I worked in the St.Louis chrysler plants for 7 years as an Electrician. People think the workers build crap. UAW workers make no decisions about, materials, marketing or what products they release. If the greedy CEO's care more about lowering line speeds and actually giving workers something good to build in the way of materials maybe the US carmakers would be in a better position as far as quality. Chrysler South minivan and North Ram truck plants used to roll out 1000 cars a day, at least 500 per shift. When the line speeds run that fast and people are putting vehicles together with wet toilet paper(that about sums up what the big 3 put in their materials vs the foreign carmakers), quality is last on the list. The foreign carmakers have nowhere near those line speeds, hence better quality. But upper management makes choices and they have made some bad ones. Chyrsler had 2 billion cash reserves before the Daimler merger. The UAW workers didn't steal all that money. Chrysler christmas parties for the big wigs used to be in excess or 500k. A guymaking $22 an hour to put in rear view mirrors didn't put the big three in the financial position they are in. They averaged at least 13k in profit on a minivan. Paying CEO's millions for poor performance is the problem.
Not taking up for the workesr but they are not to blame.
Not taking up for the workesr but they are not to blame.