Reflections: On the Blue-Collar Blues

...If these segments could b e put back together, it was reasoned, so that each worker participated in the whole task from beginning to end and could see and understand his own contribution, he would feel a sense of accomplishment...

...It had been a conversation piece of mine for years, but until that moment I had not really understood it...

...And if the task is not set up to be performed repetitively and efficiently, the set-up is bad and any intelligent worker will soon understand that and feel put-upon...

...A sense of craftsmanship is incompatible with work on a mass production line...

...Once workers have been mechanically aided, they are reluctant to return to the hard old ways...

...This appalling trend has called forth all sorts of explanations and panaceas, but the one most acceptable to those who have seen but never worked on a production line, who have known but never worked as artisans, is to attribute the difficulty to boredom, and to cure it by manipulating the production method to simulate a craft and, thereby, to restore the pride of craftsmanship...

...One night he finally overcame his diffidence and, coming up to the rear of the bench, spoke to me...

...Unlike an engine, a die or a brick wall are true craft products...

...Can an engine or a rear axle-housing compare...

...The racial and cultural revolutions of our time have eroded the old work-ethic of " a fair day's work for a fair day's pay," leaving the most sophisticated, best paid segment of the semiskilled and unskilled labor force without any internal incentive to keep them faithful to their dull tasks...

...The die room had been newly rebuilt and extended all the way to the Oakland Avenue side of the building, right over the old rear axle-housing line, which was still running...

...He didn't want to give that much to the job...

...The semiskilled and unskilled workers who man the production lines are no longer internally motivated to spend their days productively at the subhuman tasks industry offers, nor can their spirits be lifted by complicating the tasks...

...Five of the six American workers who participated in the Swedish experiment concluded that this approach does not work...

...I venture to say that if you asked UAW members what they wanted most on the job, they would say, 'Better working conditions, better pay, and more time off.' " The reaction of a group of American workers who participated in a Swedish experiment a year ago would seem to confirm this view...

...But Jack was appalled at the utter absorption my work demanded and the constant pressure on me to innovate...

...it held their involvement to the bare minimum...

...The experiment, conducted by Professor Arthur Weinberg under the sponsorship of Cornell University and the Ford Foundation, consisted of sending six Detroit auto assembly-line workers, two women and four men from all four of the major auto companies, to work for six weeks at Saab-Scandia's Sodertalje engine plant...

...For two years of a "program" I proudly called attention to the front fenders made in a set of dies I had produced...

...But of the six American workers, only one liked the Swedish system...

...That was twenty-seven years ago...

...While much of t h e labor required to bring it to completion may b e dull in itself, it is integrated into the whole because the eye of the artisan never leaves the goal of the end product...

...There was something similar in the reaction of the automation-indoctrinated American workers who participated in the Swedish experiment: They thought it was stupid to do things the hard way for no objective reason...

...Witness the Ford Motor Company's attempt to use labor instead of automation for the stampings and some of the sub-assemblies of the 1960 Falcon: The crews virtually refused to work until a minimum amount of automation was installed...

...Increasingly, products are designed to be made with more machinery and less labor...

...You do something different every night...

...That was why he had time to stand around...

...He certainly didn't have the blues...

...boredom and the blues would vanish, pride and t h e old spirit of craftsmanship would reappear...

...Their purposes are also prescribed, and two or ten may be made from the same blueprint—but there the similarity stops...

...Under this method, one crew built a complex engine from a raw, machined cylinder-block to a finished power plant ready to be started up on the dynamometer...

...As I read this report, I remembered an incident at the Chrysler Highland Park stamping plant in 1948...

...Doesn't it drive you crazy...

...This process stands in marked contrast to the conventional assembly line in the United States, where a block, loaded onto a conveyor, is passed between rows of workers, each of whom emplaces the same group of components and tightens them down day after day, year after year...

...Craftsmanship implies the use of judgment and creativity, power which must be in the hands of the stylist, the planner, the engineer, and the designer—at least for high-volume items...

