524 replies to this topic

[NRoshier]

Well good to know what happens here. When I was in Munich the local reported that the BMW plants went on strike for 3 days as the canteen had refused to serve beer. Apparently it is a low alcohol beer...

[Greg Locock]

Opel (Germany) plants have beer vending machines in the assembly plant and the engineering offices.

[NRoshier]

I was there for a Hang-gliding show...when I did such things and found it an amazing place. The pensions (hostel type things) I stayed in had 'breakfast beer', which was a light sweet sort of brew with little alcohol...I did not really appreciate it with my cereal!

[Tony Matthews]

Originally posted by NRoshier
...I did not really appreciate it with my cereal!

Huh! Amateur...;)

[NRoshier]

agreed...I prefer a neat single malt to beer...but neither at breakfast!

[McGuire]

Originally posted by imaginesix
Nobody claimed that it is representative of anything. The significance of that report to me is that it indicates the level of authority Ford has over it's workers; none. They cannot either monitor, or enforce, disciplinary action against these workers and that could only be because of the meddling intervention of a union.

Of course maybe it's simply my failure to find an explanation for how they could get away with that, that didn't require the complicity of a union. In which case I would be pleased if you could provide me with an alternative potential explanation that does not involve unions.

The video has been around for awhile. Actually there are several of them and they are all as bad. I work here in Detroit. I know the Sterling Heights plant in the video and the pub, Al's Hideaway. I have questions about the video that you never managed to ask yourself:

Who are the people in the video, really? They were never identified nor was there any attempt to interview them. So who are they? Ford hourly workers as the video claims? I find that very doubtful. I want to know how they get on and off the job and in and out of the building at will, because ordinarily they do not have that authority and must account for their time on a daily basis. As has been pointed out here, drinkers will find a way to drink, but this story is a bit much for me to swallow whole.

Far more likely these are either line supervisors or contractors. The building is secured by magnetic card and these people have far more freedom to come and go at will. And if somehow these are hourly workers, my first question is where are their supervisors?

You have ideas about the power of the UAW that do not align with reality. For example: not being on the job/falsifying work records is a termination offense in first instance. The union has no recourse for fighting such a termination if the worker request remediation. If the company has its facts in hand, it's an open and shut case.

[McGuire]

Here's the other thing that rankles my ass about this video and the attitude behind it: the hypocrisy of it all.

I have worked in both the blue collar and white collar worlds. From what I have seen over the years, the office work ethic is wander in around quarter after nine, hang around the coffee pot for 20 minutes catching up on the social whirl, go to work. Take an hour and a half for lunch, more if you have clients, booze it up if you wish. Then knock off an hour early, "errands to run today." Banking hours, every conceivable holiday off. A half-dozen days a year I am the only one in the office.

But when you work on the line in an auto plant, you punch the clock and go to work, and except for two 10-minute breaks and a 30-minute lunch you are going to work all day. The line is not going to stop for you.

White collar: fully equipped kitchen and dining room. Ours has a liqour cabinet.

Blue collar: vending machines, plastic chairs, concrete floor.

And so it goes. In my life I have seen a lot of people drinking at lunch and 90 percent of them are wearing neckties. Let's keep things straight about who are the workers and who are the drones.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Greg Locock
Check out the pubs and carparks on Sydney Rd, Neil. Don't walk barefoot, every carpark is littered with lunchtime stubbies.

I'm not surprised by the video, just about every plant I've worked has a bunch of workers who have figured out a way of combining working and other stuff. The canteen at Land Rover, when I started, served beer and ran porn films.

In the USA, alcoholism and drug abuse have traditionally been major problems in large plants. (For example, law enforcement knows these facilities are key nodes for drug traffic. Lots of users in one place for high marketing efficiency.) Only in the last 15 years or so have we begun to get our arms around the problem and that is mainly due to a shift in social thinking. People began to realize that when you are drinking or firing up at lunch time, it's not because you are a happy fun party guy. Really you are just a drunk or an addict.

If you would like to know what would compel assembly line workers to use alcohol or drugs on the clock, try the job for a month or two.

[Greg Locock]

BTDT, I worked on the lines for weeks at a time in the UK, and for two years over here I was launch support engineer.

Hey I'm not arguing, office workers get away with far more, and it is hard to see how a line worker could go AWOL for hours at a time, at least on dayshift. But there are plenty of other jobs where it would be possible.

