which you know really really sucks if you have ever done it
- they worked overtime, often a lot, sometimes too much
- they are physically spent at the end of their shift, and then also when they retire.
- they had been with the company for 20 or 30 years (8 weeks paid vacation plus 10 paid holidays too compared to my 2 + 10). Imagine the 30+year guys working for me - the snot-nosed know-it-all kid out of college - always good for a laugh.
- they were not mindless quasi-robots "operating an air ratchet". They had to be semi-skilled, and versed in quality control, production procedures, machine or die set-up, and even minor maintenance. The better ones could operate different machines in different areas of the plant.
- they were supervised to death and couldn't get away with taking kids to doctor, showing up late now and then, cutting out early on Fridays, staying home with a sick child, 1-hour lunch breaks, composing diatribes on internet chat forums during work hours, etc.
- the reason they were supervised to death is because when they don't show up or fall down on the job it has direct measurable consequences that very day. Sometimes engineers don't show up for days and nobody notices... sometimes.
Them getting paid more than I did pissed me off at first too... until I spent time rotating shifts with them, and actually living in their world for a while. Faak dat.
The company where I saw most of this is an auto-related company that is still in business and still successful despite fierce global competition. Most of these workers were *not* unionized.
Now I'm not an power-to-the-proletariat type guy, but people are barking up the wrong tree if they think that the US automakers' troubles stem from the line workers and their union wanting to keep the middleclass lifestyle for their hard work (like their parents had) or maybe even do a little better.
That's all I meant by posting the cartoon.