Monkeybubbles wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 12:26 pm
It's more a cultural thing, in my experience. Another massive generalisation coming up......
Piotr will take pride in his workmanship and his workplace, will endeavour to beat his output targets, will work a bit longer than his shift dictates if required, will suggest ways to improve the processes, will hardly ever take a day out sick.
Pete will give it a go until something better comes along.
The Thatcher years saw a lot of our manufacturing dismantled, the Blair years saw what was left of it become a pariah. Working in a factory is still seen as some kind of life failure, and young(ish) British people are just not motivated to do it, in general. Honestly, it's not JUST about wages.
I'm going to counter your "no true Scotsman" argument with my own experience of factory work in the 1990s.
When the building trade went pear-shaped I worked in two factories. One, a cigarette factory in Edmonton, the other a car mat manufacturing factory in Tottenham. The cigarette factory offered a slightly higher wage than most factory work at the time, a four day working week (ten hour days with Fridays off) and never ever had problems recruiting. They offered favourable working conditions compared to most, took a genuine interest in their employees and got back from that, a workforce that was dedicated and produced quality products (if you can call ciggies quality products). I quite enjoyed working there until it closed in 1992 due to being bought out.
The other factory I worked in again, offered slightly more competitive wages than other factory work at the time and produced quality products. It's workforce consisted of many who'd been at the place for 20 years plus. They offered a bonus scheme for output which again meant production kept up with demand (which was huge as they were the main car mat manufacturer for almost all of the major car manufacturers). It was shift work and the actual work was quite hard depending on whether you were pressing the mats (extremely hot and smelly), the mill which cut the blocks of rubber into manageable sizes (heavy and dirty, not to mention physical) and the packing department which again was quite heavy and physical. I can honestly say, there was never any of your examples of people just waiting until something better came along as this was the stop-gap for "something better". They were dedicated, hard-working, took pride in their work, were appreciated by management and rewarded accordingly. I left after three and a half years as I wanted to work in IT but had never once thought this is **** and I can do better so I'll just hang it out see what else turns up.
I do get tired of the same old tropes that are trotted out about the British worker, from the highly inaccurate "they were too lazy in the 50s to do certain jobs so they employed West Indians and Irish to do them" "they didn't want to do jobs they thought were beneath their standards" to the "British workers are feckless, don't take pride in their work and looking for a skive at every opportunity". It's inaccurate, insulting and usually from people who accuse others of being bigots. I know you've added the caveat that it's a generalisation but again, sweeping statements like that do your argument no favours. If it were true, how the hell did this country have a manufacturing industry at all if everyone was just giving it a go until something better came along and all we needed to do was employ cheap Eastern European labour and our problems would all be over?
Believe me, British manufacturing did not decline because the British worker was waiting for something better to come along.