Detroit's Symbol of Dysfunction: Paying Employees Not to Work
Cost Tops $1.4 Billion a Year
As Layoffs Fill 'Jobs Bank';
A Dismal Facility in Flint
FLINT, Mich. -- In his 34 years working for General Motors Corp., one of Jerry Mellon's toughest assignments came this January. He spent a week in what workers call the "rubber room."
The room is a windowless old storage shed for engine parts. It is filled with long tables, Mr. Mellon says, and has space for about 400 employees. They must arrive at 6 a.m. each day and stay until 2:30 p.m., with 45 minutes off for lunch. A supervisor roams the aisles, signing people out when they want to use the bathroom.
Their job: to do nothing.
This is the "Jobs Bank," a two-decade-old program under which nearly 15,000 auto workers continue to get paid after their companies stop needing them. To earn wages and benefits that often top $100,000 a year, the workers must perform some company-approved activity. Many do volunteer jobs or go back to school. The rest must clock time in the rubber room or something like it.
It is called the rubber room, Mr. Mellon says, because "a few days in there makes you go crazy."
The Jobs Bank at GM and other U.S. auto companies including Ford Motor Co. is likely to cost around $1.4 billion to $2 billion this year. The programs, which are up for renewal next year when union contracts expire, have become a symbol of why Detroit struggles even as Japanese auto makers with big U.S. operations prosper.
While GM often blames "legacy costs" such as retiree health care and pensions for its troubles, its Job Bank shows that the company has inflicted some wounds on itself. Documents show that GM itself helped originate the Jobs Bank idea in 1984 and agreed to expand it in 1990, seeing it as a stopgap until times got better and workers could go back to the factories.
"The bank was designed for a different time, a time when we were growing," says Pete Pestillo, a former Ford executive who oversaw union talks. The Jobs Bank has failed to stop the outflow of jobs at Detroit's unionized auto makers. Since 1990, GM's union payroll including former subsidiary Delphi Corp. has fallen to about 137,000 from 358,000. Many have retired, died or found other jobs. The rest are in the Jobs Bank.
Mr. Mellon, a 55-year-old father of two, was born in Flint. He joined GM in 1972, following his grandfather and his father, a plant foreman who spent 37 years at GM. Through the 1980s and 1990s, Mr. Mellon held jobs designing electronic systems for vehicle prototypes. In 2000, GM merged two engineering divisions, and he wasn't needed anymore.
Since then, except for a period in 2001 when he worked on a military-truck project, GM has paid him his full salary for not working. That is currently $31 an hour, or about $64,500 a year, plus health care and other benefits.
About 7,500 GM workers are now in the Jobs Bank, more than double the figure a year ago. The bank added 2,100 workers last month when the company closed a truck-assembly plant in Oklahoma City. Each person costs GM around $100,000 to $130,000 in wages and benefits, according to internal union and company figures, meaning GM's total cost this year is likely to be around $750 million to $900 million.
One way employees in the Jobs Bank can fulfill their requirements is to attend eight- or 12-week classes offered by GM. In these classes, Mr. Mellon has studied crossword puzzles, watched Civil War movies and learned about "manmade marvels like the Brooklyn Bridge," he says. One class taught him how to play Trivial Pursuit.
More recently, he attended an institute in Flint called the Royal Flush Academy. It is designed for those seeking work in casinos -- the Detroit area has several -- and teaches students to deal blackjack and poker. Mr. Mellon says he isn't interested in casino work and left the academy after they docked his pay because he was 10 minutes late coming back from lunch.
With that he arrived at the rubber room. It is on the site of the famous Flint Sitdown Strike of 1936, a 44-day walkout that helped get the United Auto Workers union recognized at GM. The rubber room and neighboring buildings that house a technology center are off-limits to outsiders.
Every day for a week Mr. Mellon got up at about 4:30 a.m. to make the 45-minute commute to the rubber room from his home in Otisville, Mich. At first he read the newspaper or magazines lying around, such as Reader's Digest. He talked some with acquaintances. After conversation dried up, he says he spent hours staring at the wall, hoping time would move faster.
