mike's 01ws6 said:
Thanks for getting a totally bs rumor started. If anything the vehicles made post strike will be of the highest quality possible.
Perhaps that would be the case today, but mobyss' fears are not without historical precedent.
Sabotage at General Motors' Van Nuys Assembly Plant, 1975–83
Craig A. Zabala
Craig Zabala is Assistant Professor of Management at the School of Management, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York.
Sabotage is an aspect of industrial behaviour which is both important and under-researched. This case study in a UAW-organised plant is drawn from the author's experience. He suggests that the scope and incidence of sabotage may be much higher than some labour process studies suggest.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2338.1989.tb00048.x
In the winter and spring of 1971-72, under the pressure of increased workloads, workers began to pass cars down the line with the odd bolt or minor part missing. The movement rapidly gained momentum. In one case a car came down the line with the body shelf neatly covering a pile of unassembled parts. Alvin B. Anderson, Manager of Lordstown, stated 'we've had cases of engine blocks passing 40 men without them doing their work.' (Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 23,1972)
At this stage workers left out one car in 10, or one car in 20.This meant a reduction of 5 or 10 cars per hour. Fortunately the situation is not quite as simple as that, for what we have described assumes that all workers are co-operative enough to pick the same vehicle not to complete their operation on. Any reasonable well-run campaign should leave at least 80% of cars incomplete. And that's not counting those which have had secondary operations completed when the primary job isn't completed, which of course means that the 'completed' job has to be taken to pieces again.
The situation developed rapidly. The company started suspending and disciplining men right and left and generally tightening up. Many suspected that the company was attempting to provoke a strike to lance the boil (see UAW Local 1112 leaflet, dated January 18, 1972). The struggle inside the plant escalated. Soon Time magazine was alleging (February 7, 1972) that ...
'somebody deliberately set fire to an assembly line control-box shed, causing the line to shut down. Autos regularly roll of the line with slit upholstery, scratched paint, dented bodies, bent gear-shift levers, cut ignition wires, and loose or missing bolts. In some cars. the trunk key is broken off right in the lock, thereby jamming it. The plant's repair ht has space for 2.000 ant its. but often becomes too crowded to accept more. When that happens, as it did last week, the assembly line is stopped and the workers are sent home, payless.'
Anderson, GM's Lordstown manager, gave some further examples of sabotage (The Times, March 1 6, 1 972) such as caving-in of radios, scratching of instruments in the instrument panels - - - tearing glove-box doors, etc.'(14)
But this management-inspired hysteria was not the whole story. There was no doubt that they were boosting the sabotage' aspect of the struggle inside the plant. for public relations purposes. For example, simply missing an operation was described as 'sabotage'. Modern Times, a rank and file paper from Cleveland, had an interview with several Lords-town workers (February 1972).
MT: 'What about the sabotage charges?'
Don: 'I've had a buddy come up and tell me that the parts have come in packed but already broken, and this foreman just went up and tagged them "sabotage". The part had already been broken.'
On the other hand another Lordstown worker was quoted as follows In a sympathetic article by Barbara Garson (op.cil.l: 'Sabotage? Just a way of letting off steam. You can't keep up with the car so you scratch it on le way past. I once saw a hillbilly drop an ignition key down the gas tank. Last week I watched a guy light a glove and lock it in the trunk. We all wanted to sec how far down the line they'd discover it ... If you miss a car they call that sabotage. They expect the 60 second minute. Even a machine has to sneeze. Look how they call us in weekends, hold us extra, send us on and off.
The struggle really began to bite. Substandard Vegas began to reach the dealers who screamed like stuck pigs. The media got hold of the story (Cleveland Plain Dealer February 20. 1972). By January, GM estimated that they had lost production of 12,000 Vegas and 4,000 Chevrolet trucks, worth 45 million dollars. On the other hand the men had gone for weeks without full wage packets or even without a full day's work having been sent home early when the 2,000 space car park was full of uncompleted vehicles. Nine hundred men had been disciplined. There were 5,000 unprocessed grievances (failures to agree). Discipline was intense. A worker was sent home for being one minute late (Newsweek,Febuary 7. 1972). Another was suspended for farting in a car. Yet another for yodelling ( Barbara Garson, op. cit.). Yet another was sent home for going for a drink of Tensions had reached fever pitch.
http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/weller.html