...This was the lot of slaves sent to be worked to death in the ancient Egyptian gold mines of the upper Nile, of captive oarsmen in the galleys of Venice, of children in t h e cotton mills of early New England, and of the auto workers of our century...

...it freed their minds to dream and fantasize...

...Soon after I started on the job I began to notice a tall, rangy fellow with a wild shock of hair who would stand in the shadows of the axle-housing line from time to time and watch me...

...The notable thing about the Sodertalje plant was its team method of building engines...

...Yet only recently h^s boredom on the job become an issue...

...And the increasing disparity between the high quality of the product as it is engineered and its low quality as it emerges from the line hastens the day of zero manpower...

...Did it matter to him or anyone else...

...Simplification is not effective, and discipline accounts for many of t h e long and bitter strikes of recent years...

...he was the utility man on the nearby section of the axle-housing line...

...I assumed that he was a production hand and that he was standing there in awe, admiring my skill and envying me my interesting job...

...The other five valued t h e ' 'boredom'' of the assembly line...

...That is why the eyes of industry are turning more than ever before to cybernation...

...Each die or wall is an individual and unique creation, made singly and unlike any other...

...any task a worker may be assigned or choose to perform on it, he must perform just as any other worker would...

...And the achievement of this goal can be a triumph that shines throughout a lifetime, as in the cse of one bricklayer I knew who never tired of pointing out the towering smokestack that was partly his handiwork...

...There is nothing new about boredom and job dissatisfaction...

...Most Swedish workers joined them in this feeling, Weinberg noted...

...It is absorbing and self-disciplining...

...REFLECTIONS On the Blue-Collar Blues DEXTER GOULSTON Douglas Fraser, vice president of the United Auto Workers and director of the UAW Chrysler Department, has been quoted as saying, "The so-called 'blue-collar blues' are a lot of baloney...

...The theory was that the assembly line blues were caused by boredom arising from the workers' lack of involvement in t h e work, and that the lack of involvement was caused by breaking up the task into meaningless segments...

...I paid little attention except to nod, "Hello," and night after night he came closer and closer...

...Was Jack bored...

...a diemaker's work is absorbing, and each afternoon I was soon oblivious to my surroundings, buried in calculations, layouts, fittings, filings, and the other tasks of my trade...

...This is a difficult period for American industry and industrial unions alike...

...The reason it does not work is that an engine—or a rear axle-housing—is prescribed, interchangeable, and without variation, regardless of whether it is built on an assembly line or by a team...

...These are, obviously, not satisfactory solutions...

...Its construction demands the complete devotion of the artisan...

...He told me his name was Jack Miniuk...

...The implications of that sentence sum up the misunderstanding that surrounds the idea of the blue-collar blues...

...Dexter Goulston worked in the auto industry for twenty years...

...I probably filed with an extra flourish for his benefit...

...No craft feeling or inherent discipline can arise from such a contrived situation...

...To build it is, therefore, an inherently repetitive job, if the volume is great enough...

...A few nights later, emboldened by the first conversation, he delivered a blockbuster: "You know," he said, T ve been watching you for weeks now and I don't see how you can stand it...

...The result has been a nightmare of absenteeism, poor workmanship, low productivity, and outright sabotage in such high-volume industries as automobiles and appliances...

...I was a new man, so my bench was backed right up to the noisy, smelly old line, but it didn't matter...

...The only course appears to b e that of simplifying operations even further and adding t h e harassment of close supervisory surveillance backed by disciplinary action...

...Things were slow for me in 1948, so I hired in as a diemaker on the afternoon shift...

...I looked at Jack's job, at the hours of monkey-motions he was required to make amidst a constant fireworks of spot-weld flash in an atmosphere of burning oil, and was thankful that I had taken the time and trouble to learn my trade so that I would never b e trapped in such a dismal hell...

...It was his job to fill in when a man went to the toilet, became ill, or was injured...

...You do something different every night...

...The t e am method, on the other hand, demanded concentration and total attention...