Governor Tours GM Plant to Promote ‘Team’ Method on the Job

Gov. George Deukmejian, promoting a Japanese-style “team” method of manufacturing, Wednesday toured a General Motors plant in Van Nuys where the state has spent $20 million to retrain auto workers.

After inspecting the factory, Deukmejian praised a crowd of about 400 employees for embracing the team style that he said would make industries in the United States more competitive with other nations.

“You have proved that business, labor and government can work together as a team to save jobs and to protect prosperity,” he told the workers attending a training session. “By showing a willingness to adapt in a changing industry and a changing economy, you have also proved that Californians are truly ready for the future.”

Deukmejian’s visit to Van Nuys marked one of the few times that the Republican governor has attempted to attract the support of labor union members, who usually give their political allegiance to the Democratic Party.

Not known as a rousing speaker, Deukmejian’s speech drew a standing ovation from the auto workers.

General Motors and the United Auto Workers credit the training program for keeping the Van Nuys plant open while others around the United States have been shut down. The factory, which produces Chevrolet Camaros and Pontiac Firebirds, is one of only two auto manufacturing plants still operating in California.

Through the training program jointly sponsored by the company and the union, the employees are learning to work together in small groups, rather than toiling individually on the assembly line with each worker responsible for a single task. The method, used with success in Japan, is designed to improve both productivity and quality.

The company and the union received $20 million last year from the state Employment Training Panel to pay for the training program.

“This isn’t money that’s designed to help a corporation as much as it’s money designed to help the working people of this state,” Deukmejian explained to reporters at the end of his visit. “And of course it has the full support of the labor unions that represent the workers.”

Deukmejian took one stand that was unpopular with the auto workers when he declared his opposition to higher import tariffs as a way of protecting American products.

Competing successfully with other nations, he said, “doesn’t mean imposing protectionist trade barriers which cause inflation, hamper productivity and which could cost many more American jobs than could ever be saved.”

That remark drew a few boos from the audience.

The governor’s tour was a carefully staged event designed to provide television footage of the governor inspecting the plant, chatting with workers, wearing a hat with the company’s logo and sitting in a newly made car.

At a brief press conference afterward, he tried not to answer reporters’ questions on subjects other than the day’s event, including his stand on legislation to locate two state prisons in Los Angeles County.

Nevertheless, as he toured the plant, he was confronted by an issue that he would rather have avoided.

Auto worker Anita Parreto put up a cardboard sign on the governor’s route past her work station that said, “Stop Cutbacks on Education Monies. . . .” It was an allusion to the governor’s opposition to demands from state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig and other education leaders that he increase financing for education.

“I wish they would put more emphasis again on stressing the importance of teamwork and getting the administrators, the teachers, the parents, the students working together and focusing on a commitment toward excellence in the educational program,” the governor told reporters later.