The end of an era. After 50 years Chrysler closes Fenton assembly plant. Was low productivity as well as slow sales the reason? The trucks once produced there will now be assembled in Mexico.
I used to manage a restaurant in Eureka, Missouri right near the Six Flags amusement park. One of the chief discussions with my employees at the time centered on the Chrysler Assembly plant which was just a couple of miles up the road. A lot of them worked there part-time as well as in the restaurant and some of them worked in construction, another business that has suffered from the hard economic times lately.
One discussion was about them making 20+ dollars an hour putting a door on a minivan while I was getting substantially less working 60 hours a week running a million-dollar a year restaurant. It didn't seem quite fair to me. Of course, these auto workers had gotten their pay and benefits through years of contract negotiations between Chrysler and the United Auto Workers union. It hearkened back to the day when a blue collar worker could get a decent job working in a factory and be set for life. Sadly, it looks like those days have come to an end.
Several of the employees had also told me that there was widespread drug use at the plant and that was one of the reasons that productivity was so low.
According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Chrysler is ending production at the plant. Workers rolled the last truck off of the assembly line this week after a half century of production. A handful of workers will remain behind to gather up the remaining parts and ship them to Mexico where production will continue.
I think that production may have continued at the plant if the union had been willing to compromise on pay and benefits, but I realize it must be extremely hard to give those up after fighting so hard to get them. One thing is for certain though, manufacturing in the United states has got to change if we are to compete world-wide and maintain our standard of living.
