The story of the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., aka NUMMI.

http://www.thisamericanlife...es/episode/403/nummi

The story starts out about how it was a the worst GM plant in USA history. Because of the Union and Union labor, it was plagued by so many problems. Production was slow, quality was really bad (engines installed backwards, cars with no steering wheels and etc.), the drunkenness and drug use of the Union Labor in the plant was so bad that often times hardly anybody was at work (but still getting paid) and plant managers had to literally go to the local bars and drag the drunk union workers back to work. Union workers who work at this plant back then bragged about how they brought in thermoses of screwdrivers to work everyday, drug dealing and drug use and even prostitution at the plant. It was despicable to the highest degree. It made American Workers look so bad in the eyes of foreigners that nobody wanted to invest in America, because of these despicable Union phuck workers.

But Congress was going to slap tariffs on Japanese Automakers so they needed a plan to bring production to America to save cost. They decided to go into the joint venture with this terrible auto plant and turn it around. Toyota was the car company. They let everybody go and started by scratch and taught the new workers the Japanese way of doing things and it turned it around, big time. They also had no tolerance for past Union worker ways of drinking and drugs. It was their way or the highway. They change it around to make it one of the most productive and high quality plants in America. But GM as a whole was slow to adopt it company wide because of the Union and therefore GM went bankrupt and the NUMMI plant (joint venture with GM and Toyota) would have to shut down, and their last day of production is this month.

Great story.

I caught the story on NPR Friday.

Personally, I'd be ashamed to be one of the guys they interviewed. They sounded proud of the stupidity, like putting garbage inside the door panels to "get back at the company", putting the wrong nose on a car, and generally not caring about if something was done correctly or not.

Seems to me that anyone with a kindergarten-level education would know better.

I just copied the entire article from your link, please show me where any of the BS you wrote is in there.

A car plant in Fremont California that might have saved the U.S. car industry. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota showed GM the secrets of its production system: how it made cars of much higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved. Frank Langfitt explains why GM didn't learn the lessons – until it was too late.

PROLOGUE.
Host Ira Glass introduces the story of the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., aka NUMMI. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota showed GM the secrets of its production system: how it made cars of much higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved. But today, GM cars still don't have the quality of Japanese imports, GM is bankrupt and on March 31, NUMMI will be closed, sending thousands of car workers looking for jobs. In this hour-long story, NPR Automotive Correspondent Frank Langfitt tells the story of NUMMI and why GM – and the rest of the American car business – wasn't able to learn from it more quickly. (4 1/2 minutes)

Act One.
The rise of NUMMI, or how one of the worst auto plants in America started producing some of its best cars, thanks to lessons learned from the Toyota production system. (25 1/2 minutes)

Act Two.
Why did it take so many years for GM to begin implementing the lessons of NUMMI across the company? NPR Automotive Correspondent Frank Langfitt continues his story. (26 minutes)

PHOTO: Courtesy of New United Motor Manufacturing Inc.

You really are an arrogant twit.

Steve

------------------
Technology is great when it works,
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't.
Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

I don't care how drunk you are, how do you install an engine backwards....

I have seen some bad things happen in the plants due to 'spite' ( almost got one guy killed ), but nothing close to that. I think they were giving the people reporting a line of bs.

[This message has been edited by User00013170 (edited 03-28-2010).]

quote Originally posted by 84fiero123: I just copied the entire article from your link, please show me where any of the BS you wrote is in there. A car plant in Fremont California that might have saved the U.S. car industry. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota showed GM the secrets of its production system: how it made cars of much higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved. Frank Langfitt explains why GM didn't learn the lessons – until it was too late. PROLOGUE. Host Ira Glass introduces the story of the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., aka NUMMI. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota showed GM the secrets of its production system: how it made cars of much higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved. But today, GM cars still don't have the quality of Japanese imports, GM is bankrupt and on March 31, NUMMI will be closed, sending thousands of car workers looking for jobs. In this hour-long story, NPR Automotive Correspondent Frank Langfitt tells the story of NUMMI and why GM – and the rest of the American car business – wasn't able to learn from it more quickly. (4 1/2 minutes) Act One. The rise of NUMMI, or how one of the worst auto plants in America started producing some of its best cars, thanks to lessons learned from the Toyota production system. (25 1/2 minutes) Act Two. Why did it take so many years for GM to begin implementing the lessons of NUMMI across the company? NPR Automotive Correspondent Frank Langfitt continues his story. (26 minutes) PHOTO: Courtesy of New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. You really are an arrogant twit. Steve

It's an audio report. Hence the (25 1/2 minutes) and (26 minutes).

