Success of Honda Experiment Mixed : Japanese-Style Workers in Ohio Plant
Unemployment lines bulged with veteran auto workers when Honda began building cars in America. But the company hired baby sitters, store clerks and farm hands to assemble Accords in rural Ohio.
“I don’t know of anyone here who ever built a car before,” said Tim Garrett, a spokesman for Honda of America Manufacturing Inc., a subsidiary of Japan’s Honda Motor Co. Ltd.
Brent Miles, 25, was a jobless railroad-signal installer when he signed up.
Russell Yocom, 21, was pumping gas for $3.35 an hour when he was hired two years ago. “Most of us were recruited right out of high school,” he said.
Susie Comer, a 31-year-old mother of three, had worked in a doctor’s office and a machine shop.
The first Honda Accord rolled off Marysville’s line in 1982. Honda now is building 150,000 a year, and has eclipsed American Motors Corp. as America’s No.4 auto maker.
The car has been so popular that the average dealer has “absolutely zero” on hand, says the trade weekly Automotive News. Honda contends its workers and their methods are one reason for the success.
The company has tried to mold them to its Japanese style. Parts are inspected by workers before the car is assembled. Management and labor dress alike, in white overalls; they take breaks at the same time and share dining rooms and parking lots.
Unlike Big Three car factories, there are no job classes. Workers maintain their own machines and trade asssignments. All are referred to as “associates,” not workers.
“The theory is: What is a human being capable of doing?” Garrett said. “It’s that kind of situation.”
It’s the kind of situation that has confounded organizing attempts by the United Auto Workers.
Weeding-Out Process
“You go through four screenings before they’ll hire you, and they pretty well weed out anybody they don’t want in those plants,” said Joe Tomasi, the director of United Auto Workers Region 2B.
The only other major, non-union car assembly operation in the United States also is Japanese-owned--Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.’s plant in Smyrna, Tenn., where pickup trucks are made and car production begins this spring.
Honda is the bigger embarrassment for the UAW. Marysville is only 150 miles from Detroit and Honda has been in Ohio for more than five years, at first making motorcycles.
Union organizers claim they are gaining, but they say they want backing from at least half the plant’s 2,075 car makers and 425 motorcycle builders before demanding an election. Only 30% support is needed to call one.
Last month, the UAW signed a contract with Honda covering more than 30 workers in the shipping yard and is negotiating on a contract covering three workers in the boiler plant.
The union also is trying to sign up 200 employees next door at Bellemar Parts Industries Inc., 80% owned by Honda.
The UAW has stepped up pressure with radio ads, a billboard near the plant and a campaign to have workers swap their green-and-white company work caps for dark blue UAW hats, permitted since a UAW court victory against Honda in 1981. Many have made the switch.
Excellent Shape
“On day shift, we’re in excellent shape in both buildings,” veteran UAW organizer Hugh Smith said. “But the night shift, that’s the big holdup.” Most new workers are hired for the night shift.
Distances make it difficult to organize anything here, from unions to high school sports teams. The plant, which draws workers from a dozen counties, is seven miles from Marysville and is surrounded by farms.
The clip-clop of horses pulling black Amish buggies resounds on back roads near the plant. The skyline is church steeples, grain silos--and Honda.
“We’re dealing with people who have been baling hay for $2 an hour. They don’t understand us,” said Bill Woodward, 30, who wears a UAW cap and attends weekly union meetings. “These guys are young, real young. I’m an old man for Honda.”
Many workers in blue hats want more money and have concluded that the Japanese-style workplace democracy is a sham.
The morning calisthenics, so widely publicized a few years ago, are poorly attended now. Unionists claim a recent affirmative worker vote on overtime four days a week was railroaded through because of pressure for more cars from American Honda Motor Co. Inc., the Gardena, Calif.,-based sales and marketing subsidiary.
“They’re no different than any non-union plant in the United States. None,” said Randy Neighbarger, 36, who works in the welding shop.
Line Speed Raised
“I’m harassed constantly,” said Ralph Stidham, 46, who claims to be the most active union man at Honda.
Other workers say that to keep up with demand, the line speed has been raised far above the original goal of 300 cars a shift.
“Today, it was 322,” said polisher Don Preston, 26. “Some guys cry, they’re so tired at the end of the day.”
Garrett said the speedup was made possible by the transfer of 100 workers from motorcycles to cars. “We’ve never laid anybody off,” he said.
Miles said they’re against the UAW effort. “They (Honda) handle our problems well enough without a union.”
