I think the dregs of the British motorcycle were not the workers as much as management. The management teams were all Peter Principle graduates. They didn't have a clue as to what they were supposed to be manufacturing, they only looked at the financials. They couldn't seem to understand that to build a proper product, you need proper tooling. The poor guy on the floor was probably doing the best he could with the junk he had to work with, particularly when he had just taken over a job from a guy who'd been using the same machine for 50 years and knew how to shim, block, jury rig and manipulate it to build a good part. HTe new guy didn't know all this stuff was going on and tried to make the same old machine with no "inside" knowledge of what it took to build a good part. Here again, management isn't supplying the tools to build a good part, and hadn't in 30 years! I'm sure that the Indians were using plenty of the original tooling from England when the iron barrel production ceased! Management is what makes companies fail, not the poor grunt whose job it is to make a decent product! Bad workers, even in a union, can be disposed of. Managemant just has to work a bit harder at it.
Bare