[Canuck]

I don't know about where you work, but over here with the Borg Collective, it's anything but so simple as hourly people work, suit and tie slack which is the picture you've just painted. Hourly guys - like you said - punch in at the start, punch out at the end of the day and spend the time in between, for the most part, working. The suit crowd...yeah, their start time is unpredictable and to be forthright, I'm now officially a suit guy (or least a guy in the office that doesn't get his hands dirty). On the mornings when I can pull my **** together I can beat my boss to work by a good half hour or more (he's in at 6:30am like clockwork) but usually I'm not there until 6:30 and I'm outta there at 5:00 or 5:30 most nights albeit later if there's a drawn out management meeting or a problem I need to attend to. HR is in the office around 8:00 am and she's usually still there at 8:00 pm. I often find email in my box the next morning that was sent out at 10:00 or 11:00 pm from HR. My own boss is 60 hours bare minimum at the office every week, and, given the email waiting for me Monday mornings, somewhere in the realm of 20 hours on the weekend (no wife, no kids, no pets, no life). His boss - same, that is if he's not living out of a suitcase in a hotel somewhere away from the wife and kids, 3 days here, a week there, home for 2 days, back across the pond for 3 days...

Despite being part of the Borg, we have no liquour-filled fridge (EHS doesn't permit that sort of thing) and while meetings held at lunch are indeed catered with fresh cold-cut sandwiches and juice, there is no "executive" lunchroom, just one big cafeteria. Yes - I can come and go as I please, smoke when I choose, snack while I'm working and hit the bank, the doctor or just head home early but... I don't get paid hourly and I don't get overtime being in an exempt management category. If things are tight at home from an unexpected bill, we have to tighten our belt - there's no putting in a bit of OT to take the edge off. If I work 40 hours or 120 hours, it all shows up the same on the cheque and you can believe that in this economy, you're seeking to perform at 110% all the time because now it's not just my ass on the line, it's my entire division.

I don't know where exactly you work, but I'm guessing the Executive liquour cabinet is going to be some empty by the end of the year.

[Todd]

Originally posted by McGuire
In the USA, alcoholism and drug abuse have traditionally been major problems in large plants. (For example, law enforcement knows these facilities are key nodes for drug traffic. Lots of users in one place for high marketing efficiency.)

If you would like to know what would compel assembly line workers to use alcohol or drugs on the clock, try the job for a month or two.

Originally posted by McGuire
Total media hack job, not representative of workers at Ford or any of the automakers.

So which one is it?

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Todd




So which one is it?

There is absolutely no contadiction in what I wrote.

In auto plants, hourly workers can't really come and go as they please or spend hours hanging around the bar. That is essentially bullshit. It has been known to happen but it's rare because management would pretty much have to be in on it.

But people with drug and alcohol problems can still find a way to maintain their habits on their regular breaks and even while on the job. The people working on either side of them may not even notice it. Many users are very "high function" -- they can be highly impaired but still appear quite normal. Not until there is an accident and their BAC is tested or the the dysfunction is otherwise discovered.

When I was a kid I worked with a guy who drank two draft beers and three shots of Yukon Jack in a 27-minute lunch period every working day. From what I understood at the time he had done this in the same hotel bar in the neighborhood for 20 years. I never once saw him slur his speech, lose apparent motor function or exhibit any overt signs of intoxication. This was long enough ago that most people would not consider this behavior alcoholism. He was just a "hard-drinking guy" -- part of an obsolete mentality that included the three-martini lunch. But today we know that this man was a high-function maintenance drinker and no doubt had to drink that much just to keep the snakes away.

[dosco]

Originally posted by Greg Locock
There's lots of domestics on teh IIHS site, just not in that cat

Correct, I pooched the sentence. Thanks for the correction.

[dosco]

Originally posted by McGuire
personally, I would never use it as a primary criterion or even a major one in selecting a vehicle. How you drive is a first-order consideration in highway safety.

It became the primary criterion when the wife was almost taken out by an out-of-control driver. She was third through a stoplight at a 4-way intersection, leaving our development. A guy screamed through at a high rate of speed (probably in excess of 50 mph, as that seems to be "normal" on that road) and narrowly avoided colliding with her, while she was driving a 2003 Ford Explorer.

You make a good point, however there is no way to "control" the other driver. Sure, defensive driving, yadda yadda, but 3rd through the light? How conservative and "defensive" is "enough?" BTW, several people have been killed lately on this stretch of road in similar "broadside" type impacts.

And you're right about not being able to survive a collision with a massive (freight train or semi) ... but what about a 50 mph sedan into the driver's door? Do you want "the best" or "the middle of the road?" My thought is that in this case, car handling and driver's skill would have probably had little impact on prevention.

I will say that the Odyssey handles quite well for such a large vehicle, has substantially more usable interior volume than did the Explorer ... all the while maintaining higher crash performance. And yes, I understand that "real crashes" are not the same as "lab crashes." Of course, performing the test does result in "apples to apples" comparisons and probably is a good indicator of "real world" crash performance.

It is what it is. I hope to purchase a Corvette in the near future as it is affordable, "made in the States" (note quotations), and will satisfy my desire for a higher-performing vehicle. YMMV.