One day he asked a supervisor if he could bring in a cot. The supervisor said no, so he pushed together four padded chairs and slept across them for several hours. He had stayed up late the night before, anticipating this nap.
The waiting "makes you want to bang your head against the wall," Mr. Mellon says. "I couldn't take it. I need to be doing something. And there is a supervisor who walks around staring at everyone. It's worse than high-school detention."
Mr. Mellon thinks a "line-worker mentality" keeps people going back to the rubber room. "A lot of guys sit in that room and just collect their paycheck because they don't know what else to do," he says. "They've spent 20 years tightening a nut as it came down the line. They are faced with this harsh reality, and they are just happy the paycheck still comes so they can put their kid through college."
A Way to Escape
Mr. Mellon soon found a way to escape the room, through volunteering. That is what many of his fellow workers do. Dean Braid, 50, worked at GM as an engine and transmission tester for 21 years. Today, GM pays him $30 an hour as he helps a high-school friend, Doug Kahn, who is confined to a wheelchair. Mr. Braid is installing ramps in his friend's family farmhouse and has repaired the engine of the 1984 Ford van Mr. Kahn uses.
"Dean being here has been like a little miracle for me," says Mr. Kahn, who was injured 38 years ago in a swimming accident and now lives by himself. "It has made my life better. Just having him come by forces me to get up and get out of bed."
GM employees constitute slightly more than half of the 14,700 auto workers in the Jobs Bank. In second place with 3,600 Jobs Bank workers is auto-parts maker Delphi, which filed for bankruptcy-court protection last October. The Chrysler unit of DaimlerChrysler AG has 2,500 and Ford 1,100. Executives expect the total to rise to more than 17,000 next year, as the Detroit companies prepare to shed more than 60,000 jobs.
Mr. Pestillo, the former Ford executive, and others see the Jobs Bank as a corrosive influence with significant indirect costs because it encourages auto makers to build more vehicles than consumers want. Companies figure it is better to build cars with little or no profit margin than to pay people not to work, he says. They also may keep rote work in-house even though it would be cheaper to outsource.
The system gives older union workers little incentive to move to other plants, find jobs at other companies or retire. There is no limit on how long a worker can stay in the Jobs Bank. They don't have to look for work at their company. Contracts allow workers to turn down any job offer at a site farther than 50 miles from their home plant.
The Jobs Bank has its origins in the tough times Detroit faced in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A spike in oil prices, a harsh recession and the first major assault from fuel-efficient Japanese cars hammered the Big Three and cost tens of thousands of union jobs. The UAW agreed to its first concessionary contracts in 1982 with the Big Three, which then made three out of every four vehicles sold in America.
Battling the new competition, GM developed a plan to spend $24 billion improving factory automation and copying Japan's efficient production methods. "Our workers were frightened -- scared, of course, of robots," says former UAW President Douglas Fraser, who retired from the union in 1982 and continues to teach labor history.
That was the backdrop when the UAW contract at GM came up for renewal in 1984. Papers in the Walter Reuther Library at Detroit's Wayne State University, an archive of labor materials named for the famed UAW leader, document what happened next. At about 4 p.m. on Aug. 8, 1984, GM put forward a one-paragraph memo proposing the creation of an "employee-development bank." The idea was to help train or find jobs for senior UAW employees who would "otherwise be permanently laid off" because of better technology or higher productivity.
Once the idea was on the table, GM agreed to expand it as the UAW ratcheted up pressure for a deal. A strike at a few locals was gradually spreading to engulf more than half the company. GM's first proposals, noted in documents from early September 1984, described a three-year program for employees with 10 years of experience costing no more than $500 million in total. The union sent back a demand that the program cover workers with six years on the job, run for six years and cost as much as $1 billion. GM agreed, and later said even one-year workers could join.
Reaching a Deal
The two sides reached a deal to end the strike on Sept. 21, 1984. The UAW told its workers their jobs were "more secure than ever in history." The UAW view, which continues to this day, was that the Jobs Bank would force GM and other auto makers to find work for union members because no company would keep paying people not to work.
