Auto-plant design and worker orgranizing: was, well, lots of other things

[Brad De Long]

>Friends,
>
>I do not think tht workersin the Mexico Ford plant are skilled at all.
>Work in
>an auto plant requires very little skill with very few exceptions.  that's why
>Ford could move in the first place.  High productivity (from the technology)
>and low wages from the huge pool of surplus labor.
>
>Michael Yates

Work in an auto plant requires a high tolerance for noise, a high tolerance
for boredom, a substantial amount of manual dexterity, and substantial
familiarity with how to handle machine technologies.

Assembly-line jobs are not easy jobs.

Hermosillo is interesting because it is unusual: were it usual, the auto
industry would have moved to Mexico and the rest of Latin America a
generation ago.

Brad DeLong