Chrysler Workers Caught Drinking and Drugging - Again

[DJW]

SRath, here's one for the book, I was working as a construction millwright and on one job the general contractor management, not our union general foreman, or union foremen. the top lot did not want to see two men in a pickup, so here's the drill, you or your partner would drive to the supply dump, the material needed two men to load whatever was wanted, so you'd wait until your partner arrived. Load up, you or he drove back and waited for the partner to arrive to begin unloading. Is that the height of efficiency or stupidity?

Union wages, German engineering the strongest unionized workforce in the industrial world, can't be beat on wages, vacations, holidays, health insurance, pension, you name it they have it, and Germany can't keep up with the demand for their manufactured products in the present economy. Its claimed German engineering has not been affected by the current slump.

 

[rscurtis]

German companies also have a sense of nationalism that has been long gone in the US. Witness how all the "job creators" have created jobs- in Mexico, China, India, and there are new deals in the works with Colombia and South Korea. The real job creators are companies like Stihl who make much of their world-distributed products in Virginia Beach- and have since 1974.

 

[fest3er]

... Is that the height of efficiency or stupidity? ...

Inefficiency can be handled with minimal intelligence. It's sheer and utter stupidity. A perfect example of the FUMU management principle: eff up, move up. That manager should have been fired on the spot. It is inexcusable to demand that the client's or customer's costs be significantly increased just because an addle-pated beetle-head is inexplicably offended upon seeing two workers in one vehicle. What, did the dolt think the truck was a shovel that could be wielded by only one person? Fools like that only keep unions strong.

 

[DJW]

fest3er, I know its totally illegal to have a man work alone if his principle employment is in the engineering industry, for instance, an employed worker to work without another person within at least hearing distance, even if that person is just a bookkeeper, some one who can call for aid, or assist in case of an accident. Say the designated driver at that construction job with poor roads or no roads, terrain very uneven, large dips and hollows got into difficulties of a serious nature, wise boy would be in a heap of trouble. Said injured person was not hired on specifically as a rough terrain driver, neither said vehicle was specifically designed to traverse conditions expected to be encountered on a construction site. My first job at 14 years of age in Britain was at a construction site, the perimeter face was 17 miles long. (can you see me now Mother?). Your Honor, I respectfully rest my case.

 

[DJW]

OOps. Fence.

 

[DJW]

OOps again, perimeter fence. (being retired, claiming its 'Friday' no excuse)

 

[SRath]

Perimeter fence..? What danged fence?!! I can't see anything!

Sounds like the huge runway project I was on last year, DJW. Thousands upon thousands of tons of wet cement being hauled over a mud trail in the dark each night. We had a full-time grader operator just to try to keep the "haul road" from totally blowing up, but it was futile. A frozen chisel-plowed field would have been much smoother. Pitch black except for the ultra-extreme-intensity runway lights completely blinding you. Driving blind. And Lord help you if you veered a few feet any direction and "violated" Homeland Insecurity "restricted area", which was everything except our blown out mud road. Ten thousand dollar fine minimum and possible jail time even if it was clearly an accident.



And don't get stuck, slide out of control, tip the truck, or blow a tire; wet cement in the back of a dump truck doesn't wait. I blew two steer tires in just one particularly bad night. The iron workers seldom closed their pickup tailgates and were very generous about leaving rerod and scrap steel buried in the mud behind them. Blown steers are quite the fun ride with tons of wet cement trying to tip you over and monster holes in the mud bed road ripping your arms from their sockets as you try to hang on and steer. All in the dark with hundreds of 100-million candlepower landing beacons blinding you -- practically frying your optic nerve. You'd get home after 16 hours and try to close your eyes and all you still see is blinding spots. You wouldn't have any idea most of the time if you hit a stupid "perimeter fence" or not.



The most satisfying occassions were when an engineer or other bigshot needed a ride from the runway back to the batch plant and you got to take him for a ride. They never believed you when you warned them to buckle up real tight. After smashing their skulls into the roof a couple of times after just the first few craters, they got the message. :-laf



That job sure paid good, but we finished 6 weeks ahead of schedule... which had supposedly never been done on a federal runway project of that size before. Bummer... It was an out-of-state contractor and the first workers they began laying off were us local guys. I volunteered to switch to the all-spanish-speaking paving crew just to squeeze every last day & hour out of the job.



That's hard physical work for an old guy like me, and the paving crew supervisor hated all truck drivers with a screaming & profane passion. I've never been much good at backing down and, as a driver, we literally came very close to exchanging punches quite regularly as we loudly decried each others' heritage, parentage, sexual preferences, and competency at every face-to-face encounter. But I finally earned his grudging respect once I was on his crew and did get a nice bonus a few months later at Christmas time for doing a job the other drivers deemed too hard and beneath them. They got laid off and I worked to the very end. Then got laid off, too.



But that's just the nature of the job and you simply move on to the next one or something else.