Have only been in one car plant, the GM Wentzville plant for a walk through before it opened, so I admittedly know nothing about what I'm talking about, however....
I was active in the St. Louis chapter of the American Society for Public Administration. At one of their monthly meetings they had some sort of industrial psychologist talking about making the workplace interesting. This was probably early eighties.
The audience was city administrators, other types of government, middle managers, a sprinkling of academics. Maybe twenty to thirty in the room.
The question was: "How many of you would work in an auto plant if the pay were 50% higher?"
Twenty hands stayed down, one went up.
That person said "You don't understand, I worked in the Chrysler Fenton plant for five years. I sat on a chair, writing my novel . Every four or five minutes an Omni or Horizon would roll down the line and I would wrench one part up. Then I would sit on my chair waiting for the next car that no one bought"
His memories weren't totally recent , so I think this would have been in the late seventies, early eighties. I know Fenton had two lines, one of which made minivans. I know build quality at Fenton was supposed to be lower than the Canadian vans. I didn't actually check whether the Omnirizon was on the other line. My memory is addled with old age, but this story of nothing to do at work certainly has stuck in place for close to four decades.
It was a long time ago, and maybe he wasn't telling the truth, but we all found this story disconcerting at the time. When you can impress people in gummint with the lack of work ethic, that's really saying something.