They are back! Two years ago, a group of Chrysler workers were caught were caught drinking and doobing on their lunch break. Not just that, they were caught on camera by a local TV station. The video went viral, and Chrysler was forthwith associated with quality enhanced by booze and marijuana. 13 workers were fired. Yesterday, they got their jobs back, courtesy of Chrysler’s contract with the UAW.
The workers followed a grievance procedure process outlined in the Collective Bargaining Agreement between Chrysler and the United Auto Workers. The matter went to arbitration. Two years later, an arbitrator decided in the workers’ favor, citing “insufficient conclusive evidence to uphold the dismissals.” Apparently, a video wasn’t good enough.
In a statement, Chrysler says it does not agree with the decision. However, the company is “in the tough spot of having to accept the arbitrator’s decision, just as the Union must when the ruling is in the favor of the company.”
The UAW has not commented.
Moral: If you want to drink and smoke dope on your lunch break, the union makes you strong.
The things we make make us want to drink and smoke.
The UAW is defaulting to its old ways, and the bosses at the Big 3 are clearly under pressure by BigGov to let this happen.
I thought there was a window to fundamentally reform the UAW’s relationship and value to manufacturers and the American Consumer –for a little while, at least– but now I know I was merely being grossly naive.
I read this after reading an article earlier about compensation, benefits, pensions and retirement ages for the UAW’s union brethren who work in local, state and federal government (all 20 million of them, or 1 for every 7.5 Americans actually employed)…
…what a mistake; my head is about to explode.
While blaming unions, Obama and management we should really be checking what the arbitrator is smoking?
Why are back in a reality where it even a remote possibility that an arbitrator is allowed the ability to make such decisions regarding UAW members?
Because one example (identified by the press) certainly represents a trend in an organization…
If you’ll recall, after the original partying in the park stories broke, investigative journalists found Chrysler workers doing their lunch hour inebriating in the parking lot of the UAW hall. Just search on Chrysler UAW hall parking lot drinking smoking, and you’ll find no shortage of news stories. That the same guys busted in the most public embarrassment to the company are back on the job says something about the accountability of Chrysler’s UAW employees.
I think that 1 for every 7.5 Americans number counts the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines. We are not represented by a union. I think attempting to organize is actually a mutiny.
Raises an interesting question though. If those of us with the most hazordous working conditions of any “Federal Employees” and the least say so in our work enviornment don’t need a union, then why does the rest of the Federal workforce?
I don’t think many soldiers signed up to enforce the latest expansion of the commerce clause.
CJinSD:
Have you interacted with a non-union, UAW, CAW, or Teamster workforce?
I have, and I will bet that this most likely represents the same small percentage of idiots you will find in any workforce. Maybe there is some sort of herd mentality going on at Chrysler, but I have never stepped foot in a Chrysler plant and I’ll venture to guess that neither have you. Plant management isn’t stupid. These kinds of employees are usually delegated less desirable and less critical jobs.
The usual suspects pulled out their jump to conclusions mats and you’re one of them.
Judging from this post that explosion happened a while ago.
tresmonos, I probably have far more respect for you than you have for me. Nonetheless, I believe in accountability for workers. I’ve always been accountable myself, and I don’t want to deal with anyone who isn’t accountable. That’s not to say that I haven’t had to deal with the unaccountable in the past. I’ve been a Teamster, I’ve managed Teamsters, I’ve broken a British Airways call center union, and I’ve managed NYC union electricians. Competitive industries cannot afford to tolerate unions. Full stop. They’re poison.
My greatest contribution to my biggest project for Bear Stearns was creating a system where we tracked individual union electricians so that they couldn’t tell we were doing their jobs for them. They took obstructionism to great heights, but I foiled them enough so that ‘management’ could do their jobs and meet deadlines. Would we rather have had them do the jobs we paid them for? Of course, but that wasn’t in the cards. el scotto makes it sound like trade unions are bastions of knowledge, but my experience tells me that they’re just experts at extortion that have no idea that their employers need to make a living to sustain their racket.
I’m currently enabling the globalization of manufacturing and quality systems. I am a segway for cheap, second world labor. That doesn’t mean I’m going to cover an entire workforce with a blanket statement. Maybe I’m too romantic about the plants I’ve worked in or maybe I have seen far too many good employees that take pride in their work. Sure I respect you, but saying the documentation done by a motivated media crew represents an entire workforce is negligent.
I don’t see workforces as ‘unions.’ I look at them as a resource. If work rules get in the way, then I see that as an inefficiency. el scotto’s work force may be a fountain of knowledge or may have educational programs – you just don’t know that.
I appreciate you describing where your opinion originated. It sounds like good work.
It’s easier to relocate or re-source a manufacturing location than it is to change its workforce’s culture. The real genius lies in the people who can change a workforce’s culture. (i.e. Joe Hinrichs)
I also realize my opinion is heavily biased.
Edit: your breaking unions comment reminds me of my friend’s experiences at Timken. You would probably find the Timken story interesting.
I think you’re right that it is easier to move production than it is to change a workforce’s culture, which doesn’t bode well for the people that lose their jobs because of their organized…labor affiliations. I worry about whether or not such people can ever be restored to the status of productive members of society, since I’m not some UN Agenda 21 abiding Obama voter that wants to kill off 6 or so billion people to empower desert tortoises.
I overstated my BA union breaking role. I’d love to have been as in control as I made it sound, but I was really just playing a project management role in the reorganization that broke the call center union. I worked out of the Bulova building, which was full of people that would be unemployed when my task was complete. Fun times. I didn’t really want to be there any more than they wanted me to be there, and I was thrilled when my Bear Stearns client insisted that I dedicate myself to her task full time. Most of it was that I hated having to commute from my expensive, tiny Manhattan apartment to Long Island, and not that I had any sympathy for redundant idiots by the time I was thirty years old.
CJinSD:
I think the hardest thing to accept about the state of our economy is that in order stay on top of the redundancy, you have to be in a position to identify the correct path an organization has to take. In order for me to maintain a position in a field I enjoy, I had to make sacrifices (immense amount of travel) as I know I do not want to be locked into a separate business entity (a plant) like I have been in the past.
