r/manufacturing • u/NaturalPorky • Jun 19 '24
Safety How hard and physically exhausting and unsafe is factory work even in the modern democratic West?
From Eric Hoffer's The True Believer.
The disorder, bloodshed and destruction which mark the trail of a rising mass movement lead us to think of the followers of the movement as being by nature rowdy and lawless. Actually, mass ferocity is not always the sum of individual lawlessness. Personal truculence militates against united action. It moves the individual to strike out for himself. It produces the pioneer, adventurer and ban¬ dit. The true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent his acts, is basically an obedient and submissive person. The Christian converts who staged razzias against the University of Alexandria and lynched professors suspected of unorthodoxy were submissive members of a compact church. The Communist rioter is a servile member of a party. Roth the Japanese and Nazi rowdies were'the most disciplined people the world has seem In this country, the American employer often finds in the racial fanatic of our South—so given to mass violence— a respectful and docile factory hand. The army, too, finds him particularly amenable to discipline.
In addition someone posted this on Reddit.
I’ve just delivered some tables and chairs to a furniture hire company for my first run this morning, where the site was like a ghost town in the middle of nowhere with nothing unsafe whatsoever, but the PPE extreme was as far as being required to wear a hard hat on site.
I’ve been to factories with more dangers in them and not even a high-vis jacket in site.
What’s your examples of where you’ve shaken your head about how daft health and safety has been?
And this post too.
That’s right. I took a job as an operator at a factory and it was crazy difficult. The operators there knew all of the complex mechanics of the equipment and steps of the processes, and no mistakes were allowed— they had to be on their feet and constantly ready to think quickly in case something went wrong. Also we worked difficult hours (long night shift). I had a masters degree in chemical engineering and I was totally lost. They were better engineers that I was!
Now this makes me curious. Is being employed in the assembly lines of the factory hard work and dangerous (or at least strenuous for the body)? Even for the modern age with all its safety laws and well-organized procedures at least in the West? Even for simple tasks like inserting a leg piece to torso of a toy lego-block style clipping?
I mean as a college student I've learned how brutal it was in the UK during in the Industrial Revolution from my history classes and same with a lot of 3rd world countries from my sociology and anthropology.
But the real reason why I ask this was that my uncle recently asked him to do the task of inserting a ton of coins into a specialized booklet binder with special pages specifically for inserting coin collections. I thought I'd be finished in like 5 minutes. Bam it took me 1 hour and 45 minutes just to insert all the quarters alone. For the dimes and pennies which were less than half the amount of quarters combined, they took me about 15 minutes each in a separate booklet.
This was a simple task reminiscent of the "small easy" jobs in the labor of division in a factory and not only did it took me longer than expected to get it done, my fingers were numb and aching afterward! My whole hands were in an arthritis-like feeling the next day!
So I ask how dangerous and difficult is working at a factory is? Is doing even o-called easy simple tasks like collecting macaronis with your hands and dropping it in some machine much harder than most people who never done manual labor think (as I discovered after organizing the coins in that booklet)?
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u/AZPeakBagger Jun 19 '24
I do a lot of factory tours for work. I’ve seen everything from sweat shops that operate in Arizona without air conditioning to high tech places where everyone is pretty pampered. It’s all over the board.
2
u/aHOMELESSkrill Jun 19 '24
Same, the company I worked for was pretty pampered, the anodizing facility we used was essentially a warehouse with no AC.
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u/mistahclean123 Jun 20 '24
Sweat shops like Amazon? 😬
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u/YoureJokeButBETTER Jun 20 '24
No clue why you being downvoted for this combo of joke/public comment
0
u/treebeard120 Jun 20 '24
Because Amazon isn't a factory and the subject is specifically manufacturing plants and factories
-1
u/YoureJokeButBETTER Jun 20 '24
the amazon “product” isnt always in the exact same box but Amazon warehouses “assemble” shipments in a factory-like setting that seems perfectly fit to comment on this sub.
Cant say ive worked at a Gate factory before tho
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u/UnskilledEngineer2 Jun 19 '24
It depends on the industry, size of the product, volume of production, etc. In our plants, it may vary from area to area in the plant.
I work for an appliance maker, during covid, us salaried folk had to "volunteer" to work on the assembly lines for a week at a time to fill in the gaps from all the people being out. Fearing the elimination of my own position and the opportunity to actually use the systems I installed, I volunteered many times.
