Hot take, and it’s kinda tangential to what’s going on for Ford right now, but:
If white collar middle management types spent a portion of their time working in at the pointy end of labour, their decisions about and their connection to blue collar workers would improve the way that a company works.
The amount times I’ve been working as a grunt in an organisation and mid-level or top-end management has decided to implement the most radically counterproductive or even downright destructive changes to the way that low-level workers have to go about their jobs, often to massive backlash, loss of profits and productivity etc., increased workload, workplace injuries etc… it’s like it’s a constant feature.
Obviously this isn’t a lesson for capitalism so much as it’s a necessary lesson that we need to learn for an effective circa- and post-revolutionary society.
(There’s a whole thread in this line of thought somewhere about why vanguardism is so important, as is the mass line, but I’ll probably end up writing some huge diatribe if I start on that path.)
Where was it this exact thing happened and it cost the company in delays, bad product, and even possibly injuries?
Was when UAW had to strike at John Deere over the two tiered system bullshit. Honestly I think it is good for the company to have even a week of the white collar types having to do the blue collar work not by choice but necessity. If anything the Ford family should intentionally let things get to the point where the white collar workers are forced to do a week before they smash out a new deal with the UAW. It improved things at John Deere.
Remember when this strategy worked out perfectly for John Deere?
https://jalopnik.com/john-deere-put-temporary-workers-on-the-factory-floor-1847872374
I’ll never understand why the white collar folks agree to scab for a job they weren’t hired to do. That shit is not their job, they’d be plenty justified saying no. What’s the long term thinking? You’re gonna work in a factory for a few weeks or months until the strike ends so that what? The union gets a worse deal and the company looses less money and now all your project are behind? It’s not like management is going to be happy to delay all those projects. I guess it’s just the fear of being fired for being the only one to say no. Almost like everyone needs a union.