The sooner people wake up and realize that this country isn’t the same post world war powerhouse their grandparents built, the better off we all will be.
Your past experience sounds very interesting. I have never dealt with east coast work forces nor have I managed indirect labor or conducted work measurement on indirect labor. I have always managed processes that can be broken down with a stop watch.
Unions helping make your american car “better!”
This reminds me of the book “Rivethead” by Ben Hamper, which came out about 20 or so years ago. He recalled a period when he would go out to his car at lunch and put away three 40 ounce bottles of malt liquor. Then go back to work and build cars.
Fascinating book and a relatively easy read. Petered out in a sad sort of way towards the end, much the same as Mr. Hamper’s life I suppose.
I’m always taken back 25 years or so to “The Rainmakers” and the classic “Drinkin’ On The Job”, but “Rivethead” was a good read.
Any “production” work of duration, especially 40 hours a week will be absolutely mind-numbing to almost anyone with a mind. Really mind-numbing if you aren’t cut out for it, and made even worse by the way most is structured.
Not to excuse the behavior, but this really is nothing like the ‘go party at work’ 70/80s. The world does contain high-functioning alcoholics – tiny percentage, but decent number and if they aren’t tested everyday, no one will ever know. Regardless, this is really outlier behavior these days, and it’s not like their pounding a 750 of vodka followed by a few fat rails to straighten them up enough to walk back in.
From all I can tell, their big crime was the ‘3-ish martini lunch’ and/or equivalent. Not a great idea with their job, but this Carrie Nation propaganda that has (re)swept our country is really getting out of hand.
True. Brain numbing work requires some degree of brain numbing substances. If they can do their work- that’s what should count.
Same thing in the army. There are a few guys whose canteens are always filled with something other than water.
@ porchespeed….+1
I am surprised that you don’t see the humongous safety issue with allowing possibly drunk or stoned people putting together cars. Or maybe you do and are OK with it. These guys are not making plastic protractors they are making cars where people can get hurt or die if it was put together wrong.
Just because your work is boring or sucks does not in any way for any reason allow you to drink while on the job. Sorry, if you don’t like it quit and get another job.
@Jean-Pierre Sarti, you’ve missed the point. Porschespeed isn’t excusing their behavior nor advocating getting liqoured for work. However, the biggest danger to anyone working daily-grind factory work be it automobiles or protractors, is apathy and carelessness to distraction, not knocking back a few at lunch. This is also an instance of behavior two years ago with apparently no follow-up on whether or not there was any rehabilitation of the individuals involved. For all you and we know, because our blogger doesn’t want you to go there, these people could all have two year chips from AA and lead the nation in boring sobriety.
Yet, we never hear about these things happening in those awful transplant factories. You know, the ones operated by Honda, Hyundai, Nissan and Toyota that are supposedly about to turn into something straight out of a Dickens novel any day now?
dolorean – firstly, if we kept from commenting on things where all the facts are out there, there wouldn’t be much blog comments. So if you accept that we have to resort to reasoning, the second reort to your comment is that Chrylser would not have been so pissed if these guys had done the 12 steps and could be held up as shining examples. 1 + 1 usually equals 2. these guys just hurt all the just cases in arbitration and took a chunk of public goodwill away too. It’s normal that an individual looks out for himself, but sad that the UAW and arbitrator helped this along so well.
Type57SC, While “1+1=2” in a classroom, it doesn’t always add that way in the real world.
As Dolorean noted, they could have become ‘friends of Bill W’ since two days after their dismissal. They also could have kept up their sinful ways, and continued consuming more firewater and devil weed. (Like somewhere north of 50% of America does on a semi-regular basis.)
Regardless, their crime was embarrassing Chrysler – especially Fiatsler trying desperately hard to shed the 70s/80s memories of
wasted white trash sloppily screwing together Cordobas and the rest of that pathetic K-dreck. (You could have had those assembled by the Japanese in Japan, it wouldn’t have helped any…)
As I’ve mentioned, it was (at least) bad form on the boys part. It was also politically expedient for Fiatsler to fire them, and politically annoying the story didn’t get buried, because as most folks figgered out long ago, they’d win in arb.
Even though I always worked where I could be fired without recourse on the slightest whim or caprice, that’s not what the everyman should deal with.
In other words, sometimes the guilty go free to protect the innocent from the inherent flaws of any system.
Isn’t the issue here that the arbtrator made a ridiculous ruling? But whatever, labor unions = evil, corporate overlords = good.
The arbitrator didn’t just pull the ruling out of his nether regions. He was ruling on the UAW’s grievance, and his ruling takes their side in the argument. Putting this on the arbitrator when he gives the union what they wanted and then holding the union blameless is just plain silly. Also, according to the UAW’s contract, they have veto power over which arbitrator is chosen.
Does Chrysler also have veto power? Maybe they should hire better negotiators. Or is it Chrysler’s expectation that any ruling that looks bad for the unions is good for Chrysler and therefore a cost of doing business?
” they have veto power over which arbitrator is chosen”
That’s something that should be standard. There is an issue called “repeat bias in arbitration” when one side gets to pick the arbitrator. Some companies contract specific arbitration firms and fire arbitrators that don’t rule in the clients favor.
I experienced this first-hand. In my case, the arbitrator blatantly went against the law to rule in favor of the company that contracted the arbitration firm. I took it to court and had the arbitration overturned. It was so egregious that it took less than 10 minutes for the arguments and the judge to make the ruling.
Here is a Supreme Court brief on the subject. Different case than mine, but some of the same players involved.
http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_Court/briefs/02-215/02-215.mer.ami.naca.pdf
Maybe not so ridiculous. I’m not sure what’s in the contract, but generally speaking, there are graduated penalties for misbehavior. First offense, warning. Second offense, three days off without pay. Third offense, fired. If this was the only instance and the company could not prove what was in the bag-covered bottles, then the company was most likely out of line in firing them. On the other hand, these 13 guys have had two years to work somewhere else.
