Welcome to tramp's America, Tramp and republicans want to bust unions.
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Meanwhile the reality of the work life takes hold and initial hopes turn to frustration and anger. Work is dangerous and monotonous, with a skyrocketing rate of illness and injuries. Jill, a forklift operator, testifies at a UAW union meeting that a coworker was fired after being in the hospital for week but didn’t call in: “That could have been me.” Shawnea Rosser, an African-America woman and former GM worker, laments the much lower pay she is making at Fuyao, about half the hourly wage she made at GM. But most workers appear to be happy to be working, despite the deteriorating conditions in the plant because of a production push by Fuyao.
The American plant is lagging behind the company’s main production facility in China. Fuyao flies a small number of Americans from the plant supervisory staff to China to get a firsthand look at the work culture there. It is here that we get an introduction to
“capitalism with Chinese characteristics.” Fuyao’s Chinese workforce make a fraction of the US hourly wage, work twelve hours a day, have few days off, and are subject to suffocating conformity enforced by their “union” and a Communist Party cell in the factory, which in both cases are led by Cao DeWang’s brother-in-law.
However, soon after returning to the United States, DeWang sacks the top management staff and puts in his right-hand man from China. Meanwhile the UAW had succeeded in getting enough support to call for an NLRB supervised election; though their strategy to win, if there was a strategy, is not at all explored in the film. One is left to think that a combination of the region’s strong union tradition, exposing the factory’s low pay and dangerous conditions, and support from a handful of pro-labor politicians would be enough to win. Not addressed at all is the UAW’s disastrous organizing record in the auto industry. Three months prior to the Fuyao vote, for example, the UAW lost a crucial election at Nissan in Mississippi,
a crushing blow to its future.
American Factory Stops Short of Class Conflict