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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."
They didn't melt down - and they had the same basic internals with automation and labor. It was GM's belief it was "too big to fail" and its poor designs for 15 years that killed it. The hallmark of much of manufacturing is to treat people as "assigned job robots" so that they can do their one job really well - but to throw an exception when they see something related to their job that is wrong. It wasn't what TFA is talking about at all - it was GM's arrogant leadership.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Congratulations, you've discovered capitalism! If you want to work 20-30 hours per week and have someone else support you, perhaps consider Cuba or the USSR, I'm sure they'd love to have you.
It angers me to no end that we bailed out GM. If anything, GM is proof that no business is too big to fail and we should have let GM completely implode. So now GM is going back to building gas-guzzlers instead of responsible, (more) environmentally friendly smaller cars. GM and the other companies that got bailed out are proof that we practice a form of welfare called wealthcare. We had to protect the billionaire class and I am fucking sick of it.
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.
Ahh, the old "parasites" argument. Whenever the armchair industrialists want to whine about uppity workers expecting decent pay and working conditions, this oldie always gets pulled out.
Of course this only works if you completely gloss over that the unions had valid contracts that GM chose to enter into and then renege on as much as possible. When the CEO drains the pension fund to gamble on the stock market and looses big, retires and leaves it for the next couple of CEO's to ignore and suddenly all those retiring workers *surprise!* actually are still alive and want the pensions they contracted for but the company can't afford now, it's the Unions fault somehow. Can't blame themselves for poor management after all.
Before anyone goes spouting off about the mythical guy pushing a broom all day for $1000 an hour, let's remember that Union contracts are negotiated, and if GM's highly paid lawyers and management couldn't negotiate a way to efficiently utilize their work force, then that's on them, not the Union. But then, how can management suppress wages with Unions around? Whoops, I mean the workers wages, they're not savages after all, THEY have stock options and golden parachutes, naturally.
> ! If you want to work 20-30 hours per week
If you wanted to, you could work 20-30 hours a week and have a single 20" TV connected to an antenna with no monthly charges like your parents or grandparents did at your age, rather than multiple 60" TVs streaming Netflix. Here in Dallas there are about 50 broadcast TV stations you can get without paying anyone a dime.
You can have a 950 sq foot house like your parents or grandparents had, instead of 2,400 sq feet. You could have one family car instead of two or three, and plan your weekly errand trip to do everything in one trip, saving money on gas, wear and tear on the car, etc. You can put the bread in the toaster yourself and toss an egg in the microwave (or stove) for 35 cents instead of paying McDonald's right times as much. Same food, just 85% lower cost.
Some people live only 30% better than their parents, having 50 broadcast stations instead of three or four, and work 20-30 hours. It's fairly easy to do if you want to, and you look up how on the internet, perhaps joining one of the forums where people who do that share ideas. Others similarly work 40 hours while saving 65% of their income for retirement, so they only have to work 10-15 years in their life. That's an option, a choice people have.
Personally, I don't go that far, but I use some of those ideas in moderation. I make coffee at home for 25 cents instead of paying $4.50 for a cup of coffee - a savings of 95%. I shopped and found the best value package for TV and internet, without any premium channels. 120 channels is enough for me; I don't need 250 channels. I bought a house for 40% less than the banks say I can afford. It's still 3,500 sq feet, though, so I plan to downsize this summer.
My grandparents had a 2 story house with a ton of bedrooms (I forget how many, I was pretty young when we moved out west from them). And they were working class. They had an Atari 2600 around launch. Adjusted for inflation, at $700 bucks. Now, my Granddad died of a heart attack in his mid 50s because the tech wasn't there to fix him, but he also didn't spend $1000/mo on healthcare to survive and didn't have a medical bankrupcy, he just died.
As for the 20" TV, again, in their day they had one, and it would have been about $1000 bucks in today's money. We're talking 40 years ago, inflation's a bitch. Today I can buy a 50" TV for around $300 2018 dollars. And the PS4 launched at $400 4 years ago, almost half what the 2600 did.
Wages are down about 20% what my grandad did across all jobs except for CEO of a fortune 500. Good paying (and unionized) manufacturing jobs like what my granddad had either were automated away or shipped overseas, sending folks to low pay service sector jobs in their place and further depressing wages. Meanwhile George Bush Jr deregulated the commodities market allowing parasitic investors to buy large quantities of food without ever taking delivery of said food. So they "buy" a million hog bellies and then "sell" them, effectively skimming 10-15% off you and me and driving up the price of food. And then there's Reagan & Clinton, who allowed stock buy backs. Those used to be an illegal market manipulation. Every been fired when the stock market had a minor dip? You can thank Reagan & Clinton for that and the perverse incentive they created for short term stock gains
The entire economy is rigged against working class Americans. It's hard to come to grips with that because when we were kid's we were taught that it wasn't. That you could do anything you set your mind to thanks to the wonders of capitalism. If it's one thing the ruling class knows and understand it's "get 'em while they're young". They do it with religion and they do it with economics. Christ, there's a line about it in the bible.
Please, please start thinking these things through. Guys like you, who've drunk the kool-aid, need to come to your senses and see how you're being taken advantage of and run into the ground for nothing in return.
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The union card gets played and rightly so. It made the company inflexible to meet changing times and demands. Also, the company had a pension plan the size of a 3rd world country. Totally unsustainable. GM made horrible decisions.