Sunday, April 01, 2007

A Final End to Blue-Collar Aristocracy?

The NY Times has an article today about 81,000 of the highest-paid blue-collar workers in the world who took buyouts from GM, Ford and Chrysler, in the largest exodus of workers from a single American industry in decades.

Read "The End of the Line as They Know It" here.

1 Comments:

At 4/01/2007 11:01 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link to the article. I can understand a lot of the messages the former workers are sending. I’m somewhat of a fanatic on the need for change, educational achievement, and preparing for an alternative career. Why would anyone want to count on one company or on government for their entire livelihood and future security? I think the article inspired me to work a lot harder on my LSAT preparation.

On another note, as a UAW leader on many teams, I see a lot of good things happening in the factories that are still operating. For example, in the past, management just worked all the skilled trades’ people on Saturday and Sunday--they found work to keep everyone busy, or just let them sit and wait for something to come up. Now, my planned maintenance teams have to cost-justify work and build a business case for every bit of overtime. We also, as stated in the article, send a lot of work out to save costs. So, we are getting better at the game; however, as we get better, our competition is, too. In the end, the customer wins—that’s the way it should be. As stated elsewhere in this blog, “Competition breeds competence!”

 

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