Ford made a similar deal shortly afterward. A former Ford executive in labor relations, John Slosar, recalls: "We just focused on matching each other back then, not 'Hey, this will disadvantage us to the Asian auto makers.' "
Letters between GM Vice President Alfred S. Warren and the union show GM was confident it could afford the Jobs Bank and fight off its Japanese rivals because it had new versions of the Pontiac Grand Am and Buick Riviera in the works as well as plans to introduce the Saturn line of cars.
Most of these products fell short of their targets, however, while the Jobs Bank got bigger and more expensive. When the six-year pact expired in 1990, GM and other auto makers expanded it to include not only those workers affected by technology improvements but also those affected by slow sales. GM boosted funding to $1.7 billion for three years.
Workers whose plants shut down don't immediately go into the Jobs Bank. They first receive unemployment benefits supplemented by the company. When the cumulative length of shutdowns during a contract reaches 48 weeks, they switch to the bank.
The car companies sometimes recommend volunteer projects for people in the bank to work on, although workers are welcome to submit their own projects for company approval. Workers at the Jobs Bank site in Lansing, Mich., the state capital, spent last summer fixing up a county park.
Others in the Jobs Bank go to school. Electronic technician Tom Adams is working toward a doctorate in history at Michigan State University and is writing a dissertation of more than 300 pages. He has been in the bank since 2001, except for an 18-month stint working on a truck project. His dissertation topic: GM, the UAW and the city of Flint.
Mr. Adams's grandfather, Frank Adamec, came from what is now the Czech Republic around 1910 and took a plant-floor job at Flint Wagon Works, which later became Chevrolet. Mr. Adams's father spent 37 years as a die maker at Chevrolet in Flint. Mr. Adams started at Buick in Flint in 1976 working on transmissions for the Buick LeSabre. He later moved up to an electronic technician's job and started work on an engineering degree in the 1990s so he could become a salaried engineer. He dropped that idea after seeing salaried colleagues laid off.
Mr. Adams, a short, intense man who says he has run 37 marathons, has also raised money for a food bank he runs during his Jobs Bank time. Once he was assigned to set up cable television at the Flint rubber room so "the workers there could watch cartoons."
He says the Jobs Bank "has been wonderful for me. It's doing what it is supposed to do, which is make it so I won't be a burden on society." But based on his studies, he has a low opinion of GM: "They took the Toyota concept of lifetime employment and applied it to the GM culture and what they did was create a bureaucracy. That's what GM does."
These who can't find an outside activity -- or don't want to -- end up in rubber rooms and the like. Despite the cable TV, these rooms are usually less than luxurious. Ford buys uncomfortable chairs for its facilities. One GM official says the company has turned down the air conditioning in the summer at bank sites. Outside of Michigan, major sites include Baltimore; Indianapolis; Lockport, N.Y.; and Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.
In their 2003 national contract, GM and the UAW agreed that "unproductive assignments are contrary" to their agreements about the Jobs Bank, but workers say that had little effect on the program.
Tom Gonzales, a Ford employee of 13 years, sat in an Edison, N.J., room for two months in late 2004 before Ford found him a job in Ohio. "It sort of felt like high-school detention. We sat in a big office with table and chairs and did nothing except maybe read," he recalls. The room was on the site of a closed-down truck plant. About 200 idled workers would read books or work on computers while five or six salaried supervisors enforced rules including a ban on card-playing.
Seeking Reductions
Detroit's Big Three auto makers are likely to seek reductions in the program when they renegotiate their contracts with the United Auto Workers next year. It may be difficult for the UAW to keep the Jobs Bank intact, not only because of the public-relations problem but also because it is hindering a settlement to get Delphi out of bankruptcy-court protection. The parts maker has said in court filings that it wants to reduce its hourly work force 30%, or about 8,000 people. The union would like GM to hire these people but that may be difficult because the company already has a surplus of employees in the Jobs Bank.
GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said recently the Jobs Bank "obviously is an area of competitive disadvantage for us." Union officials realize the bank is tough to explain to the public but see an impact on communities if it is curtailed.
Art Luna is president of UAW Local 602 in Lansing, which sits next to a deserted GM plant. A sign in the parking lot of the local warns that "non North American vehicles will be towed at owner's expense." The local is a few blocks from a parking lot filled with rows of unsold Cadillacs. It has about 840 people in the Jobs Bank, with 600 doing community service or going to school.
"The bank may exist after 2007, but not like it is now, which is too bad for the communities. It does a lot for schools, agencies, the parks," says Mr. Luna, a third-generation GM employee. "Unfortunately, we do have people that just sit in the bank and read or do puzzles," he adds. "They feel like, 'Hey, they owe me this.' That's too bad. I'm not going to lie."
In Flint, Mr. Mellon also sees change on the horizon. "I understand the Jobs Bank needs to have an end to it," he says over a beer at lunch in Flint's Caboose Lounge. "I mean, they've paid me like $400,000 over six years to do nothing, to learn to deal blackjack. But buy me out. Retire me with something like $2,000 for every year I worked. I need that because you know they're going to keep cutting our health care and pensions. You are so vulnerable in retirement."
Mr. Mellon recently arranged to do community service work at Freedom Temple, a Baptist church in Flint. He is installing motion sensors at the homes of senior citizens in a bad part of town. There have been 14 murders in Flint already this year.
"Now I can go out and do good church work and still get paid. I couldn't twiddle my thumbs any more in the rubber room," Mr. Mellon says. "I want to do some work."
花钱买你不干活 无所事事也烦恼
在通用汽车(General Motors Corp.)工作的整整34个年头中，让杰瑞?梅隆(Jerry Mellon)最痛苦的就是今年1月份的活儿了。他在那间被工人们称为“橡皮屋”的地方呆了一个星期。
