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UAW
I grew up in a GM/UAW town. We were always told that during the cold war our factories made us #12 on the USSR's hit list. It was said that there were plans to convert to munitions in a 48 hour time frame if needed. We toured the huge GM factories in high school as part of our education - like "here is where you will end up". Most of the parents in our town worked for GM or provided services for those employees. All of the negative things that are stereotypes are based upon facts. Employees just milked the clock, worked to barely meet a quota, smoked and ate themselves sick, made good money (counting on OT) and expected a nice retirement with health care paid for. There was never any focus on product, pride, or a mission statement.
The factories are now huge lots of grass which conceals soil so polluted that it will take decades to remediate.
I believe that, for many years post WWII, our country made the best assembly line produced cars you could find. I think that would be hard to dispute. How we get back to anything close to that status is anyone's guess, but I think that it comes down to Americans getting a sense of pride in their work back and committing to taking care of themselves. Boy that is political huh?
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