Brain Fertilizer

For about a decade, there was this idea that US workers were too lazy or selfish to be able to make quality cars. That was the basis of the movie "Gung Ho": the idea that there was something essentially different between Americans and Japanese, and we couldn't do it their way. But the quality of cars being produced by Japanese makers in the US pretty much eradicates that prejudice. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the quality of American-made "import" cars was even higher than that of those made in Japan.

But if the factory worker isn't the key element, it seems clear that there is something special about the "Japanese Way". The book I've cited a few times, The End of Detroit* explains it in detail (I won't do that here), but also points out that the United Auto Workers union has been unable to unionize a single foreign-owned factory. The Japanese and German companies are able to provide their workers with a good wage, good benefits and good working conditions without the presence of a union; since unions greatly increase the operating costs of a corporation without increasing value, it seems an easy conclusion to reach that it is the UAW that is ruining the Big3 automotive industry.

*The author is sometimes too positive toward foreign car companies and often too negative toward the Big3, and her predictions of the dissolution of the American companies is overwrought and more than a touch ridiculous...but I can tell you that the problems of US car companies and the strengths of "import" car companies as she described in her book fully confirmed what I discovered in my research, my sub-conscious thoughts and priorities when I was looking and mulling which cars to check out, and my impressions when test-driving.