‘Uncle Ernie’ Ends Difficult Job at GM Van Nuys Plant

When General Motors’ 3,800 employees report to work today at the company’s Van Nuys assembly plant, the red-haired, freckle-faced plant manager they nicknamed Uncle Ernie will no longer be in the driver’s seat.

Ernest D. Schaefer is moving up to GM headquarters in Detroit, ending a particularly tough and highly publicized 3 1/2-year term as plant manager. He is being replaced by Robert Stramy, former manager of a GM manufacturing plant in Saltillo, Mexico, the Ramos Arizpe Complex.

Schaefer, 43, was sent to Van Nuys in November, 1984, after GM said it was considering closing the plant, which produces Chevrolet Camaros and Pontiac Firebirds. “The mood in the plant was one of concern,” Schaefer said recently in an interview. “People were very concerned about the longevity of the plant. Five other plants in California had been shut down. They were the last ones here.”

GM said it would close 11 plants around the country and the Van Nuys facility was on top of many analysts’ guess lists. It was 2,000 miles away from its Midwestern suppliers, which added hundreds of dollars in shipping fees to the production cost of each car. And 75% of the cars were being transported back to buyers east of the Rockies anyway.

Making matters worse, the company complained about the quality of the cars coming out of the Van Nuys facility. “The odds were against Van Nuys,” Schaefer said.

When he arrived in Van Nuys, he walked the plant floor. “I got a lot of questions: ‘Did they send you out there to shut this plant down?’ I said, ‘I’m not out here to shut this plant down. I’m out here to keep it open.’ ”

But after he had been there a year and a half, in July, 1986, about 1,800 workers went on indefinite layoff because the cars manufactured at the plant were not selling well. The employees did not return for 10 months.

“Actually seeing them walk out the door, that’s always a difficult time,” Schaefer said. “I would look and see Sam, who has six kids, and wonder what is he going to do? When it gets down to the final act, you’re looking at people.”

Schaefer’s genuine concern about workers fit right into GM’s plans for a new Japanese-style manufacturing method that encouraged worker-management cooperation, something Schaefer had always embodied.

Before coming to Van Nuys, he was plant manager at a Pontiac, Mich., plant that adopted the new manufacturing method, called Team Concept. The system eliminated many job classifications.

Employees under Team Concept work in groups on entire sections of a car instead of performing a single repetitive task. When a worker spots a defect, he or she has the power to stop the assembly line to fix it, thereby shutting down production. At most assembly plants, cars with flaws are allowed to proceed to the end of the line and are then repaired elsewhere in the plant.

After the Pontiac, Mich., plant adopted Team Concept, the quality of the Pontiac Fieros made there improved, Schaefer said. GM said if workers at the Van Nuys plant accepted Team Concept, the facility could stay open. (Ironically, the plant in Pontiac is now to be closed because the Fiero will no longer be made, GM has announced.)

But many of the Van Nuys workers were not eager to change, and their leaders put up a fight. Their representative was Peter Beltran, local shop chairman for the United Auto Workers union.

Beltran campaigned vigorously to persuade union members to oppose Team Concept. But when they voted in favor of it--53% to 47%--Beltran tried to prevent installation of the method in May, 1987, by suing GM for alleged contract violations.

Beltran was unsuccessful in stopping Team Concept, but he continued a barrage of criticism. He called Team Concept’s classroom training “brainwashing” and, once the system was in place, he said: “It is a mess. There is no chain of command.”

Schaefer now admits that Beltran occasionally made him angry. “There were short spurts of anger,” he said. “We had many, many heated arguments about different issues.” Beltran has been unavailable for comment recently because of illness.

Beltran’s supporters continued to resist Team Concept. By September, rumors were floating along the assembly line that workers were stopping production--not to fix defects but to get back at GM. Schaefer sent out a letter, telling workers that the lower production was costing the company customers.

“Our inability to build our daily schedule is causing a serious problem with our dealers and customers,” Schaefer wrote. “We have not met our daily schedule and have built almost 1,200 fewer cars than requested by our customers. Many of these customers are not waiting for us to build their cars, but are going elsewhere to buy a competitive product.”

Most of the problems are now behind the plant, Schaefer said recently. Defects are down sharply and a majority of workers have adjusted to the new system. “Van Nuys and the workers there will certainly be leaders in Team Concept,” he said. “They’re going to be a trend-setter for General Motors and the auto industry.”

Schaefer has been named director of manufacturing engineering in Detroit, where he will oversee the design of manufacturing processes for the Chevrolet-Pontiac-GM of Canada Group of plants, which includes Van Nuys.

What set Schaefer apart from previous managers, workers say, was his genuine interest in the people who worked on the plant floor. “He was very personable,” Rita Mary Bermudez, an assembly worker, said. “He always said ‘Hi’ to everybody, and he walked through the plant whenever he was there. Other plant managers didn’t do that. Uncle Ernie was all over the place.”

Bruce Lee, the regional director of the UAW who worked closely with Schaefer trying to reach compromises on Team Concept, said, “He’s a people person.”

Schaefer was born outside Peoria, Ill., and said he was mechanically inclined at an early age. He spent part of his childhood inside his father’s shop, which sold lawn mowers and implements to area farmers.

He attended the General Motors Institute in Flint, Mich., received a bachelor’s degree in in mechanical engineering and went right to work for a GM subsidiary in Dayton, Ohio. He designed brake parts and holds several patents on the brake systems used in the Camaros and Firebirds made at Van Nuys.

During his tenure in Van Nuys, whenever the plant got a good quality rating--a kind of corporate report card--Schaefer would make a speech and then throw a party, complete with mariachi. “I guess this (Schaefer’s departure) means we don’t get any more hot dogs,” joked Nick Lara, an assembly worker.