Given that the decision was based on insufficient evidence, it seems unlikely that it was an issue of the company overstepping the proper punishment.
Would you conciously choose to drive a vehicle that these people assembled?
This is why people stopped having kids.
This is the worst racist statement I have heard in the past while.
You know, Hispanic families have many kids. You don’t think they are people?
Really? That’s where you throw the race card? CJ and broccoli, right ToureWSN?
Overall, US birthrates are at a 25 year low. I didn’t think of any particular race. Are you saying Hispanics are less informed than the rest? Who’s the racist?
The last time the birth rate was this low on a per capita basis, Jimmy Carter was President. He wasn’t an affirmative action beneficiary, he was just a complete imbecile that destroyed people’s notions of a world they wanted to expose their children to.
I think they are people but all people need to have fewer kids. I have noticed that unions are very pro-breeder – You need us to have job that you can support a family on. Did they every consider not everyone has a family? In this case, have you every noticed how most alcoholics also tend to be parents?
Meanwhile, why could Chrysler offer to have AA, NA and Al Anon meetings in their facilities? I know our VA hospital has AA and it is one of the most popular.
[insert right-to-work comment here]
Funny that these UAW guys get reinstated at the same time Michigan passes Right to Work legislation. Perfect timing, maybe the Chrysler 13 could lead the UAW delegation protesting in Lansing.
Looks like maybe some of them were celebrating this afternoon by beating a reporting and destroying property.
@toad:
Thunder stolen. -fail-
Just to note, there are beer vending machines on the factory floor at the main BMW plant in Munich.
Yeah, but they are Germans. Models of efficiency and fantastic engineering. Or whatever. So that’s OK.
A-B brewery employees used to be able to openly drink on the job – all day long.
Drinking on the job relatively common in Europe. In Italy workers at the Campagnolo bike parts factory are welcome to drink red wine all day long.
Living in a litigious, prohibitionist nanny state like the US can such a bummer sometimes. Hard to believe that you can own an an arsenal of assault rifles and a mountain of ammunition but lose your job after drinking a single beer during lunch. The contradictions never cease to amaze me.
That’s interesting! I wonder if the Skoda factory in Mlada Boleslav serves beer in their canteen? If the Germans have beer in their vending machines, the Czechs must have beer in their drinking fountains!
It shows. In CR.
Not however on the profit and loss statement.
That was the stock response from GM for years when it faced criticism, and that didn’t turn out so well.
True it was geeber, but anyone who knew how to read the P&L/K/Q knew it was a disaster.
As bizarre as it my seem, legally the workers were right. Yes, the video shows them drinking out of bottles/cans labeled as containing alcoholic beverages. But that doesn’t prove what was in it. Yes, they were smoking, but what?
When dealing with legal issues there is what you believe, what you know, and what you can absolutely prove. That last one is the only one that counts.
You’re being genuinely ridiculous now.
But while you’re at it, I will further theorize that the workers could have been smoking the candy gum cigarettes that emit a puff of “smoke” whilst drinking Yoo-Hoo from containers in brown paper bags.
And if you could afford the proper attorney you would win
Had a friend get in a little over his head once, found top notch attorney:
$10,000 – This much jail time
$20,000 – This much time
$30,000 – PTI
Yes, but if my employer saw televised video of me doing the same thing immediately before going back to work, I would lose my job. They might put pressure to “voluntarily” resign or they might call it a layoff, but I would be gone with zero chance of being hired by that company again.
If you look at the original TV report, they follow these guys for a week, it seemed to be a daily routine by these group of individuals. It was so routine in fact that the local news got tipped off on it.
They went to the liquor store everyday before they went to the park to drink and smoke. The camera crew even has a hidden video camera of them buying liquor before within the store right before heading out to drink. They also throw the empty bottles at the park, often times littering, without much effort in concealing their actives.
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2012/12/chrysler_workers_exposed_smoki.html
So I don’t think there really is a question of what they were doing.
The original comment wasn’t meant to defend the actions of the workers, but to highlight the problems involved in trying to fire some troublesome employees. They are protected, they know it, and they will use that protection to it’s fullest.
With the level of direct, concrete evidence you’re implying is needed to fire them, very few employees could ever be fired.
They were drinking alcoholic beverages and smoking pot. A great deal of circumstantial, and in fact, some direct evidence, makes that clear.
Most companies have the ability to fire employees who cause harm to the company, its image, or its reputation. (This is about things like badmouthing your boss or workers social media, participating in public protests, etc.–not whistle-blowing.)
Ethics requires not only the absence of wrong-doing, but the absence of the appearance of wrong-doing. Drinking/smoking something which has the appearance of things improper damaged the image & reputation of the company, even if was nothing more than root beer & candy cigarettes. After all, if it was innocent, why dress it up as something improper if not to be seen as improper?
The arbitration was not a criminal trial, and so criminal standards do not apply. If the evidence is used to send someone to jail, then I can buy the arbiter’s argument. But for keeping/losing their jobs, the level of certainty associated with the video is easily enough to uphold firing them.
I mean, if they brought the bottles from their own house, yeah, you need further proof that it’s not just water. But since they were filmed to have the bottles from the liquor store, that’s enough of an evidence in any legal battle. If it’s not liquor, the liquor store should be shut down for selling fake merchandise.
Big deal, most carnival rides are set up by boozing, drugged up carnies and we ride them and let our kids ride them without giving it a second thought, so what if the steering wheel falls off as you drive, you still got the brakes, hopefully!
Does Chrysler fire executives who have a drink over lunch?
But that’s different. They’re not drinking out of paper bags for one thing.
Do executives regularly operate equipment that if handled carelessly will crush people or set them on fire?
@bikegoesbaa..To answer your question, no. However they do make decsions that can run a multi million company bankrupt.
That’s not really comparable. Occupations where impaired coordination or reaction times increase the risk of immediate-term safety hazards are held to a higher standard.
Airline pilots and surgeons need to be stone-sober while working, because a shaky hand could kill somebody. Same goes for people working with industrial equipment.
bikegoesbaa,
You might want to do some research on that thought. Pilots and surgeons are both professions that famously feature some very high-functioning addicts.
