GM Installs Robots At Flagship EV Factory After Laying Off 1,300 Workers
13 197An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Dozens of new robot arms have been installed at General Motors' flagship electric vehicle factory in Detroit -- even as 1,300 workers remain out of work following what was supposed to be a temporary layoff. The latest automation push has spurred union pushback over a potentially existential issue for automakers and their workers. General Motors installed approximately 50 robot arms at GM's Factory Zero plant in Detroit, Michigan, according to reporting by Crain's Detroit Business. Made by the Japanese robotics company FANUC, the robots are designed to help attach various components to vehicles during the assembly line process. But leaders at United Auto Workers (UAW), the primary US union for autoworkers, reacted with anger to the new robotic presence, given how GM has not yet called back any of the workers affected by supposedly temporary layoffs in March.
More than 1,000 union members are still "laid off indefinitely," James Cotton, president of UAW Local 22, told The Detroit News. He said that the company could bring some of those members back to work instead of installing the 50 robots. The temporary layoffs were preceded by permanent layoffs involving another 1,200 workers at GM's Factory Zero in October 2025. Many automakers, including Stellantis NV and Ford Motor Company, have deployed assembly-line robots, such as Fanuc robot arms, as they push to automate more of their US operations. Hyundai Motor Company plans to deploy Atlas humanoid robots made by Boston Dynamics -- which Hyundai acquired in 2020 -- to start working in the automaker's flagship EV facility in Georgia by 2028. "Technological development has the capability of making work safer for the working class and enabling workers to have a shorter work week without losing pay," said Andrew Bergman, a Local 22 member and union organizer who was among those laid off by GM. "But in the bosses' and billionaires' hands it's used to pad profits and lay off workers."
13 comments
70% of middle class jobs lost since 1980 (Score: 5, Informative)
by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday June 22, 2026 @11:45PM (#66205142)
Got taken by robots and automation, not outsourcing. Automation and process improvement have been devouring jobs and destroying the middle class for 40 years. We just don't like the talk about it. People will bray at you like a donkey yelling luddite if you bring it up.
Re:70% of middle class jobs lost since 1980 (Score: 5, Interesting)
by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @09:22AM (#66205552)
Some might say that anything done that can be done by a robot *should* be done by a robot. They are tools, after all. Should we ban wrenches next? The jobs being lost should *not* exist into the next century.
In truth, I struggle with this type of thinking. If we lived in a just society that too care of the folks who are either transitioning to new prospects, or are simply falling through the cracks due to being in a late career state when they are let go due to automation, it'd be easy to accept that some jobs should disappear when they can be automated away. The problem is, we don't live in that society. These people will be vilified as they slowly watch whatever they've managed to save through their life dwindle. Some will end up homeless. And then they will be further vilified by people claiming that all homeless people are simply too lazy to get a job. No acknowledgement of individual circumstances outside of lazy, drunk, drug addict will ever be accepted by society at large, because that's an image that someone with media control has been pushing for decades now.
As automation continues to sweep away entire job sectors, and more and more of us face those circumstances, it gets harder and harder to justify seeing automation as a friend to humanity. A friend to the corporate owner class, sure. But do we really have to wait until so many people are out of work that no one can afford to buy the products being built by automation? We've set our society up to where the only people that can effect change are the people that are at the top of the financial heap. And they won't be impacted by profit loss until there is nearly no one left to purchase products. And by that point, I'd imagine the vilification of the poor will be so outrageous that it won't be completely outside the realm of possibility that the government is simply convinced that if you aren't contributing to the profits of the owners, you are worthless and therefore expendable. I mean, that mentality already seems to reign in big portions of our world.
Or, maybe, just maybe, we could start thinking about how we're going to take care of people as work slowly becomes the purview of the robots and computers.
Re:70% of middle class jobs lost since 1980 (Score: 5, Informative)
by beep999 ( 229889 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @01:52PM (#66206186)
Minimum Basic Income is the only way.
I now conservatives will squirm at the very thought of giving a living wage to someone who doesn't work for it. But that's where we are headed when more and more of us will be unable to find reasonable employment due to robots destroying the blue collar and AI destroying the white collar jobs.
If you don't work you don't eat (Score: 5, Informative)
by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @09:33AM (#66205576)
You need to come up with an answer to that and you need to do it fast. Nobody likes having "their" money taken from them and given to somebody else. We just had a thread about a California billionaire tax and half the comments were people convinced that if we tax billionaires a few percentage points than the next step is to take their fucking houses... That's not an exaggeration.