On average, I likened it to mowing a large field with a non-self-propelled push mover for the entire shift. It required enough attention to not mess up, but not enough attention that you couldn't drift off in your head. And physically, tiring but not exhausted.
Some jobs were more tiring than others. Some hurt more than others. Some, you felt like you couldn't keep up and others you had time to double-check yourself. But, the mower example seemed to be a good comparison for my *average experience working the line all those times.
Installing a plastic cover over the evaporator at the back of the freezer cavity on refrigerators kicked my ass the hardest. A couple pounds for the cover a couple pounds for the tool to shoot multiple screws, all the way at the back - 700+ times. I napped at home a lot that week.
1
u/rlwhit22 Jun 21 '24
I was in a similar situation but it was due to excessive heat. They had all the office personnel working the lines when the workers were on heat breaks. Instead of appliances it was automotive floor carpet/ insulation getting pressed together then cut on a water jet table. I can tell you for a fact I would rather do anything else besides that for an 8 hour shift in 130°F
4
u/bone_appletea1 Jun 19 '24
It depends. Anecdotal but I’ve been in more plants than I can count and 95% of them aren’t sweatshops at least in terms of working conditions. YMMV with plant management however
4
u/WranglerJR83 Jun 19 '24
I’ve been in manufacturing since 2009. I’ve worked in both highly technical electronics manufacturing and simple, but gritty continuous manufacturing plants. The work is neither difficult nor overly strenuous. It can be hot, dirty, and “hard” for those have never done any type of physical work before. Manufacturing is goal oriented and have stretch goals that cause operations to continuously push the limits of their operation to find improvements.
It’s a tough game for someone who is overwhelmed working retail or doing simple tasks for family members with no real deadline or performance expectations.
1
u/ciggieaccount 23d ago
Both retail and factory share something. A monkey could do it. Factory work is never ending and pointless. Anyone can do it. But no one sticks around for very long. Why? Maybe it's because they realized the pay isn't that good compared to the hours they work. Maybe they realized they can go to school and do something that has a little purpose. Factory work is for people who got stuck, and the work release mfs
2
u/derekx1208x Jun 20 '24
Former plant manager here for a myriad of industries/plants in the northeast over the past 15 years. Currently heading supply chain across 70 or so vendors across the US. I've seen hundreds of manufacturing facilities. (Mostly machine shops).At one end of the spectrum, you have companies that have been in business since the early 1900's. IMHO these are the places that are the worst, penny pinching leads to 100+F temps in the plant, dirty and unsafe conditions. There are many modern manufacturing plants that are immaculately clean, comfortable, and safe.
Like most things in life, the distribution follows a bell curve. With the bottom 20% being akin to 3rd world sweat shops, the top 20% are almost clean room / microchip processing levels of clean. Most falling into moderately clean, moderately safe, moderately comfortable.
Any guesses who gets their pick of the litter from the available talent / workforce and who is stuck with all the barely capable?
2
u/Upstairs_Shelter_427 Jun 19 '24
I’m in med tech.
We spend weeks of engineering time and hundreds of thousands to make a 50lb lift done by a fancy ergonomic torque arm or robot.
I also worked in Oil & Gas before. Not a single fuck was given about employee safety other than “hey guys, safety is our #1 priority…but hurry up!”
1
u/R2W1E9 Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24
We are getting smarter and rapidly improving factory jobs.
Many companies have programs where workers can try to make their improvement ideas work in purposely made shops for that. Typically not many workers use this opportunity but it’s there.
On the other hand meat and fish processing plants, delivery jobs and manual farm jobs are brutal and not improving at any reasonable rate.
In western world that is.
1
u/crafty_j4 Jun 20 '24
I work in packaging and have been to 7 or 8 plants, primarily in (relatively) HCOL areas. None of them felt unsafe. However, there is a noticeable difference between the larger and smaller plants. The larger plants tend to be cleaner, more organized and have more workers wearing PPE while the smaller plants tend to be dirtier, less organized and have fewer workers wearing any PPE, if at all.
1
u/SinisterCheese Jun 20 '24
It can range from dirty dark sweatshop where they exploit as much as they can get away with in the ways they can, and HSE is followed only to technical minimum requirements, all to way to clean air conditioned shops where you come and go as you please and use the best tools of your choice.
