Slashdot Mirror
What Happened When Automation Came To General Motors? (qz.com)
General Motors was once the world's most profitable company -- for two decades -- and by 1970 its revenue was $22.8 billion (or $152 billion in today's dollars). But five weeks ago GM announced that it was finally ending small-car production and closing its Lordstown Assembly plant in Youngstown, Ohio.
So what went wrong? Quartz argues that GM's decline "began with its quest to turn people into machines," as "the company turned assembly work into an interlocking chain of discrete tasks, to be executed by robots whenever possible." In an article shared by Slashdot reader reporter, Quartz argues that seen in that light, the company's response to a 1972 strike "marked the beginning of the company's long but uneven descent, which would be characterized by a repeated impulse to bet on fancy, futuristic but unproven technologies while undervaluing its workers."
But the strike also raised larger issues for "a massive special task force" issuing a federal report on the quality of working life in 1972, titled Work in America... [T]echnology had failed in its promise to free humans from drudgery and wring profit from their talents, the authors said. On the contrary, the new jobs created generally required minimal expertise and therefore prevented workers from honing their skills. That stymied career mobility and left people mired in the same torpor of boredom for decades. Despite this, America continued to offer its young people increasingly rigorous education -- even as work life left little opportunity to apply it.... The larger hopes and ambitions of Work in America -- the vision that saw satisfying work itself as essential to the health of American society and democracy -- exists now as little but a curio in the footnotes of academic journals....
Meanwhile, GM continued to lavish spending on big capital investments, confident that the secret to competitiveness lay in replacing humans with technology. But as in Lordstown, the spending bore little fruit. As automotive analyst Maryann Keller recounted in her 1989 book Rude Awakening, one GM executive observed that, between 1980 and 1985, the company shelled out an eye-popping $45 billion in capital investment. Despite that spending, its global market share rose by but a single percentage point, to 22%. "For the same amount of money, we could buy Toyota and Nissan outright," said the executive -- which would have instantly bumped GM's market share to 40%.
At GM quality suffered because "Instead of making flawless cars, workers simply did their assigned jobs," Quartz argues. "Workers had no big-picture goal of building cars together to motivate them."
The 7,000-word article concludes by noting that Youngstown residents still hope that their car factory will re-open. But it's also possible that instead Lordstown Assembly "will remain standing, but empty, a vast roadside reminder of a corporate elite's doomed quest to cheapen labor by stripping the human need for skill, learning, independence, and purpose out of production, by reimagining people as machines."
So what went wrong? Quartz argues that GM's decline "began with its quest to turn people into machines," as "the company turned assembly work into an interlocking chain of discrete tasks, to be executed by robots whenever possible." In an article shared by Slashdot reader reporter, Quartz argues that seen in that light, the company's response to a 1972 strike "marked the beginning of the company's long but uneven descent, which would be characterized by a repeated impulse to bet on fancy, futuristic but unproven technologies while undervaluing its workers."
But the strike also raised larger issues for "a massive special task force" issuing a federal report on the quality of working life in 1972, titled Work in America... [T]echnology had failed in its promise to free humans from drudgery and wring profit from their talents, the authors said. On the contrary, the new jobs created generally required minimal expertise and therefore prevented workers from honing their skills. That stymied career mobility and left people mired in the same torpor of boredom for decades. Despite this, America continued to offer its young people increasingly rigorous education -- even as work life left little opportunity to apply it.... The larger hopes and ambitions of Work in America -- the vision that saw satisfying work itself as essential to the health of American society and democracy -- exists now as little but a curio in the footnotes of academic journals....
Meanwhile, GM continued to lavish spending on big capital investments, confident that the secret to competitiveness lay in replacing humans with technology. But as in Lordstown, the spending bore little fruit. As automotive analyst Maryann Keller recounted in her 1989 book Rude Awakening, one GM executive observed that, between 1980 and 1985, the company shelled out an eye-popping $45 billion in capital investment. Despite that spending, its global market share rose by but a single percentage point, to 22%. "For the same amount of money, we could buy Toyota and Nissan outright," said the executive -- which would have instantly bumped GM's market share to 40%.
At GM quality suffered because "Instead of making flawless cars, workers simply did their assigned jobs," Quartz argues. "Workers had no big-picture goal of building cars together to motivate them."
The 7,000-word article concludes by noting that Youngstown residents still hope that their car factory will re-open. But it's also possible that instead Lordstown Assembly "will remain standing, but empty, a vast roadside reminder of a corporate elite's doomed quest to cheapen labor by stripping the human need for skill, learning, independence, and purpose out of production, by reimagining people as machines."
The same reason that most profitable car companies are now relocating into Right To Work states. The unions latched onto GM like a vampire and drained it of it's life force.
On the management side, G.M. had competing brands wit their own bureaucracies and managers, fighting each-other for R&D budgets, production resources, marketing dollars and more. It wasn't Buick against Mercury, but rather Buick against Oldsmobile, Chevy and Cadillac. It wasn't Camaro vs Mustang but Camaro vs Firebird.
And it was the union vs the company. Any proposed changes came with significant concessions to the union, or with a strike.
Take the Saturn effort... which was designed to be "clean-sheet" (rather than badge-engineered clones, such as the above-mentioned Camaro/Firebird.) The Union forced GM to cede significant control to the union, even before the factory opened, including:
That's what killed G.M. Not automation, but the combined culture of competing accountants and a greedy-and-hostile monopoly for the labor (UAW), both of whom could only act on relatively short timeframes.
Just because the word "rightest" doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely as "leftist" doesn't change the fact that "leftist" means "leftwinger" and plenty of people use "rightwinger". I think it's you who is the moron.
.... has to deal with the historical fact that Obama's bailout of GM, like TARP, made risk public and .....
One small point.. GM was not, in fact, "bailed out". The old General Motors Corporation ceased to exist. The current GM, of today, is actually an entirely new corporation.
It is an entirely different entity with the same name as the previous company. Federal money (lots of it) was spent to finance the process of bankruptcy, but the old GM stock was effectively rendered worthless. People holding old GM stock ended up with pennies on the dollar at best and nothing at worst. Most creditors also received pennies on the dollar.
Having grown up in a "GM Town" for many years, let me share my opinion.
GM workers were terrible, they had a HUGE sense of entitlment, knowng they had union protection and could do almost anything they wanted.
The biggest concern from "management" where i lived was how can they fire the worst of the worst.
The Employees? If they were not bragging about how they will just "shut em down" if they didnt get what they wanted.. They were faking injuries to take the summer off so they could run their side job (landscaping).
Most of my neighbours were either drunks, or high all the time.
There is a "licensed' restaurant right by the plant. During lunch, they'd all head down there and get loaded up before going back to work.
There wasnt much you couldnt get "on the line".. Chickens (farm fresh), stolen merchandise, drugs of all kinds..
But the unions made out great, as did BlueMountain Capital, headed by an old college buddy of President Obama - who's administration conveniently broke standard bankruptcy rules to provide for the investment bankers to win before the bondholders and other secured creditors...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!