NNN0LHI (64,922 posts)
Farewell to GM, from a factory rat’s disloyal daughter
http://open.salon.com/blog/laurel_not_lauren/2009/06/02/farewell_to_gm_from_a_factory_rats_disloyal_daughter
JUNE 2, 2009 10:43AM
It’s been nearly a quarter of a century since my dad punched a clock for the last time, but he’s still got his tools, the ones he used for 37 years in the die room at a Chevy spring and bumper plant, though they don’t get much exercise anymore. My parents moved into senior housing a couple years back, and if something breaks, Dad just calls maintenance. The only thing he fixes now is supper, a job he’s taken over from my mom, who suffers from dementia. Dad is 83 and, like his former employer, he’s seen better days.
Back when I was a kid growing up on the northwest side of Detroit, everybody we knew was connected in some way to the Big Three. The streets in our neighborhood were named after Ivy League colleges, but it was a solidly blue collar area; block after block of modest little houses plunked down like tokens on a life-size Monopoly board, most of them crammed to the rafters with kids. Every morning at six thirty, with the precision of a choreographed dance, back doors would open and men would emerge and, after hasty goodbye kisses from women in curlers, they would vanish into the steel jaws of the great automotive giants, only to be belched out again eight hours later, twelve during model changeover time.
“Generous Motors†(with the help of the U.A.W.) put the food on our table and the roof over our head and the money in my parents’ bank account, money that financed much of my education, supplemented by what I earned from my own well-paying summer jobs at my dad’s plant, one of the perks that went along with being in a GM family. My dad, the son of an itinerant laborer from Arkansas, was lucky to graduate from high school. I, on the other hand, like most of the kids I grew up with, viewed college as a birthright. I even tacked on three years of law school. Such a huge change in just a single generation, made possible by virtue of a strong union and a robust industry.
And how did I return the favor? How did I express thanks for my newfound upward mobility? I packed my bags, moved to California and, like millions of my fellow baby boomers, promptly went out and bought a Japanese import, which I subsequently traded in for a Volvo.
Not sure why Don is posting something from almost three years ago - then again, he did work in the auto industry and regards it as the ne plus ultra of American labor, which means most things probably zip by him while he's busy loading up on union-negotiated crack and liquor at lunchtime. Welcome to three years ago, Don. Change your shorts. This article does point out a salient fact: the decline of the industry was precipitated by the confluence of union strongarm tactics, shitty design, terrible fit and finish, and vastly superior product from Europe and Asia. The children of the mooks who would have otherwise taken union jobs in the 70's went to college and bought European cars.
So really, idiot liberals, YOUR OWN POLICIES, PREFERENCES, AND DEMANDS led to the demise of the jobs you all hold so dear.
I can't really say I blame you, though. Who would ever choose to drive pieces of Detroit shit like this?