梅隆说，实际上那是一间没有窗户的旧仓库，原来是存放发动机零件的，现在摆满了长条桌，足以容纳大约400名工人。这些工人每天早上6点必须到场，一直呆到下午2点半，中间有45分钟的午饭时间。有一名监工沿著走道巡视，谁要想用洗手间必须得到监工的签字放行。
他们的工作就是：什么也不干。
这就是“Jobs Bank”，一项实行了20年之久的项目。一共有近15,000名汽车工人下岗后通过这种方式继续领薪。这些工人的工资福利加起来常常超过10万美元，为了拿到这笔钱，他们必须做些公司批准的活动。很多人做义工，或者回到学校读书，其他人则必须在“橡皮屋”里坐够一定时间，或者参与类似的活动。
梅隆说，之所以叫“橡皮屋”，是因为“在这里呆不了几天就会让人抓狂。”
通用和福特汽车(Ford Motor Co.)等美国汽车公司的“Jobs Bank”计划今年估计耗资14亿至20亿美元。工会合同明年到期时，双方会重新协商续签这项计划。这项计划也是日本汽车公司在美国攻城略地、而美国公司束手无策的重要原因之一。
通用汽车常常把自己的困境归咎于退休人员医疗费用和养老金等“历史遗留问题”，但Jobs Bank项目却表明它也搬了块石头砸了自己的脚。文件显示，是通用汽车自己在1984年首先倡议了这项计划，还在1990年同意扩大范围，认为这是在形势好转、工人重返工厂之前的一项权宜之计。
曾经在福特汽车任职，并负责工会谈判的皮特?佩斯蒂洛(Pete Pestillo)说，这项计划是在一个情况不同的时代设计出来的，当时大家都在发展壮大。Jobs Bank并没能阻止底特律汽车厂商中工会工人不断减少的步伐，1990年以来，通用汽车参加工会组织的工人数量（包括前子公司德尔福(Delphi Corp.)在内）已经从358,000人锐减至137,000人。许多人退休了，死了或者另找工作了，但其余的人都在Jobs Bank里。
55岁的梅隆生于密歇根州弗林特，1972年像祖父和父亲一样到通用汽车工作。他的父亲在通用汽车工作了37年，是一家工厂的工头。80年代和90年代，梅隆参与汽车原型产品电子系统的设计工作，但在2000年，通用汽车把两个工程部门合二为一，梅隆失业了。
此后，通用汽车一直在他无工可作的情况下给他支付全薪，只有2001年他为一个军方卡车项目短期工作期间除外。他目前的工资是每小时31美元，一年大约是64,500美元，外加医疗等福利。
通用汽车的Jobs Bank项目现在大约有7,500名工人，比一年前增加了一倍多。上个月，通用汽车关闭了俄克拉何马城一家卡车装配厂，就将2,100名工人转入了Jobs Bank。工会和公司的内部数据显示，通用汽车为每一名Jobs Bank的工人支付的工资和福利成本约为10万至13万美元，也就是说，通用汽车今年在这个项目上成本总额就会高达7.5亿至9亿美元。
纳入Jobs Bank的员工被要求完成的事情之一就是参加通用汽车安排的8-12周的培训。在这些课堂上，梅隆钻研了填字游戏、看了美国内战电影、还了解了“布鲁克林大桥这样的人造奇迹”。梅隆说，还有一节课教大家怎么玩《棋盘游戏》(Trivial Pursuit)。
最近，梅隆参加了弗林特Royal Flush Academy的一项课程，这是为那些想去赌场工作的人专门设计的，底特律地区有几家赌场。学员们在那学习什么是21点等知识。梅隆说自己并不喜欢赌场的工作，有一次午饭回来晚了10分钟就被扣工资，然后他就不去上课了。
他就这么走进了“橡皮屋”。这里就是著名的弗林特静坐罢工的原址，1936年那场长达44天的罢工终于让全美汽车工人联合会(United Auto Workers)得到了通用汽车的认可。这间橡皮屋和旁边一幢用作技术中心的大楼都不允许外人接近。
接下来的一周，梅隆每天早上4:30左右就要起床，从密歇根Otisville的家出发，在路上花费45分钟，到橡皮屋报到。刚开始，他看看屋里摆放的报纸和杂志，《读者文摘》(Reader's Digest)之类，偶尔和熟人聊聊天。等到无话可说的时候，梅隆说他会几小时几小时盯著墙看，盼著时间走得快一点儿。
有一天他问监工能不能自己带张帆布床来，监工说不行。没办法，他只好把四张软椅拼在一起，躺上去睡了几个钟头。头天晚上睡得太晚，他早就想打个盹了。
“无所事事的等待，让你恨不得去撞墙，”梅隆说，“简直受不了。我得做点什么。再说，还有个监工走来走去盯著大家，比高中的拘留室还痛苦。”
