Building Boom At Toyota

Ahahahahahahaha! Bazinga!

It's too much to expect some of the Internet's less enlightened, and frankly more uniformed, forum & blog posters to ever give blue collar workers, union or nonunion, a fair shake. You're 100% on point, mikey, in pointing out how little input any of the UAW/CAW employees have on the final quality of the car or truck.

So if the UAW is inconsequential to either end product quality or unit cost of production, how come most transplant factories are located in non-UAW regions? So the strong import brands are too dumb to know what a good thing they are missing despite seeing the domestic three partially hobbled by their decades long union-public-sector-private hybrid form of operation.

Just so I understand, mikey -- because Lord knows I don't wish to be uninformed or ignorant -- you and your union ilk maintain assembly-line workers don't influence quality all-that much? That's the argument? OK... so a worker's decision to not tighten bolts to the mandated spec (the suspected cause of one blown transmission in my folks' S-Blazer) or to properly glue the rear window in on a C3500 dually (causing it to blow out at speed on the interstate) -- those accidental failures by union workers to properly do their jobs (or deliberate... because let's face it, we're talking about unions) didn't affect quality? Well gee, I stand corrected! And all this time I thought those quality failures were due to worker incompetence, or ill-will. So, what... you think malevolent pixies caused those problems? Or did evil managers walk onto the line when those ever-vigilant union workers weren't looking?

@ fleetofWheel...Of course the transplants want to get as far away from union plants and union culture. They got the CAW/UAW knocking on thier door,no sense making it any easier for them. I believe there is a Honda plant in Ohio. We got a Honda plant and two Toyota plants within a 100 miles of CAW country. Honda has a plant on strike in china. Kia and Huyandai have major labor problems in thier homeland. How about VW in Germany the union's nearly run the plants. Management set the quality standards,and assembly line workers do what thier told,union and non union.

How about the recent post in another section of this blog about the non union Ohio Honda workers who were disabling the time clock at their plant by pouring acid in it? If that happened in a union shop and was posted in this blog, negative comments about it would hijacked the post. Why the lack of negative attitude to a non union sabotage action? Or do you think that ONLY union shops do that kind of crap? I've worked in both, and neither one is better than the other. Goldbricks are everywhere. As for the southern states getting assembly plants, the non-union factor is just one facet of their decision. In an attempt to gain the assembly plants, states and localities in the South literally give away the land, infrastructure and property taxes. I know it happened with the MB plant in Alabama, I'm sure the others have gotten those deals, too.

"Goldbricks are everywhere." The difference is that the UAW/CAW will protect the goldbricks. Been there, seen it. People get fired at the transplants. Been there, seen it.

geozinger - what you posted about the Southern states giving away land, infrastructure and property taxes breaks is dead-on accurate. Alabama offered approximately $250 to $300 million in incentives in original incentives in 1993 and another $100 million announced last year, prompting Daimler to announce last December 2009 that they would move the C Class production to Vance in 2014. (http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2065) Hyundai received $252.8 million in incentives (Hyundai with $252.8 million incentives package). (http://www.umich.edu/~econdev/alabama_auto/index.html) Toyota's San Antonio plant received $133 million in incentives. (http://www.siteselection.com/ssinsider/bbdeal/bd030210.htm) I'll also back up what you say that neither union nor nonunion manufacturing plants have any superiority over the other. As an industrial sales rep I've called on both, and both are full of flaws.

@1996: I was in a different union back in the day, Teamsters, not UAW. Even with the brotherhood, if you f**ked up too many times, they no longer would cover for you. Alternately, I've worked in places (in different kind of work) where if the slacker kissed enough @ss, they could get away with anything. Again, been there, seen it. Didn't want the T shirt.

geozinger – what you posted about the Southern states giving away land, infrastructure and property taxes breaks is dead-on accurate. Alabama offered approximately $250 to $300 million in incentives in original incentives in 1993 and another $100 million announced last year, prompting Daimler to announce last December 2009 that they would move the C Class production to Vance in 2014. Hyundai received $252.8 million in incentives (Hyundai with $252.8 million incentives package). Toyota’s San Antonio plant received $133 million in incentives. I’ll also back up what you say that neither union nor nonunion manufacturing plants have any superiority over the other. As an industrial sales rep I’ve called on both, and both are full of flaws. Despite what others post, UAW won't protect goldbricks indefinitely. Been there, seen it first hand.

