The migration to the South of automobile assembly plants and the manufacturing jobs they bring with them receive generally positive news coverage. These jobs pay more than most other blue-collar work in Southern states, so there is a lot to appreciate about this trend.
If there are questions about the industry, they often revolve around the multi-million-dollar gifts that automakers receive from states like Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina as an incentive to set up shop.
This week’s edition of Bloomberg Businessweek indicates that another question needs to be asked: Just how dangerous is some of this work?
The magazine cover features a 35ish man without a right forearm. Titled, “The New Detroit,” the cover adds, “The South’s manufacturing renaissance comes with a heavy price.”
Southern states and especially their auto parts manufacturers are sure to dispute some of the issues raised in the story. Unfortunately, safety statistics indicate there’s a good reason that Bloomberg filed a bunch of public-record requests with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The story quotes a former OSHA director as saying that safety at the auto assembly plants — the Nissans, Toyotas and such — is generally good. But there are far more workplace injuries at auto parts manufacturing plants in the South.
At its worst, in 2010, workers at parts plants in Alabama had a 50 percent higher rate of illness and injury than the national average. That spread has come down a lot, but in 2015 the risk of traumatic injury in an Alabama parts plant was still 9 percent than those in Michigan and 8 percent higher than those in Ohio.
Even worse, in 2015 the chance of losing a finger or a limb in an Alabama parts plant was double the national average.
The former OSHA director blames unreasonable production quotas at parts plants. This results in longer shifts and workers who are tired more often, creating a greater risk of injury.
The parts plants, some owned by foreign companies but others owned by Americans, reportedly face large fines from automakers if they don’t meet their production quota. Thus the incentive to push workers to the brink.
Bloomberg included a number of stories about gruesome injuries, some of which occurred due to a lack of employee training. One young girl was crushed to death while trying to repair a robotic dashboard assembly device.
Fortunately for Mississippi, Bloomberg focused on workplace violations at parts plants in Alabama. But it’s foolish to think that there’s no risk of similar problems in Mississippi auto parts plants. The story should at least prompt state officials to double-check safety records of parts plants in this state.
Without saying it directly, the story establishes the idea that parts plants in the South are more dangerous workplaces because they lack a labor union. If parts plants in the region don’t shape up on their own, eventually their workers will seek ways to force them to do it.
