Watching the Netflix documentary, American Factory, it was clear why America has and must lose the manufacturing war. We’re fat. They’re compliant. We complain. They conform. We want to work less. They will work as long and hard as they’re told. We work for money. They believe they are serving a greater good by working for excellence. We can deny the cultural differences all we want, but that won’t produce windshields.
There was a complaint that permeated the movie, from the closure of the GM plant that left thousands not just out of work, but out of hope. There was nowhere else to go until Fuyao took over the factory eight years after it was shuttered.
In 2016, Cao opened a division of Fuyao, his global auto-glass manufacturing company, in a shuttered General Motors factory near Dayton, Ohio. Blaming slumping S.U.V. sales, G.M. had closed the plant — known as the General Motors Moraine Assembly Plant — in December 2008, throwing thousands out of work the same month the American government began a multibillion dollar bailout of the auto industry. The Dayton factory remained idle until Fuyao announced it was taking it over, investing millions and hiring hundreds of local workers, numbers it soon increased.
There are a litany of problems that one sees coming miles away. Money. Safety. Security. Cultural conformity. The presentation was dystopian, but there was a lurking question that never really bubbled to the surface in the movie, even though it did in real life. The GM plant that provided jobs, security and hope for a better future closed. It shut its doors. And then there were none.
After the American workers, who were the grunt tier compared to the Chinese workers brought to oversee the slackers, had enough culture shock, some turned to the United Auto Workers to represent them. A unionization campaign was held and NLRB vote taken. The UAW was crushed by a margin of 2 to 1.
Fuyao brought in some anti-union consultants to put on the routine dog and pony show. Chairman Cao (as everyone called him) had no tolerance for a union in his plant, a Mao-like paean to him. The starting salary of $12 per hour, raised to $14 during the anti-union campaign, was far below the GM salary of $29 per hour. But the GM plant closed.
The documentary closed with the introduction of automation in the plant that, it promised, would rid the shop floor of many bodies. Robots don’t complain. Robots don’t call in sick or get hurt. Robots don’t unionize. Robots work all the time. Work, work, work. There were 2,200 American workers by the end of the documentary, poorly paid but paid. Even that didn’t hold much promise for the future.
Columbia lawprof Tim Wu writes that “it has become painfully clear that we are more than just consumers and corporate shareholders.”
Europeans often describe the United States as a great place to buy stuff but a terrible place to work. They understand the appeal of our plentiful and affordable consumer goods, but otherwise they just don’t get it: the lack of real vacation, the sending of emails after business hours, the general insensitively to work-life balance.
From the perspective of the Chinese, we’re slackers. From the perspective of “Europeans” (who apparently are of one mind, since Wu sees no need to either cite nor detail from whence his assertion derives), we’re overworked machines.
But these priorities also generate an internal conflict, for they neglect, repress and even enslave our other selves: our identities as employees, producers, family members, citizens. And in recent years — as jobs become increasingly unpleasant and unstable, as smaller towns and regional economies are gutted, as essential industries like the pharmaceutical and telecommunications sectors engage in outlandish profiteering, and above all, as economic inequality becomes the trademark of our nation — the conflict seems to have reached a breaking point.
It’s taking a psychological and emotional toll on Americans, a cost that Wu argues can’t be paid.
For an individual person, the lengthy neglect of significant parts of one’s identity can lead to psychological harm. The same goes for a whole nation. Fortunately, there are signs that the country is starting to change. For the first time in decades, large numbers of voters in both parties are demanding candidates who have radically different economic priorities. And even in the corporate world, there are encouraging hints of resistance, as when chief executives publicly ask whether maximizing shareholder value really serves the country in the long run.
While we concern ourselves with how this makes us feel, the Chinese are working mandatory overtime, and are pissed that their American counterparts aren’t. To watch the pageants put on for the enjoyment of the Chinese workers, about how joyful their life is and how serving Fuyao is their most valued goal is to wonder who is foolish enough to buy this indoctrinational nonsense. But then, to read Wu is to wonder whether we just prefer the indoctrination that gives us more vacation days.
The curiosity is that it’s clear that the American workers can’t compete with the Chinese. They complain about fat fingers, but even if American fingers were slimmer, we lack their willingness to conform to the needs of their employer, their master. But in the recognition of the burdens placed on American workers by maximizing shareholder value, by the psychological harm, by the demand for a “radically different economic priorities,” is the solution to embrace a more socialist perspective? Would that give us more time off to get in touch with our inner emotional needs or compel us to dedicate ourselves to producing more windshields?
The GM plant closed, and then there were no jobs until Fuyao came to Dayton, Ohio. Fuyao may be an awful place to work by American standards, but it’s the only game in town.
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in other words…………. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKNeFHBPgRo
I’m not fixing vid links anymore. If you can’t manage it on your own, it stays as is.
My bad. Tell me what you mean by fixing videos, and I will learn to do it.
Put the vid on a new line, by itself, rather than at the end of a sentence and it will work.
Thank you.
In the golden age of American and European capitalism, roughly the 35 years after WW2, our Keynesian policymakers were as concerned with demand (unions can help with that) as with supply. That balanced perspective makes intuitive sense, doesn’t it? But then we had Reagan, slower economic growth, and ever-rising inequality. We need to return to the old way of policymaking, but it would definitely hurt the ‘haves’ so don’t hold your breath.
“Intuitive sense” is a great way of avoiding any actual thought, which could easily induce terrible headaches. Do you think it’s that simple or was there a variety of forces at work other than the greed and oppression of the “haves”?
I worked for many years at the GM and related plants in and around Dayton. That one plant, an assembly plant, always got all the news and attention, however the bigger view is all the components plants that closed in the area. Back as a young man if I drove anything other than a GM car onto any plant parking lot, it would be keyed within an hour.