Here is the short 12 minute version for ya. That's if you can figure it out.
http://www.npr.org/template...hp?storyId=125229157

Hey, weren't you one of those drunk-at-work GM union low-skilled workers from back then? You probably weren't in California, but I'm sure that type of despicable work culture was plant wide when your father got you the job. Who you know and who you blow, right? That is probably why they kicked you out when GM really needed to shape up. To little to late for GM. They shouldn't have ever hired you and other drunk lazy union types in the first place.

[This message has been edited by Wichita (edited 03-28-2010).]

You really are nothing but a troll.

keep up the bad work.

steve

Dialup, and I don’t have time to wait 12 hours for it to download. You on the other hand feel you are the greatest thing since the invention of the internet.

I remember you couldn’t hack it on the line. At your union contracted job. You were not able to work and play well with others. Or keep your trap shut.

Lone wolfs do not work well in a team environment.
I bet you did well in the military to. Not.
Steve
------------------
Technology is great when it works,
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't.
Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

[This message has been edited by 84fiero123 (edited 03-28-2010).]

Caught some of it on radio as well while driving to Conroe. It wasn't all bad news, but there certainly seemed to ba a lot of playing together on the job going on in that plant's early days.

quote Originally posted by maryjane: Caught some of it on radio as well while driving to Conroe. It wasn't all bad news, but there certainly seemed to ba a lot of playing together on the job going on in that plant's early days.

I did like the fact that Toyota turned it around and how the NUMMI employees were pumping out great high quality cars. But the reason it is shutting down now is that Toyota doesn't want to deal with the Union.

This can't be the results for all US plants, right? The assembly plant workers seem to-have gotten right with the Fiero production during the 80s.

quote Originally posted by 84fiero123: I just copied the entire article from your link, please show me where any of the BS you wrote is in there. A car plant in Fremont California that might have saved the U.S. car industry. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota showed GM the secrets of its production system: how it made cars of much higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved. Frank Langfitt explains why GM didn't learn the lessons – until it was too late. PROLOGUE. Host Ira Glass introduces the story of the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., aka NUMMI. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota showed GM the secrets of its production system: how it made cars of much higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved. But today, GM cars still don't have the quality of Japanese imports, GM is bankrupt and on March 31, NUMMI will be closed, sending thousands of car workers looking for jobs. In this hour-long story, NPR Automotive Correspondent Frank Langfitt tells the story of NUMMI and why GM – and the rest of the American car business – wasn't able to learn from it more quickly. (4 1/2 minutes) Act One. The rise of NUMMI, or how one of the worst auto plants in America started producing some of its best cars, thanks to lessons learned from the Toyota production system. (25 1/2 minutes) Act Two. Why did it take so many years for GM to begin implementing the lessons of NUMMI across the company? NPR Automotive Correspondent Frank Langfitt continues his story. (26 minutes) PHOTO: Courtesy of New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. You really are an arrogant twit. Steve

I lived in Fremont for years, was there wnen GM was there, the years it was closed down and when NUMMI was opperating. I had a friend who installed the wiper cowling on GMs, He told me of all the things you've heard here and more. I couldn't figure out how you get a girl into the plant to servece the workers but its a huge plant. My friend went back when NUMMI started and was working there with his son. This friend is the hardest worker I know and I'm sure he didn't play around like some of the workers otherwise He wouldn't have been hired back. So even though I didn't see first hand the debauchery I believe it was worse than the owners say.

quote Originally posted by 84fiero123: I just copied the entire article from your link, please show me where any of the BS you wrote is in there.

Steve, don't take this the wrong way, but I think Wichita essentially summed up the short version of the story that NPR ran Friday afternoon, although I never heard the term "union phuck". That's basically what I heard as well. I lost a little respect for the reporter when I heard the "engine installed backwards" bit, though. Piss-poor writing and fact-checking/believabilty-checking like that ruins a lot of the credibility and smacks of bias.

