Manufacturing wages and the front-line worker

People tend to perceive manufacturing as this place where automation does everything and a few people walk around with clipboards managing all the automaton. Although you may find that in some business software ads in Forbes or BusinessWeek, you really don’t find it too often in manufacturing.

The reality is that we still need people to move parts from A to B, assemble parts C and D, or pack parts E and F into a box. And such front-line workers often don’t stick around. According to a survey supplement published in this month’s FABRICATOR, most shops experience the greatest turnover with front-line workers.

Then there’s the issue of pay. Every year the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, International, publishes its "Salary/Wage & Benefit Survey." These surveys usually show high average pay for technical positions and lower pay for the less technical ones. That’s not a surprise.

Thing is, taken in total, manufacturing still needs a fair number of semiskilled or unskilled people. And many rely on temporary workers, so the business can easily scale up and down to match fluctuating production demands.

A recent report from UC Berkeley shows the effect this has on average wages. According to the study, a third of U.S. manufacturing workers qualify for public assistance.

Every time I read about the wage issue, I think of my neighbor growing up in suburban Philadelphia. Everyone called him Uncle Walt, and he worked the night shift at a paper products factory. He operated the machine that made French fry containers for McDonald’s. Being a kid, and a true McDonald’s connoisseur, I thought he had the coolest job in the world. He also made more than the typical McDonald’s employee.

My dad was a history professor at the local college. We lived across the street from Uncle Walt, a front-line manufacturing worker who raised three kids on his salary. Next door to Walt lived a computer programmer, and next to him lived a teacher. It was a quintessential middle class neighborhood, a melting pot of different professions and personalities.

Today, I doubt all those people would live in the same neighborhood.

I don’t think we can go back there again, of course. A few years after Walt retired, the factory closed, and production was moved to Mexico. Globalization is what it is, and it’s here to stay.

In an ideal world, manufacturers wouldn’t have to deal with the churn and burn at the bottom. People would be hired, receive training, and climb the ranks to a technical position offering a living wage, either at their current employer or elsewhere.

Alas, life’s challenges get in the way. An entry-level welder may not make as much as he would like, but if he learned more processes, more welding positions, became certified, his pay likely would climb. But his current employer may not offer those opportunities, and he has personal commitments that tie him to a specific place. So he can’t move to where companies are begging for welding talent.

I have to think that knowledge is at the heart of the solution. The more a worker learns, the more he earns, and the more opportunities he has. Those opportunities may be there, or they may fall flat. But one thing is for sure: Unless people learn something new, nothing will change.