How VW's Chattanooga plant 'Maximizes Production' from Workers -- It's Brutal and Beyond Inhumane

[hfojvt]

46. hard to know what it is like

without actually working there, but it sounds somewhat like the plant where I last worked (way back from 1998 to 2001 off and on). I worked there as a temp for three years. There were lots of temps who had been there a long time, and were trying to become non-temps. Myself included. I applied there three or four times without even getting an interview.

Did this put lots of pressure on the non-temps?

Ha! Double Ha! and as if.

Having worked on the swing shift with them, I counted many of them as friends and found them to be very knowledgeable about the machines there, but by and large they were a bunch of slackers.

One legendary story was of a guy who was asked a member of this touring group "so what do you do around here?" and his answer was "as little as possible". The hilarious part of the story was - it turns out he was talking to the new plant manager.

The other hilarious part was that - nothing happened to him. At no time in the three years I was there did I ever see or hear of a long termer getting fired and then getting replaced by a temp. They did hire some temps - I can think of at least two, (and a third that they started to hire, but then found he lied on his application) but they hired other people as well when they did hiring.

The work was generally pretty slack, although the swing shifts were brutal, especially on my co-workers. There were also ways to get hurt. One lady did get badly injured and some wondered if she would ever recover. The plant was getting ready to adapt to new ergonomics rules - when suddenly Bush got elected and they didn't have to. Most of the workers treated the word "ergonomics" as a joke.

I'd probably still be there if they had hired me. I didn't think the work was bad. It made me angry to be a temp for so many years, but otherwise ...

Yet it could be described just like that VW plant.