I recall a story from the 70's. The trunk on a Caddy didn't shut quite correctly. So a large man with a big rubber mallet came over, hammered the piss out of it, until it closed. Now you hear about zero tolerance. But, really. Old habits die hard.
In the 80's, maybe the early 90's, there was an article in the WSJ on the new Ford Ranger. There was a bolting procedure for the truck bed. the bolter held the gun over his head. He was in a pit, the truck rolled over the pit. Needless to say, after lunch, the work was a bit suspect. Someone came up with the idea to put the employee above the bed, gun on a cable. Duh!!!!
In the late 70's, my mother was a member of the Amalgamated Meatcutters' Union. That's slang for the Mob. If you remember, or read about that time, it's when the Unions finished off manufacturing for the first time. They'd come back later. Anyway, they paid for her house closing, glasses, lifts for her shoes, everything. I remember telling her what a horrible precedent this all was; it wasnt' the unions place to do all this.
The problem? #1 Labor. #2 Management #3 Unions
My father had passed, we had very little. I talked her into going into management. She still worked like a dog, but I can so remember this conversation. She called me one day, swore at me like a sailor. She hated it so much. But she did it. about four years later, the Germans came in, bought the Great A & P, lined everyone up, said, the managers stay, the rest of you, you can apply for part time jobs with us, no benefits.
#4 Cause and Effect
The point of this seemingly unrelated post is, this is all learned behavior. It is ingrained in the fabric of this Banana Republic like the DNA that makes your dog lick his balls. And it's not going away easily. But it needs to be torn down, and rebuilt from the ground up. We don't respect the manufacturing process, and we are losing our respect for individual freedoms. We don't let folks fail. And now, we're in this huge pit, waiting for the fire dept to show up, rescue us, and then we can sue the responsible parties and live happily ever after. WE are the responsible party. Listen to any Union head. Making 500 large, expounding on the downtrodden worker who has no special skill, and how the man misuses him.
When this whips back the other way, and it will after the next four years, it will be violent, and hopefully it will be like a huge turd swirling down the porcelin god. We can compete. Look at our military hardware. But we need to pay a wage that is commesurate w/the work. Want to make the big dough? Get an education. Plenty of State Schools are still standing. You don't need to go to Harvard. And the military offers many scholarship programs. You can go, if you're willing to work for it.