No, not all of them. Nor even a large percentage. But tens of millions of miles have been flown uneventfully by still-technically-drunk-from-last-night pilots, and hundreds of thousands of flawless surgeries have been performed by surgeons who pop pills like House.
As to shaky hands, that’s what happens when they get cut off.
And when those high-functioning addicts who are pilots and surgeons get caught, they are either immediately fired or placed on mandatory leave, no questions asked.
The fact that they were able to get away with it is irrelevant. The Chrysler employees were “getting away with it,” too, but then they got caught.
What is relevant is what happens to the autoworker, pilot or surgeon AFTER they get caught. The pilot or surgeon had better show that he or she is clean…no union-approved arbitrator is going to win the job back for him or her.
Think anybody would board a 747 if they know that one of the pilots is hung over from last night’s libations? Or that parents would happily have their child undergo major surgery at the hands of surgeon with a hangover?
geeber,
I’m not sanctioning the behavior. Yes, if they ever do get caught at all, things will go badly for them – as they should. Recreational chemicals should be kept recreational, that’s always been my theory, but the real world has never followed that theory.
My point was just that this silly propaganda that somehow no one can function after a couple of drinks or a little pot is belied by the fact that not only are there plenty of folks who do every day. And there’s millions who function as well as anyone else on much, much more.
Once again, I’m not advocating that everybody get wasted and go to work. Just that the science has shown prohibition never works on any level, and this type of tempest in a teapot is rather irrelevant compared to what happens out in the real world.
“My point was just that this silly propaganda that somehow no one can function after a couple of drinks”
If the law is based on silly propaganda, call your congressman before attempting to break it on your own.
wsn,”If the law is based on silly propaganda, call your congressman before attempting to break it on your own.”
Lots of US law is based on silly propaganda – most all of our current (last 100ish years) drug law and gun law was about controlling “them thar dangerous darkies”.
As to ‘not being able to function’ on a few drinks/tokes/bumps/whateva, the science states unequivocally that most folks *are* just fine. Not “perfect/ideal”, but more than up to completing any task without effing it up.
Average DWI/DUI arrest and/or accident is north of .020 in most states. The old limit was .010 and most folks could drive just fine at that level. The reduction to .008/.005 is a joke just designed to make revenue generating criminals out of almost everyone on the road on a Saturday night. Good for budgets and BS political opportunism for being seen to have ‘done something’. No benefit to reducing accidents though.
Sorry, but all that matters is that one can perform a task to a standard. I don’t care if you’re .007, if you drive fine, so be it. I don’t approve, but there’s a world full of idiots who can’t drive at .000. Who’s the real bad guy? If you can pass the FST aren’t you legally as sober as a moron who can’t drive right straight?
Surgeon “A” is an oxy popper, but he has a far lower surgery fatality rate than surgeon “B” who is a Mormon who avoids even caffeine. Who’s the better surgeon? And who would you trust to operate on you?
Whaddya call the guy who graduated 499 out of class of 500 at his med school? Doctor.
When carried to its logical end, this opens up a whole bunch of arguments that will (at least) lead us to hardcore eugenics.
“Does Chrysler fire executives who have a drink over lunch?”
It really depends on how the work contract is written.
Heh, with rank comes privilege! People really hate when you toss that in thier face.
Porschespeed threw the race card right back at wsn. Oh, the irony!
Uh, why didn’t Chrysler put a urinalysis clause in the contract to include checking for possible use while at work? The UAW would look stupid trying to fight that. I’ve been peeing in a bottle since I was 18.
For the same reason that the baseball unions fought drug testing tooth-and-nail. The union’s job (other than funding Democrats) is to protect the existing employees from getting fired, no matter how detrimental their personal behavior might be to the company or society. The union would fight, and strike, over for cause drug and alcohol testing just as feroicusly as they’re fighting RTW.
“Back Making Cars”….Nice headline. Tell us Bertel, how do you know these guys are building cars? Could be sweepers, maybe trades, I had a desk job. Confession time, on occasion I stepped out for a couple of beers. So can I assume that none of the B&B here have ever been guilty of such an offence?
Anybody know what a “straight eight shift” is? It means you put in eight paid straight hours. Twenty minutes for lunch, and two ten minute breaks. The turnstiles are locked. You need to swipe your card to get out. Swiping your card generates “stop time”you don’t get paid,and your subject to discipline
The Chrysler plant is not on straight eight. These dudes are own thier own time.
Those videos are clearly not of people who “on occasion stepped out for a couple of beers” They were drinking to drink and doing it daily during the period of filming. It’s too bad that the worker told the press instead of someone in charge of mfg or quality at Chrysler. an internal investigation may have made for a tighter case and a clearer deterrant signal.
Thank Christ you chimed in. The above commentary/article is drivel.
Most plants are stop time. I can’t think of a Ford assembly plant that isn’t. I have knocked a few back (when I’m not traveling) during lunch. The irony is the peanut gallery is most likely commenting during business hours from cubicle.
The B&B and editors here know very little at the plant level or contain any manufacturing knowledge at all and this thread illustrates it.
I have seen amazing assembly operators, inspectors, process technicians, maintenance, supervisors and superintendents at union, non-union, Northern and Southern plants alike. I’ve also knocked a few beers back with a lot of these people after a shift, only to get paged to go back into work to restart a line or trouble shoot an issue. Most of y’all will never know what it’s like to make something and you’re missing out.
There are idiots that work everywhere. Get over it, B&B.
@ tresmonos…Its so easy to pick out those in the B&B that have hands on experience in the manufactoring world.
3monkeys & mikey: amen.
@ Athos…..What? Care to clarify that?
@ Mikey I guess being called a monkey is an upgrade from some things others have called union employees in these posts ;) It could be worse.
easy guys…Monos can mean ‘monkey’ in espanol
His user name is tresmonos which could mean three monkeys…so, in effect, @athos was saying ‘amen’ to tremonos and mikey’s statements
jeez..everyone is so uptight these days on here
Dammit, all those French classes for nothing!