UAW was a royal pain and fought with the unions at other pants in town. Thy didn’t care.
The infrastructure in the plants was aging and a mess. Some buildings dated at close to 100 years old. Cleanup of toxic solvents, lead, chrome was going to cost a bundle.
So they came to town and reopened just one of many plants. It is a small game in town compared to what Dayton had in terms of jobs. As I drive past some of the sites that are now gone on the way to my current gig, I don’t wonder how it happened. Everyone had blinders on. Workers, unions, local management, and big bosses in Detroit just kept rearranging deck chairs. They still do, bring in 50 plants run by a Chinese company, you are not changing the views of the works in the area
It was always doomed to collapse under its own weight, but I suspect those who realized it figured they just had to survive long enough to make it to pension and then it was somebody else’s problem. So what becomes of Dayton and it’s hard-working if somewhat overweight and whiny residents? Is there any hope or do they vote Bernie and wait for GBI to kick in?
Good question. I have this joke, “what is the difference between Dayton and yogurt. Yogurt has an active culture.”
I don’t even live in the same county, so I tend not to care a whole lot about local things. The city used to have GM, Mead Paper, NCR, a major Air Force base. A good university and an up and coming commuter school.
We see what happened with GM…. lots of stories I could tell, you have probably heard similar things. Mead had a CEO that set things down the tubes and took his golden parachute. NCR thought they were as smart and good as IBM and tried to get into the PC world. NCR moved to Georgia and only did ATM machines. Mark Hurd after killing NCR then went on to HP only to be kicked out over a sex scandal.
The AF base is still doing good, you know they have to keep the little green guys from Roswell in hangar 18.
UD doing ok as far as I know. Wright State U is about to go under.
One thing you may care about is Lexis-Nexus. Not sure about them. I know plenty of folks that used to work in IT for them. The company is very nasty to work for.
Most of the guys that used to work at the plants are just bitching and going to cook meth in the woods.
If only they could export meth, but it seems to be more an import item if anything. Tariffs, maybe?
At some point, we either have to produce something of value that someone else will buy or we run out of money to buy Chinese iphones.
Edit: During college, I spent a week at the UAW “Retreat” at Black Lake, MI. Owen Bieber, who was then director of Region 1-D and later UAW president, was my BFF and gave me his windbreaker. I still have it.
Feds just served a warrant at Black Lake. Looks like some number of UAW folks have been representing primarily themselves in recent times.
Pops, do you really think the UAW was doomed to fail from the get go? Somebody once told me that there may have been a, “variety of forces at work other than the greed and oppression of the “have[-nots]”. That said, I’ll gladly vote for Bernie with my cheese-dust coated fingers. I’m a lost cause.
Dayton is dead until Cincinnati incorporates it into the megalopolis. Long live Columbus for now.
One other note. This is class warfare, not cultural warfare. Get it right or be re-educated, or not because the capitalist class won.
It never had a chance.
All the mandatory overtime helps them to not dwell on not having enough women in their country. Anyway, what else have they got to do?
To each according to his ability. From each, according to his needs. You’re going to be in re-ed for a very long time, comrade.
Better Dead than Re-Ed!
So it is true then, that the only reason you frequent the kiddie pool at the local country club, once school is back in session, is to chat up the career life guards about their Twitter skills and get some advice about how best to tweak your breast stoke and butterfly rhythm to improve the shape of your old man bod?
I do know that those life guards could help you over a few anecdotal hurdles in this “is labor a commodity” side quest of yours but I get it, that Netflix thing that is, I guess…and seeing as how you don’t surf I can forgive you for your Twitter Technique Thirst.
Anyway, now that we got that sorted out… Did you know that Fuyao is more than just a company that controls 70% of the global automobile glass market? Did that Netflix documentary also let you in on the fact that they also have a very formidable float glass division? If not, keep it quiet and all, but rumor has it they are about to crack the final few manufacturing glitches that have prevented indestructible glass houses from becoming a reality across the globe regardless of climate or cultural norms.
What do you think Higher Ground Productions and life guards are gonna think about that especially if the prototypes roll off the production line just about the time you start seeing MATH bumper stickers start appearing on robotic Harley Davidson forklifts stacking boxes of plastic chrome fender tips from China in Milwaukee warehouses? I don’t know… But I do know that the full page ad that Fuyao is gonna runs in that newspaper you read everyday is gonna be epic!!!
P.S. After these twisted-WTF are my kids gonna do? Is labor a commodity? Westlaw? Sentence-O-Matic? LegalZoom? Unborn grandchildren and Title IV?- nightmares of yours subside and you make a few bucks to pay off your kids tuition bills with some strategic investing in float glass before someone figures out that antitrust is still in the dictionary, would it be too much to request you concentrate on why America started getting fat just about the time the three martini lunch started to become unfashionable?
If you do, maybe you will get fitness guru Michelle from Higher Ground Productions to give you a call and get you on the short list for Ruth’s seat, if you agree to stop talking about title IV. Anything is possible you know, and I really shouldn’t bring this up but Elton already has a prototype ready for Ruth’s mummy to bridge any potential life expectancy gaps so don’t you be too worried about Ruth’s retirement. As long as you keep swimming the timing will work out eventually.
The United States is not losing any manufacturing “war”.
Manufacturing outputs, meaning the value of American manufactured products, is at or near the highest level ever in terms of GDP and rising.
The number of manufacturing workers, however, has declined. As it should. Techmology, man. How many people are farmers now, and how many more people do they feed than when 75% the population were farmers because that’s the only way they could eat?