Rob Finfrock, just so you understand, I've spent twenty-five years as a vendor to the auto makers, including assembly line tooling, so please, be offended when I tell you that you haven't a clue who is to blame on those two issues, and it's about time you were told as much. "OK… so a worker’s decision to not tighten bolts to the mandated spec (the suspected cause of one blown transmission in my folks’ S-Blazer)" No, not the workers fault. Assemble line torque tools, to meet the repeatability standards for torque tools, are precalibrated and preset. The operator on the line has no input, other than to activate the tool. How do I know? I sold both the tools and the torque monitoring equipment use to calibrate and preset the tool. And the tool calibration and torque setting is outsourced to a nonunion third party, same way the Japanese transplant do. FAIL on your comments blaming the assembly line employee. Outsourcing and overseeing the outside contractors are all the purview of nonunion salaried supervisors. "a worker’s decision to not ... properly glue the rear window in on a C3500 dually (causing it to blow out at speed on the interstate) — those accidental failures by union workers to properly do their jobs (or deliberate… because let’s face it, we’re talking about unions)" FAIL again. Again, the assembly line employee uses the tool - how much adhesive is dispensed, how the tool kits into the work piece, where the adhesive is supposed to go - all are not determined by the assembly line employee, but are the end result of salaried, nonunion supervisors responsibilities. Again, I've sold both the tooling and the adhesive, to Detroit and non-Detroit auto makers, so I have a little first hand knowledge of who is responsible, and who isn't. If the tool isn't properly calibrated, it's the failure of a supervisor or an outside contractor or both. Try actually knowing about how manufacturing plants work next time.

Thanks Len-A, Reading your comments its quite evident,that unlike many others here,you do indeed, know what your talking about. 36 plus years on the factory floor and I have on rare occasions seen deliberate shoddy workmanship. I've also seen people fired,never to return to the plant. On more than one occasion I have witnessed, "peer preasure" applied, more than verbally, to those that were not perfoming thier assingnment correctly. This is all just a waste of my limited typing skils, on the "experts" that have never seen the inside of a vehicle assembly plant. Thanks again Len A

mikey, you're welcome. I'm a bit of a pariah among my peers, because I won't badmouth blue collar workers who are doing a job that I know I wasn't cut out for, physically or mentally. I don't care. So I don't get a promotion - don't want one anyway. Just keep on selling to my industrial customers. Factories are home-away-from-home to me. White collar or blue collar, we all work for a living, opinions otherwise notwithstanding. The "experts" who have never seen the inside of an assembly plant are incorrectly convinced that having a degree (I have one. My wife has two. Big deal.)"entitles" them to lord it over factory workers. I pointed to that the only thing a degree "entitles" you to do is hang it on a wall. People aren't always paid according to their education, just ask any public school teacher. People are often paid according to the physical difficulty of their job, or how difficult it is to find people suitable for that line of work. Maybe one day I'll try to inform the "experts" what the phrase "Not suitable for industrial employment" means and what circumstances that use that phrase are.

Yeah... whatever. Sorry Len and mikey. I'm sure you're both decent guys, but you're just repeating the same 'ol UAW claptrap: "It's not OUR fault, it's management! Er, I mean the machines! Er, I mean... eh, screw this, I'll just go kill time at the Jobs Bank." So Len, under your premise that workers have no influence on quality, it's all the machines... are the other three clowns in this pic just observers? http://tinyurl.com/UAWfinest

Rob Finfrock - as as independent outside observer, I hardly repeat claptrap. Secondly, any picture can be taken out of context, and Toyota, Honda, Nissan et al have plenty of similar pictures. The gal in the safety vest is a Quality Control inspector, and that's not her only work station. She's up & down the line double checking various items. The guy in the white shirt is an outside vendor - clipped to his right pocket on his blue jeans is a visitor pass - that's where I clip mine. And yes, outside vendors frequently show up in auto and other manufacturing plants in jeans. I stopped wearing suits in 1994, stopped the dress shirt & tie routine in '96/'97 and dumped the Dockers slacks, for 90% of my calls, in 2000. I won't wear a suit or a shirt & tie for any meeting, not even with V.P.'s. If they don't like my attire, they can go do business with someone else. And if the guy in the white shirt is a vendor rep, the guy with the gray T-shirt & dark blue jeans most likely is a supervisor or a plant engineer. So much for four UAW represented employees. Like all bashers, you can't wait to take something out of context. Have a nice day.

Out of curiosity did you mean Westmoreland County?