Touche…I am commenting from a damn war!
“@ Athos…..What? Care to clarify that?”
Sure!
You and 3monos are right on the money, +1, X over ninethousand, I agree with you guys, etc…
@ Athos.. sorry dude, the Spanish I know is how to order beer.
Ironically, I made this username before I got sent to work in a plant in Mexico :) It’s a take from the three wise monkeys, a Japanese pictorial maxim.
Athos & mikey: I think one reason why we take offense to this ‘flock of seagulls’ (formerly known as the Best and Brightest) is that we’re passionate about manufacturing. I also want to let both of you know that I really enjoy your contributions to this site. (from your posts, I’m assuming Athos works for a OEM / supplier in Australia…?)
Remember, Unions are the reason we have a safe workplace.
Not all unions are the same. Fail a urinalysis, get a DUI/DWI? Good bye CDL and the ability to drive as a Teamster. Many trade unions will dismiss anyone who fails a urinalysis. Drunk/high on a jobsite? Kiss your job goodbye. I find it odd that Chrysler will accept the potential liability of these guys doing something wrong.
+1. There ARE reasonable unions. However, the UAW is not one of them.
Having worked in both union and non-union shops, I don’t think the occasional drink or toke on the job is any more detrimental than working a double shift. The problem is accountability when things go wrong. That’s where UAW contracts/work rules completely fail.
Keep this in mind people. Its not part of the UAW’s mandate, to decide, who they do,or do not represent.
If the UAW said “sorry guys your dues are paid, and all, but your own your own this time”
So then the boys go out and hire themselves a lawyer. Trust me its been tried,and the union lost.
Exactly mikey,
These guys were not being very bright about what they were doing, but all discipline systems are imperfect. The contract states that all members get representation, not just the popular ones.
One may “know” that a guy is guilty, but everyone is entitled to the best defense they can get. If that means a few chuckleheads get away with something here and there, so be it. The alternatives are far less acceptable.
Well stated. In three sentences, you highlight exactly why industrial unions, and their evil bretheren public unions, have to die in this country. In a situation that should be crystal clear – the employees terminated immediately and the local cops called for drug possession – Chrysler had no choice but to accept these employees back and act as if nothing happened. Do you want to work with these guys? Drive a car they assembled?
Yeah_Right:
I’ve seen the same thing happen at non-union shops. I’ve put together budgets where there are permanent head counts in a ledger to ‘keep people on the payroll’ due to a court ruling.
Blame the state and federal laws before you get on your soapbox.
(My example above is from a supplier that makes high quality components for most OEM’s)
In some cases even despite having the evidence in hand, the authorities tie the company’s hands. Because of law, politics or whatever reason.
This kind of crap happens all the time everywhere in the world.
Were these guys caught inside or outside company property? Were they wearing company uniform when caught?
Yeah_Right, While I’m fully aware of the abuses that unions have gotten away with, especially in the last 20ish years, your comment highlights some of the rationale *for* unions.
I have never been union, and never will be. I am often a very severe critic of (especially public) unions, their insanely preposterous pay packages and work rules that can never survive long-term reality.
That being said, these really are John Everymans. They work a machine-like job at a monster corp that doesn’t know their name, nor gives two good flyins’ about whether they live or die. If Fiatsler have the evidence and proof of poor job performance to sack them within the contract guidelines, so be it. But, if they beat the system, so be that too.
As an involuntary shareholder, I expect this to be sorted out. Fast. It’s all fun and games until one of those guys gets someone hurt. The arbitrator won’t get sued– Chrysler will, for letting someone bobbing full of (shudder) Miller Lite loose on their floor.
Drama queens! Mountain out of a mole hill people… Move on please.
I never worked under a union umbrella, but everywhere I worked there were some people who would go out at lunch time and booze it up. Stop the union bashing like they were the only freeloaders on the planet. Drinking and being stoned on the job is a problem in all walks of life.
It is much, much worse of a problem at union shops because they can’t get fired for this behavior.
Depends on the union; not all unions are the same across the board.
Surprise! “News Story from Anti-Union Propaganda Arm of the GOP with Attempted Obama Tie-In” is not “sufficient evidence” in an actual hearing.
The job of a union is to represent the workers. The UAW did so and the arbitrator’s ruling was that the evidence was equivocal and amounts to wrongful termination. Nothing wrong with that.
Love the snarky tone in the video and the Obama tie-in. Better luck next time, Faux News.
Obama talks of “protecting workers” as he literally caves to Wall Street’s and the banking industry’s every wish.
There’s a reason Goldman Sachs & Jamie Dimon love them some Obama, and it’s not arbitrary.
Matt Taibi has a great article on Obama being the best friend Wall Street ever had (more so than any Republican), and how there has been no push for criminal investigations let alone prosecutions of criminally malfeasant executives at institutions having a huge role in the financial meltdown in 2008-2009 (see MBS, Timberwolf, Hudson, etc.).
Hey, if Faux News would cover issues of substantive interest in a useful, sober and mature way, that would be delightful.
“Bad workers found in a plant Obama once visisted!” <<== Not useful, sober or mature.
FWIW, my grandfather was killed in a factory accident that involved a drunk worker. So some of the “big deal, who doesn’t have a drink now and then” doesn’t apply when you’re operating heavy machinery and people’s safety is on the line.
I don’t think anyone here is advocating some sort of temperance movement that is anti-alcohol, and do you really think this would be a national story if say it was a few guys having a Budweiser with their hot wings at lunch? These guys were getting wasted/stoned as fast they could and then jumping back on the assembly line putting people’s lives in danger.
How do you think “honest” UAW rank and file interpret this when guys can get shit faced on the job, make a national embarrassment of their company, and get rehired?
The UAW should have made an example out of them, for both the sake of other workers they claim to want to protect from workplace accidents, and the PR value in showing that unions are willing to police their own.
The rest of the UAW are just like workers everywhere… come care and some don’t, some are offended and some aren’t.
The union’s job is to represent the workers, all the workers, not just the popular or pretty ones. Failing to represent the workers is a breach of faith and, likely, contract.