We are not socially equipped to deal with a work shortage. It doesn't matter how many times you speak reasonably nobody wants to hear it. The average American reads at the level of a 12-year-old and that implies that they think at the level of a 12 year old. Which is why black and white phrases like, if you don't work you don't eat, are so popular.
I am open to suggestions but I want to be clear that explaining to people is not a solution. Like Ronald Reagan said when you're explaining you're losing
Re:70% of middle class jobs lost since 1980 (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Anonymous Coward ( None ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @12:05AM (#66205148)
Some might argue that anything that *can* be done by an automated system *should* be done by one. At their core, robots and software are just tools. Should we ban wrenches next?
If we outlawed basic tools to force companies to hire 50 people to do the work of one, weâ(TM)d certainly create jobs, but a new car would cost a million dollars, and our standard of living would crater.
The reality is that anyone paying attention 20 or 30 years ago knew these highly repetitive, manual roles weren't surviving into the next century. Automating grueling, repetitive labor isn't a tragedy; it's industrial evolution. The goal shouldn't be to freeze the economy in 1980 just to preserve obsolete roles, but to adapt our skills for what comes next.
Re:70% of middle class jobs lost since 1980 (Score: 5, Insightful)
by dunkelfalke ( 91624 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @01:33AM (#66205184)
What comes next is the realisation that the majority of the labour force is not needed, but the whole society is completely unprepared for this.
Re:The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @12:23AM (#66205150)
The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs.
It's intended to made widgets that can then be sold at a profit.
It's not a social welfare program.
The way things are headed, the only way people are going to be able to obtain money to pay for those widgets is via social welfare programs.
Re:The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs (Score: 5, Interesting)
by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @12:46AM (#66205156)
That's OK but the only reason many people buy American cars and trucks is to support American jobs.
When it's all robots might as well get a Tundra rather than a 1500. Or maybe BYD will come in with something soon.
We'll see how that goes.
Re:The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs (Score: 5, Informative)
by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @01:01AM (#66205162)
That's OK but the only reason many people buy American cars and trucks is to support American jobs.
Those people are morons. Plenty of "foreign" (Toyota, Honda) vehicles are made is factories in the Midwest and southern U.S. where Americans are put to work, while many models of "domestic" brands (Ford, Chevy) are actually made in Mexico and imported to the U.S. (Thanks, NAFTA!) The idea an "American brand" is putting Americans to work and foreign brands do not is a falsehood the U.S. automakers are happy to encourage to help their businesses.
Re:The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Jeremi ( 14640 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @12:48AM (#66205158)
The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs.
It's intended to made widgets that can then be sold at a profit.
It's not a social welfare program.
Those three statements are policy choices, not objective facts. Capitalists like to present them as inevitable, but of course they are not; they are only presented as such because it's in capitalists' interest for people to see them that way.
Re:The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs (Score: 5, Insightful)
by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @07:20AM (#66205372)
So what's your suggested alternative?
GM keep 1300 workers and bonuses for the suits decrease by 0.1%?
Re:The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Fons_de_spons ( 1311177 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @03:23AM (#66205248)
The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs.
It's intended to made widgets that can then be sold at a profit.
It absolutely makes sense to replace workers with robots from the perspective of a single company. If you broaden the perspective, you end up in existential questions. What is the purpose of life. What is the purpose of 7 000 000 000 people? What do we do with "obsolete" people, people who do not contribute to the economy.
That is when the hard questions emerge. Too easy to hide behind a single company then. "Let the government figure it out! Not my concern!". If you do not engage there, it will become your concern whether you want it or not, long term. Lets fantasize a bit. Let's make it extreme. AI takes over, robots do 95% of the work. That includes maintaining robots. It could go two ways I guess. We all live a life long vacation, or it polarizes in haves and have nots. With the way things are set up now, it will go in the haves have nots direction. That is brutal. That is a total disrespect for human life. We better start thinking of a social welfare program or it is going to be very ugly.
We have been here before. Basically when steam engines and machinery improved our living standards. In my country, that is when socialism emerged in the government. After a lot of bloodshed. Let's try to avoid the bloodshed this time. Let's, for once, let reason rule, not hormones.
Re:The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs (Score: 5, Insightful)
by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @03:29AM (#66205250)
The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs.
It's intended to made widgets that can then be sold at a profit.
It's not a social welfare program.
Only kinda. Let me remind you there is no natural right to limited liability companies. They exist purely (in principle) for the benefit of society.