Wow, gotta be bad when even the Union Rep says they suck

From the NPR article

"It was considered the worst workforce in the automobile industry in the United States," said Bruce Lee, who ran the western region for the United Auto Workers and oversaw the Fremont plant. "And it was a reputation that was well earned. Everything was a fight. They had strikes all the time. It was just chaos constantly."

quote Originally posted by 2birds: Steve, don't take this the wrong way, but I think Wichita essentially summed up the short version of the story that NPR ran Friday afternoon, although I never heard the term "union phuck". That's basically what I heard as well. I lost a little respect for the reporter when I heard the "engine installed backwards" bit, though. Piss-poor writing and fact-checking/believabilty-checking like that ruins a lot of the credibility and smacks of bias.

Probably the reporter was making generalizations. It might not have been the whole engine, but a particular part was installed backwards making the engine useless.

One other thing learned.
NPR needs web/story editors.

I've seen better formatting and grammar from H.S. kids.

quote Originally posted by madcurl: This can't be the results for all US plants, right? The assembly plant workers seem to-have gotten right with the Fiero production during the 80s.

The Fiero plant's management and operating procedures were actually based largely on the Toyota lean manufacturing system. They actually brought in Dr. William Edwards Deming to help set it up.

------------------

1984 Fiero SE

yup - the 70's & 80's and the UAW highlight the problems of unions.

just as the 1850's thru the 1930's highlight the need for unions.

if you are "for" or "against" unions - you are a fool. they are needed. and, they need to know their place.

I thought their place was in Detroit and Flint. What's the unemployment rates in that area again?

Sorry it just seems that Wichita finds these news stories that had to be written by 5 year olds with no proof reading by the paper or himself. That says things that are not only impossible to do but also just plain lies.

Steve

------------------
Technology is great when it works,
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't.
Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

You do realize NPR is considered by almost everyone to have a liberal slant and has long been a big supporter of unions?

Unions are not gone, even if they aren't needed anymore. They may have lots a lot of power so they are flexing whatever they have to make a huge comeback with Obama's support.
http://www.nilrr.org/node/31

quote For month after month, union lobbyists have been twisting the arms of Capitol Hill Democrats and Republicans alike in a bid to get a majority of U.S. House members to go on the record in support of the “Card-Check” Forced Unionism Bill (H.R. 3619/ S. 1925). Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) are the lead sponsors of this measure, which they have cynically mislabeled as the “Employee Free Choice Act.”... As this study is published, 207 out of 435 House members and 32 out of 100 U.S. senators are cosponsors of the card-check bill, which would effectively ban employee secret-ballot elections over unionization in the private sector. Card-check organizing is already a favorite Big Labor tactic, but as yet isn’t mandated by federal law. It empowers union officials to force a business’s employees to accept a union as their “exclusive” bargaining agent solely through the acquisition of signed union authorization cards. Individual workers under the watchful eye of union organizers may be tricked or intimidated into signing themselves, and ultimately all of their nonunion fellow employees, over to union-boss control. Under federal labor law, employees who have a union acting as their exclusive bargaining agent may more accurately be described as being under a union monopoly. The individual employee, whether a union member or not, is unable to bargain with the employer over pay, benefits, or working conditions on his or her own behalf unless union bosses first grant their permission. Law-abiding employers who do not want their independent-minded employees to be subject to union monopoly rule may currently insist that all affected employees at least get the chance to vote in a secret-ballot election before a union is granted exclusivebargaining privileges. But the Miller-Kennedy bill would eliminate that small safeguard. Consequently, during unionization drives only the views workers express while being monitored by union officials would count

Anybody ready for some bullying courtesy of our government and the unions?

More links.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32954
http://www.nrtw.org/en/blog...heck-forced-01192310

[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 03-29-2010).]

Toyota has said that they wanted to continue production at NUMMI, the only GM car produced is the Vibe, the others are the Corolla
and the Tacoma.

I believe GM owns the plant and the NUMMI corporation leases it from them.

In any case, its too bad for the union, and GM.