I’ve worked in a union shop, with a guy that *everybody* wanted to see let go. I’ve also worked in non-union jobs with people *everybody* wanted to see let go.
Management must be committed to getting a good workforce and, union or no, if they are committed to that, they will find a way to get it.
When I worked in the union shop, I don’t know how management did it but they got rid of the guy. And it was a fairly strong and frisky union.
In the non-union example I cite, the non-performing colleague went away when we got a manager that wasn’t in the job for 6 months just to get his ticket punched on his way to bigger and better things.
What about representing the other workers who’s safety is being compromised by this behavior? Isn’t one of the “calling cards” of the unions is that they make sure member workers have safe working conditions?
Can you imagine the liability if there’s a factory accident and one of these clowns are involved?
Obviously everyone deserves a fair hearing, but if you can’t fire someone who’s getting drunk or high on VIDEO when they’re on the job working around heavy machinery, you’ve officially become a joke.
Compromised by what “behavior?” What part of “insufficient conclusive evidence” do you not understand?
Who’s “drunk or high on VIDEO?” What part of “insufficient conclusive evidence” do you not understand?
jacob_coulter, Is Ann your sister? Just curious…
Regardless Waaaahh. Waaaaahh. *My* paternal grandad was a cop who was killed by a black criminal with a gun. Grow a pair sonny, that doesn’t mean we kill all the blacks or take away all the guns. Shite happens.
It does mean that when people do wrong with tools we punish them. That’s all. People get killed with cars, tractors, lawnmowers, knives, and a host of other objects. I can readily kill you with a BIC pen or a dozen other rather innocuous objects on my person right now. Does that mean they should all be banned?
IF the guy being seriously hammered resulted in your grand-dad’s demise, then sure, throw the book at him and let him burn. But otherwise, the fact he slammed a few at lunch means precisely sweet FA. It may have been an accident that might have happened anyway, even if the operator was stone cold sober. Those happen everyday.
porschespeed,
I don’t blame you for seeing the world as you do. Chances are that the loss of anyone you know isn’t worth heavily penalizing the liable party over. That isn’t the case for all of us though. You do have my pity, if that is any consolation.
What i haven’t seen is the fact mentioned that today, cars are not built by teams of drones standing next to a line of moving vehicles anymore. it takes very people today to build a car . Does the Russian word Robot sound familiar?
The UAW has been responsible for the integration of automated assembly in car factories thanks to their attitude over the last 80 or so years. The car companies are leaders in the world of robotic manufacture of cars,thus eliminating the human factor ,but also eliminating many jobs. The UAW members can thank their union leaders for this.
In 2012 The USA has produced more items than any other time in it’s history ,yet it has done it with a vastly smaller workforce.
The adjudicator erred when allowing alcoholics the right to enter a work place,but I bet said workers are probably warming seats in the staff canteens where they can be contained ,albeit on full pay. It’s also a safe bet that they will be on sickness pay because of “lifestyle” issues before long too.
I don’t see anything wrong with fighting for due process before you can lose something as important as your livelihood. The same thing happened with the N.O. Saints “bounty” players, and I don’t hear the same level of complaining. Is the big problem that the Chrysler workers wen’t out drinking at lunch, or is the problem that the newscrew rather than the multiple layers of supervisors caught them?
Yup, and there’s nothing wrong with the public not buying their product.
Sidebar: I’m sure there are transplant auto workers who drink and smoke dope on the job. However, their culture puts them on a MUCH shorter leash when it comes to discipline.
Furthermore, less regimented work and many fewer job categories at the transplants create less boring work. Ergo, less desire to booze up.
Unions defend the indefensible. Called union nonsense it’s why several companies I was with fought unionization to a standstill, and won.
Dependent on the union; not all unions are the same across the board.
I am voting with my money, in the past all my cars have been Gm or Ford. I will never buy another UAW made car. I hold management just as responsible.
What does this have to do with cars, exactly? I mean other than these workers were building cars, which I get. But color me stupid, but were these the only people caught drinking or doing drugs on the job in the world two years ago? Are they the only ones who were caught on the job, and got to keep their jobs?
Hey – you want to rail against unions – lets do it.
Michael Vick when to prison for a litany of federal charges – he got his job back.
Ben Roethlisberger has been accused of rape, not once, not twice, but three times. Wrote big fat personal checks of undisclosed amounts in two of those cases. He has his job.
Adam “Pac Man” Jones beat a man so bad in a club in paralyzed him. Yup, kept his job.
Donte Stallworth killed a guy while drunk driving – he looked good on TV this weekend playing football. Hey, we was driving, that’s about cars.
Ray Lewis, who literally got away with murder by writing a big fat check.
So there you go, more egregious behavior by employees of a union who got to keep their jobs – but come on, lets face it, this has nothing to do with Chrysler.
Is this site about cars, or is it about an increasingly naked political agenda.
Or is acceptable for Japanese salarymen to drink themselves blind on a work night and go back the next day hung over to do it all over again? That’s right, that is, ehem, “acceptable,” in that culture. *hic*
Please… You’re comparing apples to elephants.
Our legal system does not (for very good reasons) bar those criminally convicted or held civilly liable from seeking FUTURE employment in most fields.
But it does allow firings based on actions related to work.
How about the bankers that bet against the derivatives that they packaged and sold, knowing they were misrepresenting crap as an A-grade investment and contributing mightily to a global recession/depression. Are you going to boycott Citibank, Chase, Bank of America?
Every time there is a union issue, a gaggle of commenters inevitably talk about how terrible it must be to work in a right-to-work state where people can be fired for any reason or no reason.
So I ask you – who’s car would you rather drive? Toyota in Georgetown would have fired these guys on the spot. Chrysler has to go through a long, expensive grievance process and still loses.
Exactly. Just another example of a union protecting those who acted wrongly at the expense of punishing everyone who did not – Chrysler, who will potentially lose customers; the actual customers, who could be injured or killed while driving; and the other workers, who could be injured or killed on the line.
