You know if The Freep acknowledges that union local desk jobs were “an icon of labor patronage, in which jobs were handed to friends of elected UAW officials,” it’s probably true. Now, over 400 UAW workers are being moved from these low-stress jobs to the factory floor, where their union bretheren will welcome hem back to the real world of auto assembly. “These people had cushy jobs,” says one worker at Chrysler’s Warren Truck Plant. “Some of them could use a taste of life on the floor to remind them we still make trucks around here.” Credit for cutting these “cushy jobs” goes to the PTFOA, which has been putting pressure on the UAW to reduce its costs and complexity. “The UAW had little choice but to agree,” explains a GM spokesperson. The savings from cutting these positions aren’t expected to be large, but the PTFOA and GM seem to agree that the symbolism is important. Certainly the UAW members who were already working the line agree. The only downside? Without the ability to hand out do-nothing desk jobs, being elected President of the local may become more difficult.
So you are telling me that the UAW had workers that weren’t working? Shocking!
If the PTFOA is giving out job assignments, perhaps it can reassign Bob Quality-Is-Overrated Lutz to a job as a service writer at a Chevrolet dealership. He can start by handling the complaints from new Camaro owners…
But wait, I though the PTFOA was in the UAW’s pocket? This does not jive with my spoon-fed, black-and-white, us-and-them view of the world.
I need demamgoguerish certainties, not relativism. Relativism makes my brain hurt.
Wanta bet how long before 99.9% of the union guys who have to work the floor are calling for their committe person. Like to be a fly on the wall for those conversations.
I didn’t even know there were UAW desk jobs. What do/did these people do?
I have a friend who works for a vendor that supplies CNC controls to Chrysler.
This friend was working on a dormant robot during the 3rd shift, surrounded by orange cones in an idle section of the plant. A UAW member rode by on a golf cart. This guy’s sole job was to ride around and make sure people are being safe.
He asked my buddy if he could recite the plant’s 5 safety “maxims” (or some similiar number). He could not, so the UAW guy made him stop working and drove him to a safety poster, where my friend was forced to memorize and repeat the 5 maxims before he was allowed back on the floor.
Now I am not saying safety isn’t important, but I work in a lot of manufacturing facilities. None of them seem to require a dedicated golf-cart-guy who doesn’t distinguish between employees and $110/hour outside contractors.
“What would you say… Ya do here?”
-The Bobs.
I already knew that the main role of the UAW (besides funneling money to Dem candidates) was to promote the right of its members to do less work. I didn’t know until now that the UAW actually commissioned a statue of its workers heroically sitting on their fat asses. “Hail the vanguard of the glorious revolution of the proletariat, and toss me that pillow for my feet!”
This is almost too funny to be true. Or sad.
Seth L,
“I have people skills dammit! What is wrong with you people?!?” -Tom Smykowski
Credit for cutting these “cushy jobs” goes to the PTFOA, which has been putting pressure on the UAW to reduce its costs and complexity.
+1 to the PTFOA.
Of course, the same ass-brain management that agreed to these conditions is still in place. And putting these icons to cancerous productivity on the floor may not improve things.
You know if The Freep acknowledges that union local desk jobs were “an icon of labor patronage…
Reporter and editors at many big city local papers used to have a long and dishonorable history of spiking any detailed reporting about union featherbedding, violence and pay. (Since many newsies were lefty union types).
Now, reporters and editors, having felt the sting of layoffs and internet competition, can no longer justify letting juicy, “dirty laundry” like this go.
This story has to be a lie. The UAW and its legion of internet apologists have assured us that it has been decades since a UAW Worker has been paid not to work.
Credit for cutting these “cushy jobs” goes to the PTFOA, which has been putting pressure on the UAW to reduce its costs and complexity.
Why should PTFOA get credit for spraying perfume on the turd that is the UAW? It’s fine they helped the laziest of the bunch get back to work, but it would have been more sensible to demand a broader, more substantive change across the UAW. So a slap on the wrist to you UAW folk for all the generous donations to the Dems.
Well played.
Interesting to see this long time union featherbedding has finally come to light. The other part not mentioned is (in my experience) most of these positions were paid WAY MORE than 40 hours per week on average due to the ability to ring up significant OT.