Toyota will probably switch production of the Corolla and Tacoma to Japan. They may come back to the US, possibly to the Camry plant.

quote Originally posted by 84fiero123: Sorry it just seems that Wichita finds these news stories that had to be written by 5 year olds with no proof reading by the paper or himself. That says things that are not only impossible to do but also just plain lies. Steve

It's National Public Radio, probably the most unbaised, heavily researched and credible news source in America. These stories aren't lies, they are the truth and you know it.

quote Originally posted by Paul Prince: Toyota has said that they wanted to continue production at NUMMI, the only GM car produced is the Vibe, the others are the Corolla and the Tacoma. I believe GM owns the plant and the NUMMI corporation leases it from them. In any case, its too bad for the union, and GM. Toyota will probably switch production of the Corolla and Tacoma to Japan. They may come back to the US, possibly to the Camry plant.

When GM went through bankruptcy, it was split into "Old GM' and "New GM". Any assets of NUMMI were left with the "Old GM".
This was the only UAW represented plant that Toyota had. As soon as GM pulled out, I think the writing was on the wall...

quote Originally posted by Wichita: It's National Public Radio, probably the most unbaised, heavily researched and credible news source in America. These stories aren't lies, they are the truth and you know it.

So explain to me how an engine is put it sideways please?

That was in your posted article, supposedly, I didn’t even look for it because it is such a preposterous idea.

Can you put an engine sideways?

I have never seen or heard of anything like that.

And other things you say happened at the factories by union workers.

Did you go there and wine and tell all those union members that they are waste products and you can out work them as well?

Steve

------------------
Technology is great when it works,
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't.
Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

A lawsuit? For what?

http://cbs5.com/local/nummi...ction.2.1803313.html


Ex-NUMMI Workers To File Class Action SuitFREMONT (BCN) ― Click to enlarge1 of 1


Oakland attorney Tony Lawson said Tuesday that he and other lawyers will file an employment class action lawsuit against New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. and Toyota Motor Corp. over the recent closure of the NUMMI plant in Fremont.

The suit is on behalf of NUMMI employees who were left out of work when the auto plant was closed.

NUMMI opened in 1984 and was a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors, but GM withdrew from the partnership last year. Toyota decided to close the auto plant on April 1.

The move threw 4,700 union employees out of work and also affected thousands of employees at suppliers around the state.

Tesla Motors and Toyota announced on May 20 that they're forming a partnership to build electric cars at the former NUMMI site. Tesla says the new production, which is expected to start in 2012, will create about 1,000 jobs initially.

Former NUMMI workers will join Lawson and other lawyers to discuss the details of the lawsuit at a news conference in front of the U.S. District Court at 1301 Clay St. in Oakland at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

Lawson said the suit will be filed shortly before the news conference. He declined to discuss the details of the suit Tuesday.

Other lawyers scheduled to participate in the news conference include Greg Mayeda of Oakland, Brad Seligman of the Impact Fund in Berkeley, and Claudia Center of the Legal Aid Society and the Employment Law Center.

The Fremont City Council will also discuss at Tuesday night's meeting whether to direct staff to study the feasibility of creating a new redevelopment project in the vicinity of the NUMMI site.

Fremont officials said if the council approves a series of resolutions on the matter, staff would be authorized to prepare a redevelopment plan to stimulate the reuse and revitalization of the site and surroundings portions of the Warm Springs area.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis announced in Fremont on June 7 that her agency is providing a $19 million emergency grant to provide job training and other services for former NUMMI employees.

In addition, the city received a $330,000 federal grant in April to study uses for the former NUMMI site

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Gees, when I lost my job nearly 30 years ago there was no lawsuit. You got retrained and moved on.

quote Originally posted by madcurl: A lawsuit? For what? http://cbs5.com/local/nummi...ction.2.1803313.html Ex-NUMMI Workers To File Class Action SuitFREMONT (BCN) ― Click to enlarge1 of 1 <snip> U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis announced in Fremont on June 7 that her agency is providing a $19 million emergency grant to provide job training and other services for former NUMMI employees. In addition, the city received a $330,000 federal grant in April to study uses for the former NUMMI site

So Cali has turned into Greece.

quote Originally posted by Pyrthian: yup - the 70's & 80's and the UAW highlight the problems of unions. just as the 1850's thru the 1930's highlight the need for unions. if you are "for" or "against" unions - you are a fool. they are needed. and, they need to know their place.

Unions are certainly needed but they need to work with the employer to set work standards and let them be enforced.

I've heard many stories of how union staff get away with things that would be a case for an instant dismissal in private industry.