That there isn’t 100% agreement amongst the world population that a person should have to face consequences for their actions staggers me on a daily basis.
@Yeah_right…For sure, at a non union shop these dudes would be gone. The transplant workers are very much aware of the situation. Does that mean they don’t burn the odd doobie, or pack a little whisky in thier thermos? Sure they do, everyday. Just a little more discrete.
+1.
Discretion is good. Many probably do their job BETTER with a little help from a bottle or a joint.
Doesn’t Canada severely restrict drug testing in the workplace? I bet Canadian factory productivity and accident rates are equal to those of US factories (which are often way too piss-test happy).
Does O’Douls count? How about ganja?
Who shot this video? James O Keefe?
Worked both sides of the “great divide” between labor and management.
I saw both equally stoned. I still believe in the labor movement and unions. Who got you the 40 hour work week my friends ? It wasn’t the “robber barons”.
If you can’t get through your 8 hour shift without a drink or doing drugs you have a problem. I’ve worked steel fabrication and I can tell you that 99% percent of these people are not just grabbing a harmless beer at lunch, they are spending the 30 minute lunch getting as loaded as possible with whatever they have on hand and it happens every single day. Dangerous to themselves, co-workers and if you have it, profit sharing.
I like going to the same park at lunch, but we drink Coke or Pepsi and watch the boats cruise down the river in the summer time. Oh, and no there isn’t any booze in it either.
Least the authors initials matched what he spewed. The video showed them having a beer and smoking some sort of home made tobacco product. These workers weren’t cited for safety violations but instead were fired over faux moral outrage. Go into any restaurant with a good lunch crowd and the liquor is flowing. This is such a pointless post. I couldn’t even bring myself to read the stupid comments. I just wish MM would post more junkyard posts so the right-wing asinine posts would seem less common.
I agree, thank you.
You could tell that it was a tobacco product just from the video? Really? I don’t think it’s Bertel spewing BS on this thread…
I want to know if they were wearing matching golf shirts.
There is always a percentage (20%-ish) of workers in manufacturing who will take any excuse to sneak off and get loaded. In the steel mill where I worked the midnight shift it was particularly rampant. Smoking weed was then called getting “buttered” and it was preferred to booze by my age group. The people who most suffered were the rest of us who stayed at our machines (metallurgical test prep) and had to pick up the slack.
Each pour of steel (a heat) HAD to be tested within a finite time or the finishing mills downstream of us would be delayed. Pissed as we were, we still didn’t want to watch these zombified bozos try to operate the drills, saws, lathes or overhead crane that carried 400 lb. ingot slices to our prep area.
One morning we heard about a guy who came back from lunch fully kreuzened and managed to go over the guardrail on a catwalk high above #3 open hearth. He fell into a freshly poured heat from the blast furnace. We joked about how that heat would be over spec on carbon.
He didn’t get his job back.
Wow. That trumps any gruesome accident I have ever witnessed (or was present on the floor for). Unreal.
Let It Burn
These 13 workers should have not been reinstated. Can we even trust them to do their jobs safely and properly? I don’t think so.
When an employer can fire you for any reason, your employer can fire you just before your pension vests, just after a handicapped child is born, when the boss’s nephew needs a job, and for countless other reasons. Too old? Younger workers work for less? Out with the old guy. Under union contracts, an employee can be terminated for cause. There is a streamlined arbitration process in contested cases. Note that in other contexts, arbitration is the darling of the right wing. In the case of labor arbitration, arbitration is the devil. In most cases that I’ve seen where the employee is really substandard, the employer can get the employee out, but the union negotiates a “soft landing” that allows the employee to get on with life. This soft landing is a pittance compared to what bad executives receive.
You might feel like no one has the RIGHT to a job. Perhaps, but consider, for example what the typical teacher has invested when he/she takes a teaching job. First, the teacher has invested in obtaining a degree and a teaching license. When the teacher accepts the job he/she generally has to move to a new location, because only rarely is a job in the teacher’s specialty open where the teacher currently lives. In any given town, there is likely one school system that controls 90% of the jobs. There’s hardly room for bargaining power by a single employee. Once the teacher commits for a year, it is unlikely that the teacher will find another teaching job if he/she is fired during the year. Is it too much for that teacher to expect that he/she will not be fired for an arbitrary or capricious reason or because the principal failed to make expectations clear? Autoworkers may not have as much money invested in their job as teachers, but the aches and pains of assembly work wear you down. Without the union, they are likely to wear you out and throw you away.
Actually, teaching, at least on the elementary side, is one of the less expensive college degrees. Also one of the less difficult. I have had young girls at a campus tell me “I am going into teaching because nursing/accounting/chemistry is too hard”. Also, in this country are we not free to choose our careers? Teachers are not the only people who have to “invest” in their career, I have had to buy stuff for my jobs too.
I come from a family of teachers (mother, aunt, and cousin) who taught in both public and Catholic schools at the grade school level, and while being an elementary teacher is actually an important job in society, becoming an elementary/hs teacher is something I could never recommend to anyone. From what I saw growing up it seems you either get paid very little or entirely too much (cough cough crooked public unions) with little accountability and an insane amount of legal oversight in both the public and Catholic school systems. I really have to feel for those teachers who are still dedicated because on average it seems the learning/intelligence standards of the students seems to be in continual decline and in many case the parents -who btw are a very essential part of children’s education- were either poorly educated themselves or not really part of the child’s education (or life in many cases). In car terms can you really blame the assembly staff (UAW or not) for a car’s issues if the design of said car and/or quality of parts are substandard?
I truly believe the only remedy is a clean sweep of our so called education system, eliminate all gov’t districts/positions (declare *real* bankruptcy to void all contracts) and turn all of the existing schools into independent non-profits which accept students via voucher (from our current tax system) AND tuition, maybe something like an 80/20 or 90/10 split. Yes, all parents should have to pay out of their own pockets to educate their children, its part of that whole accountability thing we’re supposed to have for our kids. Somehow I really believe if all parents had to write a check every semester they would suddenly have an interest in what their child is doing in school, and thus everyone’s lives can improve.