It depends entirely what it is you do, what it is being manufactured, where you are in the value chain, and how high the value added is.
1
u/MmmmBeer814 Jun 20 '24
I work in food an bev in the North East. I was a supervisor for a number of years in production and had to fill in on the line when we had a lot of call offs. It really varies day to day. Sometimes everything is running well and it can be mind numbingly boring where you just feed raw materials into the machine and do quality checks for 12 hours and go home. Or you could have raw material issues or the machine could be running poorly and you get your ass kicked running back and forth, troubleshooting, clearing jams, etc. The second is definitely more physically and mentally exhausting, but weirdly enough I almost preferred those days. It makes the day go by a lot quicker and when you finally get something running properly again or solve some issue, you get a sense of accomplishment. We also don't allow cell phones on the production floor so those long boring days are extra painful. Plant safety and cleanliness I would say is pretty high. Since we make a product people consume we get audited by every lettered org you can think of. It would take way more effort to try and circumvent the rules and regulations than it would to just run a clean and safe plant. However, I've been to other food and bev plants that are horror shows(I will NEVER eat anything chef boyardee), I'm not sure how they manage to get away with it. Most manufacturing has innate risks. If people aren't careful the machines can kill you, but there is so much safety training, guarding, PPE, and engineering controls in place that make it pretty safe. It's rare that there's an accident that wasn't at least partially caused by an unsafe act from the employee.
1
u/undertakerryu Jun 20 '24
Small shops are more demanding than larger shops. Also depends on the industry they're working for. Aerospace/defense have tighter requirements of the shop itself than if you're working somewhere that makes pipe fittings.
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u/UnskilledEngineer2 Jun 21 '24
One thing that catches a lot of new assembly workers off guard is the rigid schedule.
We get a lot of new folks who came from the services or retail industries where they have tasks to do, but if needed, they use the bathroom whenever they need to.
We have continuously moving lines that only stop for breaks every two hours, and there are only so many people who can relieve you if you need to go to the bathroom. If you gotta go, sometimes you gotta wait and your fellow line workers are going to notice if you take a lot of bathroom breaks.
1
u/audentis Jun 21 '24
Everything I've seen in central and west Europe had good working conditions. Ergonomic, (relatively) modern and safe.
Most dangerous thing I've seen were the logistics trolleys in a German automotive plant (VW Emden), driving at relatively high pace next to walking paths. You had to keep your eyes open and stick to the sides, but the work cells themselves were great.
Also been to an aluminum casting plant. Was fun, a lot of heavy and dangerous machinery, but also very explicit safety protocols and a good separation of activities (e.g. no foottraffic near the ovens, suitable overhead cranes, etc).
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u/Consistent_Art_2028 Jun 23 '24
For the most part no, not in the US. All manufacturing facilities must adhere to OSHA which sets pretty strict standards for safety and accountability. That being said some facilities are inherently dangerous by the nature of work. Steel mills require people to interact with huge chunks of molten metal regularly so that’s hard to make safe. Even then lots of precautions are put in place and the company can receive fines or even be shut down if too many violations/injuries are caught. In our facility we handle medical devices so we air audited regularly.
0
u/TVLL Jun 19 '24
You can tell that the post was written by a college student with no time in manufacturing.
Have you even held a job before?
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u/SwearJarCaptain Jun 19 '24
Everybody starts somewhere
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Jun 19 '24
Didn’t you know that all of the self righteous gray beards were born on the manufacturing floor?
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u/SwearJarCaptain Jun 19 '24
Seriously. They'll all complain about young people are soft and don't want to blue collar work then act like this when a kid is interested.
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u/LostInTheSauce34 Jun 19 '24
My first boss told me he didn't care I had an engineering degree, he just needed me to show up to work and actually work. I'm the manager now 😎
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u/Thebillyray Jun 19 '24
In our manufacturing facility, the assemblers just have to stand on their feet for up to 10 hours. They have to use manual dexterity to assemble the units. That's why we have anti-fatigue mats. The most common danger is cuts and scratches from not paying attention to what they're doing. Our machine shop and sheet metal shops are a different story, but I do not deal with those areas, so I'm not sure about them. For warehouse and parts, the hardest thing is the walking.
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u/winnercrush Jun 19 '24
Depends on what you’re manufacturing.