Powertrain employees believe better days are ahead for GM

[Ming]

Powertrain employees believe better days are ahead for General Motors
Sunday, March 04, 2007
By RYAN J. STANTON
BAY CITY TIMES

Amid the clatter of clanging steel, there's a sense of camaraderie found inside the General Motors Powertrain plant in Bay City.

Workers here say they have no hard feelings about GM's decisions to cut costs during tough times. While the work force has shrunk in the last year - and dramatically over the past few decades - it's only forced them to find new ways to get the job done.

''I think everybody's working a little bit harder,'' said Joe Delaney, 59, of Bay City, a technician in the Northstar Camshafts Department.

Delaney has worked 38 years for GM, and he's witnessed the cuts to his department. About 330 plant workers accepted incentives to retire early last year through a companywide attrition program.

The company brought in new trainees to replace about half of the outgoing workers; some came from other GM and Delphi plants, while others were recalled from layoff. Still, about half of the 330 jobs disappeared, dropping the plant's work force down to about 670 blue- and white-collar workers.

Delaney said workers realize the cuts have helped GM get back on track.

Ed Duby, Camshaft Business Team manager, agreed, saying workers gained a new sense of ownership in the plant by helping to make decisions to cope with change.

Continues: http://www.mlive.com/news/bctimes/in...370.xml&coll=4

Abandoned GM Powertrain Plant, Bay City, MI

[69Firebird400]

Good stuff - employee empowerment and their ownership of their work will only make a better product more efficiently. It's also smart for automakers to have plants competing with each other for better efficiency and quality in hopes of getting new work assigned to them in the coming years. Certainly beats the alternative (shown in the photo in the original post).

[nadepalma]

Originally Posted by 69Firebird400

Good stuff - employee empowerment and their ownership of their work will only make a better product more efficiently. It's also smart for automakers to have plants competing with each other for better efficiency and quality in hopes of getting new work assigned to them in the coming years. Certainly beats the alternative (shown in the photo in the original post).

Agreed --- it's encouraging, but it also helps that plant workers and others actually see the differences themselves.

[asim]

These people sound pretty cool. They understand what has to be done in order for GM and themselves to survive. The powertrain employees here sound a lot better than those unionized jerks that don't want to do anything.

[goblue1999]

Originally Posted by nadepalma

Agreed --- it's encouraging, but it also helps that plant workers and others actually see the differences themselves.

I've worked in a lot of GM powertrain plants, the guys in Bay City actually seem to get it. There are determined, and don't seem to be even remotely related to their Flint "brethren". Good for them, they have a chance.

[VivienM]

Originally Posted by asim

The powertrain employees here sound a lot better than those unionized jerks that don't want to do anything.

These powertrain employees are UAW...

[DDelphic]

Originally Posted by goblue1999

I've worked in a lot of GM powertrain plants, the guys in Bay City actually seem to get it. There are determined, and don't seem to be even remotely related to their Flint "brethren". Good for them, they have a chance.

I work at the Tonawanda Plant and I can tell you that they have things in ship shape and are keen watchdogs on all the metrics that make a plant the best,so much so that they were awarded the Ultra V8 that we were all happy to get .........they are still in the running for the Diesel V8 that has reserved floor space in the brand new plant 5 ( but it has not been awarded yet).Most all employees are happy to have a job there.We have to put in long days of almost no inturrupted production.If something breaks down they adjust our break times to fix the problem so we are actively engaged at work at all times.We constantly exceed production goals daily, and are all UAW employees.I do not know why I read all this negativity on this board of the UAW employee.As one... I can tell you the work is not easy these days ..........most people would be shocked at the workload on the outside.We work bell to bell,there is absolutely NO time to sit around period, as I seem to think most people seem to think we do.
We build the 3.5,3.9,8.1,2.2 and the I 4& I 5 in another plant on the complex.The I5's are going to Flint shortly to make room for the Ultra V8.They are on the ball in Tonawanda, you can be sure that your GM Powertrains are in good hands in Tonawanda.