- Joined
- Aug 4, 2015
- Messages
- 291
There was a time that folks took real pride in their work and in their minds were leaving home every morning to go do something special with their extended family (co-workers). Folks worked with a mentality that what they were doing was important not only for the man to his left and right, or the company that handed him money every Friday but the nation as a whole. It was a forum of pride that many took in their daily toil. The unions of the time kept the corporate greed in check, but did not instill the personal gain mentality that came later creating the issues we see today.
It's hard to not call it the 'good old days' but it's sort of fitting. We now look upon this piece of steel and orange lexan box in awe of the workmanship that 40 years ago would have been common place and nothing special. Today if it doesn't have a part number in the MSC catalog and come in a blow molded plastic case with a Taiwan ROC sticker under it, it simply don't exist in a manufacturing environment in corporate America. So what happened?
I don't mean to hi-jack the thread but I am gonna tell a story that the union shop guys will hate me for, and the non-union shop guys will see and agree with.
I told this same story to a friend of mines mother one day at Thanksgiving dinner. She worked for Fisher Guide / Delphi making door latches for cars. Upon hearing the story she called me horrible names and actually told my wife she was married to the dumbest a-hole alive. Her exact words.
An auto manufacture, pick one, has a plant that is costing too much money gets closed and moved to Mexico. One part made there are 14 inch stamped steel air cleaner lids. The guy that ran the press, along with all his co-workers of course are out of work. He did the same job making the same part for 20 years and made 35 bucks an hour at the point of his lay off. All the equipment and stamping dies are auctioned off and the building is closed. For some reason, the new press in Mexico is not working correctly and they need the part. The auto giant goes to the records to see who bought the press and dies, and finds out a local sheet metal fab shop has all of the stuff needed to make this part. They get on a plane and go have a meeting with the owner and shop foreman about them making a number of these lids for them. A deal is reached and contracts are signed. The shop is busy so the owner sets about getting the press setup and puts an add in the local paper looking for a press operator. Our hero, the laid off press operator, see's the add and drives over to the shop. There is his press, with his name scratched in the paint setup and ready to make parts. Upon pointing this out to the foreman and owner they agree quickly that he's the guy for the job. They make him an offer of 14 an hour to do a job that honestly requires minor skill. He gets mad, makes comments about being a proud UAW man and making 35 an hour to make those parts for the auto maker and that the shop could kiss his ass and storms out thinking they insulted him. He's still unemployed. The press gets run by a 19 yr old fresh out of high school and the order gets filled. Issue is that the guy TRUELY believed that his work was worth the 35 dollars an hour. And in truth, due to that being his only job ever, he's not even qualified in this day and age to dig a ditch. Who's fault is this????
On a side note, the mother of my friend that thought I was nuts (putting it very lightly) had the layoff thing happen to her not 6 months after I said this too her. The plant was torn down and a Casino now sits on the west side of Columbus Ohio where the plant once stood. We run into each other from time to time and she even now (10 years later) will not even greet me with hello. So my question is who puts this crap in peoples minds?