GM plant shows that you can teach old miners new tricks
Silesia is beginning to boom as much as the rest of the country, with the help of targeted tax breaks for investors and with the help of progressive leadership in the voivodship based in Katowice but also in key cities such as Gliwice.
And it appears that miners do have portable skills. And they're starting to use them today in jobs far afield from the mines, including in auto plants.
When General Motors chose Gliwice for its greenfield manufacturing site in May 1996, it indicated it would take applications from everyone, including miners. It set up hiring halls in technical universities and sent recruiters to the mines. When the plant was dedicated Oct. 29, its startup work force of 1,200 included about 20% from the mining industry.
One was Marek Pilch, 28, who had worked underground in a mine for five years. He was a fourth-generation miner. His grandfather died in a mining accident in 1958 and said "my father always urged me to look for another job." He read about the GM jobs but was unsure whether to risk applying. His wife encouraged him, but he changed shifts so that none of his mining colleagues would know he had applied during the arduous six months when he took one test after another before landing an assembly-line job. Competition was tough: more than 20 applicants for every position. "Many miners didn't even try because they were afraid of the tests," Pilch said.
Another new hire from the mines is Adam Grala, who used to have 200 underground miners reporting to him and today is a shift leader responsible for body-shop production. He and all the other auto plant workers went through Outward Bound team-building programs to orient themselves toward the mutual-dependence, problem-solving pattern of today's carmakers. This is far from the hierarchical structures of old industries, let alone of mines.
Today, applications from mine-industry workers are skyrocketing. It wasn't that way at first. "I think people had been hanging back," said GM Poland chief Scott Mackie. But when the Solidarity government, with a prime minister and several cabinet ministers from Gliwice, moved forward on the long-delayed mine restructuring plan, "it jump-started the process."
And what about the stereotype that miners can't be retrained? "That's crap," said Mackie. "I don't think anyone knows."
The GM recruits don't come equipped with experience in "lean manufacturing" techniques but they'll learn that on the job. But he says the educational system is "very good" and "they're coming in with very strong basics."
• • •
The change in Silesia began well before foreign investors entered the picture. Gliwice mayors, for instance, refused to exempt two steelworks and a coke processing plant from new environmental laws, although they could have. These plants were largely responsibly for dangerously polluted air.
The coke plant was closed, the steelworks found investors to help out with a retrofit with modern technology and closed polluting furnaces.
Mayor Zygmunt Frankiewicz and his predecessor, Andrzej Galaszewski who now is deputy voivod, were key proponents of GM's opting to locate in Gliwice, along with the tax breaks and the significant pool of engineers and scientists at the Silesian Technical University.
The $320 million General Motors plant has helped escalate the changes. And its dedication was a major occasion, for the 1,200 workers as well as 800 VIPs including GM President John Smith Jr. and President Aleksander Kwasniewski.
With a second model slated to be added to the Gliwice plant within two years, recruiting and training continues apace. The work force will nearly triple within three years. And Mackie noted that for every factory job, another five are created in the outside economy.
That's about 15,000 jobs tied indirectly to GM. But up to 100,000 miners may lose their jobs and the steel layoffs are still to come.
• • •
Got any T-shirts or children's clothes you can spare? Australian immigration officer Kate Pope has teamed up with Guatemalan Embassy First Secretary Georges de la Roche for an emergency relief effort to send clothing and dry-foods to Guatemala and neighboring countries left devastated by Hurricane Mitch.
The Guatemalan embassy is arranging for a plane to fly the donations to Central America, probably starting at the end of this week. Call de la Roche at 617-2721 or Pope at 617-6978 or 617-6081, ext. 229 for pick-up or drop-off directions.
And it appears that miners do have portable skills. And they're starting to use them today in jobs far afield from the mines, including in auto plants.
When General Motors chose Gliwice for its greenfield manufacturing site in May 1996, it indicated it would take applications from everyone, including miners. It set up hiring halls in technical universities and sent recruiters to the mines. When the plant was dedicated Oct. 29, its startup work force of 1,200 included about 20% from the mining industry.
One was Marek Pilch, 28, who had worked underground in a mine for five years. He was a fourth-generation miner. His grandfather died in a mining accident in 1958 and said "my father always urged me to look for another job." He read about the GM jobs but was unsure whether to risk applying. His wife encouraged him, but he changed shifts so that none of his mining colleagues would know he had applied during the arduous six months when he took one test after another before landing an assembly-line job. Competition was tough: more than 20 applicants for every position. "Many miners didn't even try because they were afraid of the tests," Pilch said.
Another new hire from the mines is Adam Grala, who used to have 200 underground miners reporting to him and today is a shift leader responsible for body-shop production. He and all the other auto plant workers went through Outward Bound team-building programs to orient themselves toward the mutual-dependence, problem-solving pattern of today's carmakers. This is far from the hierarchical structures of old industries, let alone of mines.
Today, applications from mine-industry workers are skyrocketing. It wasn't that way at first. "I think people had been hanging back," said GM Poland chief Scott Mackie. But when the Solidarity government, with a prime minister and several cabinet ministers from Gliwice, moved forward on the long-delayed mine restructuring plan, "it jump-started the process."
And what about the stereotype that miners can't be retrained? "That's crap," said Mackie. "I don't think anyone knows."
The GM recruits don't come equipped with experience in "lean manufacturing" techniques but they'll learn that on the job. But he says the educational system is "very good" and "they're coming in with very strong basics."
• • •
The change in Silesia began well before foreign investors entered the picture. Gliwice mayors, for instance, refused to exempt two steelworks and a coke processing plant from new environmental laws, although they could have. These plants were largely responsibly for dangerously polluted air.
The coke plant was closed, the steelworks found investors to help out with a retrofit with modern technology and closed polluting furnaces.
Mayor Zygmunt Frankiewicz and his predecessor, Andrzej Galaszewski who now is deputy voivod, were key proponents of GM's opting to locate in Gliwice, along with the tax breaks and the significant pool of engineers and scientists at the Silesian Technical University.
The $320 million General Motors plant has helped escalate the changes. And its dedication was a major occasion, for the 1,200 workers as well as 800 VIPs including GM President John Smith Jr. and President Aleksander Kwasniewski.
With a second model slated to be added to the Gliwice plant within two years, recruiting and training continues apace. The work force will nearly triple within three years. And Mackie noted that for every factory job, another five are created in the outside economy.
That's about 15,000 jobs tied indirectly to GM. But up to 100,000 miners may lose their jobs and the steel layoffs are still to come.
• • •
Got any T-shirts or children's clothes you can spare? Australian immigration officer Kate Pope has teamed up with Guatemalan Embassy First Secretary Georges de la Roche for an emergency relief effort to send clothing and dry-foods to Guatemala and neighboring countries left devastated by Hurricane Mitch.
The Guatemalan embassy is arranging for a plane to fly the donations to Central America, probably starting at the end of this week. Call de la Roche at 617-2721 or Pope at 617-6978 or 617-6081, ext. 229 for pick-up or drop-off directions.