[indigoid]

Originally posted by dosco
You make a good point, however there is no way to "control" the other driver. Sure, defensive driving, yadda yadda, but 3rd through the light? How conservative and "defensive" is "enough?"

Light or no light, if she was feeling more vulnerable (say, on a motorcycle!) she'd have been looking out for it, even expecting it. Especially since, as you say, it wasn't an unusual incident in your area

[dosco]

Originally posted by indigoid


Light or no light, if she was feeling more vulnerable (say, on a motorcycle!) she'd have been looking out for it, even expecting it. Especially since, as you say, it wasn't an unusual incident in your area

Probably true.

On the other hand, how slow is "too slow" when proceeding through an intersection? How far do you take "defensive?" I could stop at a green-lighted intersection (driving defensively, right?) and get rammed by the person behind me. How did that help me? It's better to get nailed at 5mph than at 60?

[indigoid]

On the bike, I would be looking to the right (we drive on the left side over here, so substitute left for right) just before entering the intersection, and keeping an eye on it as I continue through. I guess bikes do have a significant advantage here of being able to use far smaller gaps to escape than cars (especially big SUVs like the Explorer!) can.

Your point remains entirely valid, of course -- sometimes there really isn't much you can do in the time and space you have available, and I'm not arguing that. Riding, though, has taught me that those situations are rather less common than I'd previously thought.

I am glad your wife is unhurt. That's the most important bit, and as such I disagree strongly with McGuire's ranking of criteria. Safety features are pretty damned important for those few times that you truly can't sufficiently mitigate the risks, like when my aunt had a spooked adult horse gallop at full speed into the side of the parked Volvo 245 she was sitting in. Money is only money. Life is priceless.

[crono33]

i have been riding bikes for 30 years and i fly small planes. passive safety? whats that?

i drive a fiat barchetta now. SUV drivers can't even see me because im lower that the bottom edge of their windows :-D so "conservative" driving is a must, but this car is so nimble and handles so good that i feel (and probably am) safer than driving one of those large, heavy vehicles.

all my vehicles are chosen based on handling capabilities and for sure not on number of airbags. first car i bought for wife was a clio williams. no safety devices to speak of, but a hugely capable car on the road. i think was a wise choice, and together with some training (from me ;-) ) she is a very safe driver even on snow and ice. on a proper car, that is.

years ago my mother had an accident; about 50% offset head-on impact, both cars were doing about 120kmh, my mom was driving a renault 11, other car was some fiat. no airbags and nobody was buckled up. my mom got a few bruises, the other driver a broken arm. my personal idea is that as long as i am in control, i am the best safety feature of any vehicle i am driving, once i am not in control any more, who knows...maybe is just luck.

at any rate, the way towards "safer" cars achieved though size and weight is a dead end.

[desmo]

Yes, increases in crashworthiness that necessitate increases in vehicle mass just mean that all other vehicles thus will need to be designed to deal with colliding with cars with increased mass which in turn will mean...

It looks like quite the stupid exercise, viewed form an objective distance. I reckon anyone that opposes mandatory helmet use for all car drivers and passengers or even making cell phone use by drivers strongly illegal isn't really serious about vehicle safety in any event.

[imaginesix]

No, those people are in favour of automobile safety but only so long as it doesn't cause any kind of inconvenience to users. "Those people" are legislators and they can't afford to lose the backing of the electorate.

I make that distinction because I find most everyone is serious about safety, often even to a fault.

[Greg Locock]

I'd sort of disagree. Legislators are very happy to emphasise secondary safety (what happens in a crash) - which by its nature is a bit of a gamble, but at least they can piss off only a small constituency by doing so. But they seem very happy to accept the status quo with respect to primary safety - will I have a crash in the first place?

The usual reason that cars crash is not mechanical defects, speed in excess of the limits, alcohol, drugs or any of the other things they bleat on about. Primarily it is due to sober drivers who expect the vehicle to break the laws of physics in order to follow the requested path, or who forget to allow for other things (cars, houses, perumbulators) on the requested trajectory. I'll try and dig up the recent paper this is based on.

Late edit - DOT HS 811 059

[crono33]

very interesting document. interesting that nobody for 30 years has done such survey, indicating how the focus is mainly on secondary safety

unfortunately i see a pattern here. in aviation there is a school of thought according to which is better not to teach pilots how to deal with certain conditions because it would negatively affect safety.
for example, teaching pilots how to deal with bad visibility conditions would incentive pilots to intentionally fly into bad visibility conditions. unfortunately not being able to do instrument flight in bad visibility means almost certain death.

[NRoshier]

agree on the nut behind the wheel, however:
http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

[NRoshier]

LOL!...
http://cgi.ebay.com/...41842&viewitem=

[crono33]

just to keep this strictly OT :-)

i remember financing arts with public money being discussed on this thread

http://www.zombietim.../zomblog/?p=339

:-D