Bruce Lee
It was considered the worst workforce in the automobile industry in the United States. And it was a reputation that was well earned. Everything was a fight. They spent more time on grievances and on things like that than they did on producing cars. They had strikes all the time. It was just chaos constantly.
Jeffrey Liker
The Fremont, California plant for General Motors was bad by GM standards, and GM's average was bad by Toyota standards, so this is the worst among the bad mediocre plants in GM.
Frank Langfitt
Again, that's Jeffrey Liker, who's interviewed workers and management at Fremont for his research.
Jeffrey Liker
One of the expressions was, you can buy anything you want in the GM plant in Fremont. If you want sex, if you want drugs, if you want alcohol, it's there. During breaks, during lunch time, if you want to gamble illegally-- any illegal activity was available for the asking within that plant.
Frank Langfitt
Sounds like prison.
Jeffrey Liker
Actually the analogy to prison is a good analogy. Because the workers were stuck there, because they could not find anything close to that level of job, and pay, and benefits, at their level of education and skill. So they were trapped there. And they also felt like, we have a job for life, and the union will always protect us. So we're stuck here, and it's long term, and then all these illegal things crop up so we can entertain ourselves while we're stuck here.
Rick Madrid
A lot of booze on the line. I mean, it was just amazing-- and as long as you did your job, they really didn't care.
Frank Langfitt
What kind of booze, what were people drinking?
Rick Madrid
Whiskey, gin.
Frank Langfitt
That's Rick Madrid. He began working at the plant in 1955. He mounted tires on Chevy trucks.
Rick Madrid
When I was mounting tires, we'd drink. You know, I'd bring a thermos of screwdrivers with me. But I never was into drugs.
Frank Langfitt
Sex?
Rick Madrid
Love it.
Frank Langfitt
Did you ever have sex at the plant?
Rick Madrid
Yeah.
Frank Langfitt
Frequently?
Rick Madrid
I wasn't that fortunate.
Peter Ross
There was a guy in there, he would be selling the pot.
Frank Langfitt
Peter Ross repaired machinery on the assembly line at GM.
Peter Ross
I'd be walking through the plant with my tools and my radio. You see a big cloud of smoke, you don't want to inhale it, you'd get a contact high.
Frank Langfitt
If you're wondering how people kept their jobs, well, back then the UAW was still quite powerful. Under the union contract, it was almost impossible to fire anybody, and if management ticked off the union, workers could just shut the plant down in minutes.
With that sort of leverage, absenteeism became absurd. On a normal day, one out of five workers just didn't show up. It was even worse on Mondays. Billy Haggerty worked in hood and fender assembly. He says so few workers showed up some mornings, management couldn't start the line.
Billy Haggerty
They brought a lot of people off the street to fill in when they didn't have enough people.
Frank Langfitt
Who would they find?
Billy Haggerty
Right across the street to the bar and grab people out of there and bring them in.
Frank Langfitt
Workers filed grievances-- formal complaints against management-- over all kinds of things. Someone who isn't your boss asks you to clean something up? Hit him with a grievance. A manager steps in to do a job that isn't his? Grievance. The strategy was simple. Pile up grievances real or imagined by the thousands, then use them to squeeze money or concessions out of management.
And Fremont workers struck back at their bosses in other ways. They'd intentionally screw up the vehicles. Put coke bottles or loose bolts inside the door panels so they'd rattle and annoy the customer. They'd scratch cars. Richard Aguilar inspected vehicles at the plant. He saw one guy do something even worse.
Richard Aguilar
He left some loose bolts on the front suspension. That was dangerous. I went and told the system manager right away. They went out there and they checked, and there was like 400 cars he had done that to. He was mad because they had suspended him for drinking.
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