UAW boss Ron Gettelfinger, in an op-ed piece for the Detroit News, recently made claims that union workers are faster than non-union workers. While we certainly can’t speak to that fact (nor would we make such a grand generalization about workers), it’s pretty clear to us that the following piece of information is completely, 100%, incorrect. Laughably so:

according to 2008 Harbour data, it takes UAW members in Kansas City just over 19 hours to assemble a Ford F-series pick-up. It takes more than 32 hours to assemble the Toyota Tundra, a similar vehicle, at a non-union plant in Princeton, Indiana

Gettelfinger used this little piece of fiction to help demonstrate a point that’s very important to the UAW – the union has given enough in terms of wage and benefit cuts. They don’t think they should have to give anymore.

Fair enough. Far be it for TundraHeadquarters.com to argue with Ron Gettelfinger about the sacrifices of the UAW.

However, when it comes to the “fact” that the F150 can be assembled in K.C. in about half the time a Tundra can be built in Princeton, Indiana, we have some facts of our own:

1 ) If we assume this statement to be true (disregarding all the other information below), the only logical conclusions are that either a) Toyota workers in Indiana are inefficient and lazy OR b) The Tundra is about 68% more complicated than the F150. Since it’s pretty fair to assume the workers aren’t lazy, and since Toyota leads the world in manufacturing efficiency, Gettelfinger’s statement would seem to indicate the F150 is a lot “simpler” than the Tundra. Of course, his statement isn’t true. Still, it sounds like good fun to call the F150 “simple”…

2 ) The 2008 Harbour Report concluded that, overall, Toyota and Honda still lead all manufacturers in terms of productivity by a narrow margin. Even if the data that Gettelfinger cited were accurate, it would seem that UAW plants and non-UAW plants are about equally productive.

3 ) The 2008 Harbour Report is based on data from 2007. The new Tundra was launched in 2007 – of course the hours per vehicle stats at Princeton are going to be out of wack. A lot of worker time was spent learning the new assembly process.

4 ) The Harbour Report doesn’t account for supplier pre-assembly. If half the parts installed on the F150 come pre-assembled from the supplier, the F150’s assembly time is going to be lower. Since the Harbour report doesn’t account for this fact, it’s difficult to make a legitimate comparison plant to plant.

5 ) Finally, according to the same Harbour Research study that Gettelfinger mentioned, Ford’s Cuautitlan, Mexico truck plant rates at 29.77 worker hours per vehicle. How is it possible that an F150 made in Mexico takes 52% longer to build than a F150 made in Kansas City? The vehicles are exactly the same, aren’t they?

The Harbour report shows that F-series built in Mexico take almost 10 hours longer to build than F-series built in Kansas City. Since the F150’s made in Mexico are the same as the F150’s made in Kansas City, something must be left out of this data.

The 2008 Harbour report, based on 2007 data, shows that the Tundra plant in Indiana is the least productive of all non-premium truck plants. Of course, 2007 was the year of the new Tundra launch, so it’s certainly not a fair comparison to the 2007 F150 that was in it’s third year of production. Not to mention the fact that the F150 takes almost twice as long to build in Mexico, a red-flag in terms of the accuracy of the supplied data…

To UAW chief Ron Gettelfinger: Sharing this type of inflated and misleading “fact” is a big part of the reason no one trusts you, the major auto manufacturers, or congress. If you really want to help your members, how about being honest and open with the U.S. public?

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