WINNERS AND^489
negatives left by generations of combat by the United Auto Workers.
On the other hand, some of the contrasts between Americans and
Japanese workers go back to child rearing. Union or no union,
people are different. Douglas Fraser, president of the UAW and a
reasonable man, when asked if American workers had to adopt
Japanese values and attitudes to compete, said he thought not, and
argued from temperament: "... the American worker has an
individuality and a willingness to dissent that does not respond to
dictatorial instruction."^30 "Dictatorial"? The word proclaims the gap.
Plenty of blame to go around. Much of the initial failure of the
American auto industry to hold its own against this bull of a
competitor was its own fault—of labor partiy, because of its
hormonal reluctance to change ways or give way; but of
management even more. The list of sins is long: (1) complacency
(we're the best, have always been the best); (2) want of empathy (did
they really expect the Japanese, with their often narrow roads and
left-side driving, to buy big cars with steering on the left?); (3)
residual, two-faced reliance on government support (we're all for
free enterprise, but how else counter official favors to the Japanese
auto industry?);* and (4) a short and selfish time horizon that led
American management to use respites from Japanese competition to
raise prices and dividends rather than invest and improve techniques.
But the Americans have been learning and are doing better. Here
and there, increasingly, car makers have adopted Japanese methods—
to much oohing and ahing and self-congratulation, as though they
had discovered America. Example: Ford's decision to stop the
assembly line at its Louisville truck assembly plant long enough to
allow workers to lower the body onto the chassis. Simple enough,
and it meant more accurate work and less damage: "You just line up
two pins and drop it." The idea came from workers on the line. In
the old days, management would have paid no heed. Now they were
listening.^31
So the American industry is poised today between old ways and
new. The big auto makers are relying more than before on parts
suppliers, within and without the enterprise, to do much of the
component assembly, in effect pushing the burden back à la
- Cf. the Chrysler bailout, where the government took stock as security. The stock ap
preciated enormously when Chrysler got back on track, at which point Chrysler tried
to argue that the government should not get the capital gain. One can well imagine
what Chrysler would have said had things gone the other way. Where fair play?