At the time, from what I remember, I think people’s real beef was that Chrysler just received a taxpayer bailout, and this came across as a brazen middle finger to that taxpayer. It wasn’t necessarily what was done but WHEN. Hey, have beers after work, whatever. At least have the respect for your coworkers to not endanger them.
As for the ‘smoke’, well all I have to say is…Colorado.
Ricky: Here’s a little piece of hash, go to the stove, do some hot-knives, get stoned, and get the fcuk to work.
Randy: I can’t get stoned, Ricky.
Ricky: What do you mean? It’s shitty work. Everybody does that, all right? Carpenters, electricians, dishwashers, floor cleaners, lawyers, doctors, fcukin’ politicians, CBC employees, principals, people who paint the lines on the fcukin’ roads, get stoned, it’ll be fun, get to work!
youtube.com/watch?v=XRQ-97W2b04
So much analysis of something that is just plain wrong. And you criticize politicians and lawyers for doing the same.
I can drink beer and smoke pot on lunch break (or for breakfast, ‘natch!) and I don’t need no union.
Spoken like an ugly white man full of hate. Also, without providing us with the text of the opinion. It is called hearsay.
Not that I defend these workers. They need to be dismissed. But this is crap journalism.
I’ve noticed that since Nov. 6th, it’s become acceptable, perhaps even de rigueur in some quarters, to make racialist statements about white men, like “old white men” or in your case, “ugly white men”. Looking at the video, I don’t understand why you’re bringing race into the question. It looks to me like 75% of the workers in the video 6 of 8, are apparently white.
Because American politics jumped the shark on race in 2008. Since then the veiled statements about race have come undone and the vast majority of those slinging attacks at unions, worker’s rights, and the middle-working class in general are entrenched upper-middle class whites who feel threatened by the rise of minorities and women.
I don’t agree with them using white as a perjorative in their attack as a perjorative but I believe it is painfully accurate due to the racial makeup of the political attackers.
In other words: Nobody hates you for being white, just a white supremacist asshole. It’s just shorthand.
Is it true that the German auto workers’ labor contract allows them to drink beer while at work and/or on the assembly line?
If correct, might be worth thinking about when considering the purchase of a high-dollar Mercedes, BMW, or Audi.
I’ve worked in a few different auto assembly plants over the years and seen this sort of activity first hand.
On one hand, I can empathize with some of the workers; dead end lives and careers, combined with monotonous labor that lends itself to all sorts of substance abuse to help time pass.
I can testify to the fact there are characters operating inside these plants who side-line as distributors (read: dealers) of illicit substances, available to thousands of inside employees.
I’ll give one specific example (by name because I really didn’t care for this particular company).
Johnson Controls in Milton, Ontario. We would produce and supply the seats that go into various Toyota and Honda products.
There was this middle-aged juice-monkey of a ‘Team Leader’ in charge of a dozen or so 20-something high-school drop-outs whose only motivation in life was energy drinks and copious amounts of that magic dragon.
Anyhow, it took me maybe two weeks to catch onto the fact the ‘Team Leader’ was in fact a marijuana dealer generously supplying ‘his boys’ and more.
I remember the first time I clued into this; I spotted him walking the [assembly] line, clipboard in hand, appearing to take notes from individuals. Eventually, he reached me and asked if I was interested in ‘grabbing anything’ through him. I declined his offer to “pick up” marijuana on my behalf, at which point he reminded me he only comes around twice a month, so I better decide quickly.
Remainder of my stoner co-workers grabbed off him on the regular though. And ‘blazing’ in the parking lot before the shift, and of course, over lunch, was common practice and necessary it seemed to ‘get you through the day’.
Generally speaking, in these environments, the older/more seniority you had, the better drugs got! (read: cocaine)
I have a friend who worked for Chrysler and had a cushy job driving around the plant in a golf cart. He got caught being on the clock while he was not on the plant’s premises. He was fired, the UAW filed a grievance and the net result is that he got a settlement where he was allowed to retire, making him eligible for a buyout, in addition to back pay plus his pension.
That’s hardly the worst story in the auto industry. Some of you may remember the Vincent Chin case, when a couple of Detroit area autoworkers beat to death a Chinese American in a bar fight. One of the killers was a Chrysler employee who was fired after his conviction for manslaughter. Chin’s mother, his sole survivor, won a civil award but couldn’t collect anything since the killers had no assets to seize. A friend of mine is an attorney who was asked by Asian American advocates, on behalf of Mrs. Chin, to sue Chrysler so the guy could get his job back. That was the only way the victim’s mother could get some compensation. My friend the lawyer told me that at the time of the lawsuit, there were 17 convicted killers on Chrysler’s payroll.
In 1970, a worker at Chrysler’s Eldon Avenue plant in Detroit, disgruntled over being passed passed over for a promotion and angry at a (black) foreman who assigned him to work near the ovens on an already brutally hot day, killed two foremen and another coworker. His attorneys used an insanity defense, claiming racism in the plant contributed to the shooting. The jury acquitted. I don’t know what eventually happened to the killer, James Johnson Jr, but I found a news clipping from 1980 that said that he was suing Chrysler. Apparently the state Workers Compensation board awarded him a $10,000+ disability payment, approving his claim that his psychotic breakdown was caused by Chrysler, but they said that his disability was temporary. His lawyer was saying that his client was a paranoid schizophrenic (if that’s the case, Chrysler had little to do with his illness) with a permanent disability so Chrysler should continue to pay him.
Those of you who are lawyers with access to Lexis are welcome to let use know what came of Johnson’s claim.
My only thought on your anecdote was this, if my job was hourly and I was caught effectively stealing by remaining on the clock and fired I’d get bupkiss.
I read these stories and it makes it so hard to ever buy another UAW built vehicle. That’s just insane!
I’ve worked those assembly jobs and they’ll slowly kill your soul. You do form a tight bond with co-workers and yeah, we would ‘drink’ our lunch everyday. Big deal. The work still got done and we had a lot of fun.
I agree with the above comments about the three Martini lunch. Larry Tate would approve!