OT/kinda early

Kinda early in the day for two posts to have disapeared already. I asked a couple of legitimate question that I'd have liked to have seen the answers to darn it.

I posted about 8, just got back on, working for my wife today. Didn't see your posts.

You said something about 30% of the workers in the auto plants working there for 90 days or less back in the 70s. I said that one of my best friends had gone to work at Oldsmobile in Lansing back then,and that they had to work 90 days to get in the union and keep their jobs. Most of them that got hired,worked for 87-88 days and got layed off,himself included.
Just wondered if you knew why that was,looking back at it.
The other general question that I had asked everybody was,what ever happened to anti trust laws that kept companies from getting "too big to fail"? The feds wouldn't let White Motors buy Cummins back in the day because they would have had too big of a share of the market. There was something else that White tried to do that was denied because they owned 30% of Allis Chalmers,but I don't recall off hand what that deal was.

I was getting a laugh out of the 'Thank you' thread. I don't know why it went south so fast??
Most of the check-out clerks I deal with do a good job and seem gracious and pleasant. I do get tired of 'paper or plastic' query. I told the last one who asked me, "It doesn't matter, I go both ways." ...probably won't say that one again...

My dad worked at GM back in the 50"s - early 70"s and yes you had to work 90 days before you would offically be in the union. That was your probationary period and written into the contract with the UAW. No union dues were taken out of your pay check during that time period. This gave the employer a chance to evaluate you before you were on the payroll for good.

I think the thing about workers was more workers qutting. They used to pay retention bonuses @30,60 & 90 days. A lot of folks got hired, and the work was really hard, noisy and dirty. We had guys go to lunch the 1st day and not come back. The new guys, having no seniorty, got the worst jobs. If you had family or friends that worked there, they would advise you to stick it out, it would get better. This was before a lot of the OSHA and ergonomic stuff came out. Also before robots. I saw guys spotwelding car bodies at Chrysler, wrestling a huge spotwelder around, it was suspended from the ceiling. Terrible job, had all kinds of protective gear on, even in very hot weather. Then we replaced that with a Unimate robot that did a much better job, faster. Automation eliminated a lot of jobs. A engine block line that I worked on in the early 80's had 105 production workers to make 1600 blocks / day. In the oughts, that production level was done by 16 guys. Thats why hiring basically stopped in the 80's. When I started at GM in 79, the machining lines looked like something out of an old movie, a worker every 5 feet. The last line I worked on, the parts were unloaded from a pallet by robot, machined, inspected, and sent to the assembly line without ever being touched by a worker. Basically, every year we had fewer employees, but the same production level.

As far as the too big to fail, deregulation starting in the 80's changed everything.

(quoted from post at 09:37:47 02/12/11) I was getting a laugh out of the 'Thank you' thread. I don't know why it went south so fast??
Most of the check-out clerks I deal with do a good job and seem gracious and pleasant. I do get tired of 'paper or plastic' query. I told the last one who asked me, "It doesn't matter, I go both ways." ...probably won't say that one again...

Click to expand...

You'd have to be real careful, or really want a "date"

I just remember Dale being all excited,thinking he was gonna get to stay because a bunch of them who were hired when he was got sent home after 87 days or so,but then he got his walking papers on the 89th day. He really wanted to stay.

It wasn't so much "too big to fail" as it was controlling too much of the market. That was a concern when the major manufacturers were in the US. These days they compete globally, so big companies still only have a relatively small market share.

Sometimes it is just a matter of numbers. They didn't need that many that day. Some of these complexes were so big, they could be laying off in one area, and hiring in another.

Some of the big brokerages and what not were "too big to fail" though. Seems to me they should never have been allowed to merge and buy others out and become that big.

Heres how I solved that paper or plastic thing. I just say "Yeah."