Autopsy of an Auto Plant

[Karmadillo]

http://inthesetimes.com/article/6737/autopsy_of_an_auto_plant

Autopsy of an Auto Plant
The new book Punching Out is brilliant Detroit-style immersion journalism.
By Steve Weinberg

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Born in 1973, Clemens watched the city of Detroit decline in conjunction with the American automobile industry. The sites of automobile parts plants that used to employ thousands of proud, well-compensated laborers now sit empty. After the Budd Company automobile parts stamping factory closed during 2006, Clemens decided to investigate the reasons for the closing and observe what would become of the gigantic building in its abandoned state. (Stamping plants manufacture specific parts, such as doors. Engine plants manufacture, naturally, engines. Assembly plants put the parts and engines together until a finished vehicle emerges.)

He learned that heavy machinery from the closed factory would be transported to Mexico by truck to perform the same functions as before, while Detroit workers drew unemployment checks from the state of Michigan and perhaps the federal government. Eventually, Clemens made the journey to Aguascalientes, Mexico, to view for himself the bitter irony of machinery from the Budd plant—which had been situated between two Chrysler-owned factories in Detroit—stamping parts for none other than Chrysler’s Dodge Journey line.

To educate himself in the early stages of the project, Clemens studied the biweekly publication Plant Closing News, founded by Jon Clark during 2003. Successful journalists understand that every story can be enhanced by specialized publications such as Clark’s newsletter. The first year of publication, Clark reported on 983 plants closings in the United States and Canada. The number rose every year after that.

Clemens also draws on first-hand knowledge from an open stamping plant. The result is vivid prose. Here is an example:

Like the liftoff of an airliner, the stamping of auto body parts requires inhuman force, producing decibels registered by your internal organs. The presses sound, unmistakably, as if they could kill you, which they could, without much interrupting their normal functioning. You’d notice the collision more than they would…It would be difficult to find a stamping plant of long standing without a history of tragedy. In recent decades, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and automation have helped to reduce the human loss—the latter, in large part, by reducing the need for humans altogether….Compared with a state-of-the-art assembly plant such as Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant, the scene in an old, closed stamping plant such as Budd is hellish, backlit by Goya. (There were in fact foam fingers in the Budd plant that said GOYA. It stood for Get Off Your Ass.)

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[RKP5637]

1. Recommend!!! n/t

[knitter4democracy]

2. My brother helped redesign Ford Truck at one point.

Safety was a big concern as well as production levels.

[NBachers]

3. Thanks. I pre-ordered this book, due to your posting

[madrchsod]

4. i worked in one steel forging shop for 7 yrs.

then worked in another for 3 yrs. both shops are now closed and the machines sold off or scrapped. my job in a steel mill lasted 4 yrs before that mill was reduced to 25% of what it was.

those jobs in those shops and mills put a lot of our children through college,built a lot of homes,and provided a lot of other jobs.

those days are over and they will never come back.......

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. My DH's dad was a top executive at a steel plant for 35 years

I work not far from there and it still saddens me to drive by and see the place now, a shell of what it once was. So glad my FIL is not alive to see its demise.

[hedgehog]

7. My uncle was a machinist and proud member of the steel worker's

union. He was working at a stamping plant during a mill strike one time, and had to demand to be given tongs for setting parts on the press. No way was he going to risk his fingers, but I wonder about the other people working there who had no idea there was an alternative!

[mdmc]

5. ..