Renegade Ram Worker Fired
The driving force behind the 12 man protest at Chrysler’s Warren, Michigan plant has gotten the boot.
The Detroit News, which broke the story, reported that protest organizer Alex Wassell was suspended without pay after nearly 20 years on the job. The protest was not sanctioned by the UAW, and led to the leaking of some documents outlining quality problems with the 2013 Ram 1500, a crucial product for Chrysler.
Since Wassell’s suspension, groups like the ACLU and Labor Notes, a union activist group, have spoken out about the firing, which Chrysler described as being due to “…engaging in activity constituting or appearing to constitute a conflict with the interest of the company.”
Meanwhile, the UAW has been curiously silent on the whole matter, which gives us an indirect example of the inherent conflict that occurs when the labor union and the corporate owners are one and the same.
More by Derek Kreindler
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So after reading the articles, we have a substantial amount of the product leaving the line with identifiable defects, no doubt much higher than before. Before what? Well, new model. OK, that's to be expected. Before horrific worker moral. Again, to be expected. Nothing will drive worker productivity and quality into the toilet faster than a degraded workforce. Some may say (or have said) that they are just a bunch of babies! "You have a job! BE GRATEFUL" or "So what you are working longer days, Saturdays, or split shifts! You get paid well, and make overtime to boot! I don't get that and I work extra hours"....well assembly work was pretty structured time wise. Now you are asking, no telling your employees that you will have different days, longer days, Saturdays, splits between day/night shifts. How does a family adopt to such changes with school, activities, other work, daycare, and having a decent quality of life? Then they look to their union for answers and support, only to find that the union says that a decade ago you guys voted to allow this, so sorry. And they wonder why moral and product quality sucks? Management took the FU approach which simply underscores that the owners don't care about them. In turn the workers are telling management FU, too. What a shame. Proper management and setting expectations would have helped eliminate much of this. Maybe we are ready for a new show: Factory Rescue....
So the bottom line when all is said and done is the consumer gets an expensive,known pos?
Cripes! Chrysler factory workers smoke pot and guzzle alcohol on their lunch breaks and get to keep their jobs. This guy complains a little and gets fired. Swell.
"which gives us an indirect example of the inherent conflict that occurs when the labor union and the corporate owners are one and the same." I don't see this as example of a conflict. There was an employee whose actions damaged both the company and the union, he got exactly what I would get for acting in such a manner. What I see here is a union letting one of their own face the discipline he deserves. My issue with unions has always been their inability to allow that to occur. For example, I've seen guys screaming in people's faces about getting work orders done a certain way, with no regard for the fact that he's technically addressing a client. Those are exactly the type of bad apples that unions protect at their own peril. In this case the man's actions had a far bigger impact on the company than simply being rude to one customer, and fired he should be. For what it's worth I don't have a problem with unions, but dealing with them frequently for work I've realized that 90+% of those guys do a good job and are a pleasure to work with. Their weakness is they have almost zero quality control and actively protect the 10% who should never have gotten the job in the first place.