GM Let the Line Keep Running at Its Worst Plant Until It Had to Close It

GM's Fremont, California assembly plant ran from 1962 with a management style built around one rule: keep the line moving. Supervisors and workers barely spoke to each other, defects were tagged for rework further down the line instead of stopping production, and the plant developed a reputation, in the UAW's own words, as one of the worst workforces in the American auto industry.

By the early 1980s the adversarial relationship had curdled into open dysfunction. Workers described bringing thermoses of vodka and orange juice onto the floor, smoking on the job, and getting back at supervisors by hiding Coke bottles inside door panels so the finished car would rattle for its owner. Absenteeism ran high enough that some mornings the line couldn't start on schedule.

Management's response to sinking quality and discipline was more discipline, which produced more grievances and wildcat stoppages rather than better cars. Rather than fix the underlying decision to run the line at all costs and firefight quality afterward, GM let the standoff continue for years before closing the plant outright in 1982 and laying off thousands of workers.