The other dirty little secret was the patronage.
These were generally “appointed” positions by the winner of the local union election. IOW the shop chairman got to appoint his brother-in-law, nephews, and drinking buddies to some very well paying and low effort positions. They generally became his “eyes and ears” on the shop floor, working hard for his re-election, and at some locations a “goon squad” for the union leadership to suppress dissidents.
I wonder if the Feds also found out about “full utilization”? The UAW claimed responsibility for doing all the work in the plant that they thought “skilled trades” workers should do. Maybe the brick facade on the plant was crumbling. The UAW “construction trades” were generally safely capable of little more than cutting and nailing 2 by 4s. So the company would have to hire a bricklaying outfit, and assign an equal number of UAW tradesmen to watch the work being done. If the bricklayers worked 6 x 10 hour days, so did the UAW hacks.
Transferring people from desk jobs to the factory floor will result in more workers to build more vehicles. But, I thought there was a glut of vehicles due to slow sales, and factories were reducing output and/or closing. So, what work is there for these extra hands to do on the assembly line? It sounds to me like this is a PR stunt, and the workers will go from doing nothing at desks to standing around the assembly line, doing nothing since there’s not enough work for the existing factory staff.
And come Fall 2010, the UAW will be right back in the trenches filling out absentee ballots for voters who haven’t made it to the polls since their funeral.
Here’s some relativism – Washington may end some of the featherbedding in the interest of establishing some “we’re watching out for you, Mr. Taxpayer” credibility, but no way no how are they going to tamper with The Real Deal: Washington voids bankruptcy laws in order to protect the UAW (to the extent possible) from adverse consequences, and the UAW, in return, will continue to act like every election law in the country has an “except for the UAW” exemption.
While goofing off at work I found the image for this post on flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/uaw/204194730/in/set-72157594229873460/
Full set here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/uaw/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/uaw/sets/72157594229873460/
Years ago I worked in a department that was working 92 hours per week. We had four “appointed” union reps assigned to our department. They would walk through and wave at us once in a while, but they never actually worked with us. Since they were on “Union business” they were usually out of the plant, but they still received 92 hours pay per week.
indi500fan: “The other dirty little secret was the patronage.
These were generally “appointed” positions by the winner of the local union election. IOW the shop chairman got to appoint his brother-in-law, nephews, and drinking buddies to some very well paying and low effort positions. They generally became his “eyes and ears” on the shop floor, working hard for his re-election, and at some locations a “goon squad” for the union leadership to suppress dissidents.”While it might be more prevalent and obvious, I rather doubt that unions have a monopoly on cronyism.
This friend was working on a dormant robot during the 3rd shift, surrounded by orange cones in an idle section of the plant. A UAW member rode by on a golf cart. This guy’s sole job was to ride around and make sure people are being safe.
This kind of thing happens at every large company that has caught the, to quote a former manager of mine “It’s not product, it’s the process” disease. Union or not, when people start valuing the organization over the enterprise, this is what happens.
That said, there are often good reasons for a lot of the administrativia. If you’ve ever, say, worked IT in a bank or other major financial institution you’ll appreciate why the change management process is so fantastically anal once you come to understand what the repercussions are (eg, when you apply a patch and break a system that costs millions of dollars per minute). Similarly, in an environment where the machinery is so powerful and prevalent that a misstep could kill you quite easily and with nothing more than a little ignorance on your part, the procedures are going to be overbearing and overzealous because the risk is so great.
An outside contractor or new hire brought in to work on equipment or facilities in an auto plant full of machines that can bend metal six ways from Sunday in seconds is in the middle of what amounts to a well-documented minefield. That golf cart guy might be the reaction to some poor kid getting his torso crushed some years ago.
The problem is that the line between “understandable paranoia” and “cronyism” is not easy for outsiders to see. Heck, it’s not easy for insiders to see.
i have to agree that this the most ridiculous monument i’ve ever seen in any part of the world
it even beats the french who threaten terrorist acts in their auto industry
what possesses people to make a monument to a STRIKE where the workers are sitting on their asses on a couch in some kind of lazy passive resistance
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