梅隆认为，让人回到橡皮屋的是一种“流水线工人的思维方式”。他说，“很多人坐进去只是为了领新水，因为他们不会干别的。20多年了，他们日复一日一个一个拧紧流水线上传过来的螺帽。他们已经习惯了这种严酷的现实，现在还能拿到薪水，供孩子读书，他们就已经很开心了。”
解脱之道
不久之后，梅隆发现去做义工可以不用再在这个房子里受罪了。有不少同伴就是这样做的。50岁的迪恩?布莱德(Dean Braid)在发动机和变速箱测试员的岗位上为通用效力了21年。现在，他成了高中时代的朋友、长年困在轮椅上的道格?卡恩(Doug Kahn)的义工，为此，通用汽车向他支付每小时30美元的费用。布莱德正在为卡恩的农舍铺设匝道，并为卡恩开的一辆1984年出品的福特汽车修好了发动机。
卡恩表示，布莱德的到来真给他帮了不少忙。他的生活比以前好多了。布莱德可以帮助他从床上坐起来，活动一下身体。卡恩在38年前的一次游泳事故中受伤致残，现在一个人生活。
目前加入Jobs Bank计划的汽车行业从业人员共有14,700人，其中，来自通用汽车的员工占到了一半以上，来自零部件制造商德尔福(Delphi)的员工有3,600人，排在第二。德尔福已于去年10月申请破产保护。戴姆勒克莱斯勒(DaimlerChrysler AG)旗下克莱斯勒子公司有2,500人，福特汽车有1,100人。业内人士预计，鉴于底特律三巨头计划进一步裁减超过60,000人，Jobs Bank的成员明年将扩大到17,000人以上。
福特汽车前管理人士佩斯蒂洛和其他人士认为，Jobs Bank有很大负作用，它不但会带来沉重的间接成本负担，而且还会造成业内产能过剩。因为汽车厂商认为，即使利润稀薄甚至没有利润，只要生产就比养著一批闲人好。他们还会因为有Job Banks而保留很多简单、机械的工作岗位，而不是把它们外包出去降低成本。
Jobs Bank还使上了年纪的工会成员不愿去公司的其他工厂工作，或者去其他公司另谋高或干脆退休。成员愿意在Jobs Bank里面待多久就可以待多久。他们不必在公司内部寻找再就业的机会。合同规定，如果公司提供的新工作机会在距原工厂50英里之外的地方，成员就可以拒绝接受。
Jobs Bank诞生于70年代末期和80年代初期，当时底特律三巨头正处于水深火热之中。油价大幅攀升、经济急剧衰退和日本节能型汽车首次大举登陆美国市场导致底特律三巨头遭受重创，并造成上万工会成员失去工作岗位。UAW和底特律三巨头于1982年签订了第一个妥协性质的协议。当时，美国市场上销售的汽车有75%来自这三大巨头。
为了适应新的竞争形势，通用汽车制定了斥资240亿美元的改革计划，以提高工厂自动化水平并效仿日本竞争对手的高效生产方式。UAW前主席道格拉斯?弗雷泽(Douglas Fraser)表示，机器人装配这种高科技生产方式显然把我们的工会员工吓得不轻。弗雷泽于1982年从UAW退休，后从事劳工史教学工作至今。
这就是UAW和通用汽车于1984年讨论新的劳资协议前的情形。底特律韦恩州立大学沃尔特?鲁瑟图书馆(Walter Reuther Library)收藏的档案记载了接下来发生的事情。1984年8月8日下午4点左右，通用汽车提出一个备忘录，提议创立一个“员工发展储备库”。此举是为了通过培训帮助UAW中上了年纪的员工找到新工作，否则，随著技术升级或生产率的提高，这些员工将永远失去再就业的机会。
这个想法提出后，迫于希望达成协议的UAW施加的压力，通用同意扩充提议的内容。通用汽车出现在1984年9月文件中的第一套方案提议对具有10年工作经验的员工提供为期3年的培训，总花销不超过5亿美元。但UAW希望能把对象扩大至具有6年以上工作经验的员工，期限延长至6年，总花销达到10亿美元。通用汽车最终同意了UAW的要求，而且后来还提出进公司只有1年的员工也可加入该计划。
达成交易
通用汽车和UAW最终达成协议，从而结束了1984年9月21日的罢工活动。UAW对其成员表示，他们的工作从未像现在这样有保障过。UAW直到今天仍然认为，Jobs Bank计划将迫使通用汽车何其他汽车制造商帮助工会成员寻找就业机会，因为没有一家公司愿意花钱养活一帮无所事事的员工。
福特汽车随后也达成了类似的协议。曾在福特汽车负责劳资关系的约翰?什洛萨尔(John Slosar)回忆说，当时双方都只想著满足对方的要求了，根本没有考虑到这样会使公司在与亚洲汽车商的竞争中处于不利地位。
通用汽车副总裁阿尔弗雷德?沃伦(Alfred S. Warren)和UAW之间的信函往来表明，通用汽车对承担Jobs Bank这个计划和抵御亚洲竞争对手的进攻充满了信心，原因是它当时正在研制两款新车，并准备推出Saturn系列车型。
但这些车型大多都没能实现既定目标，而Jobs Bank的规模却变得越来越大，让通用越来越感到不堪重负。为期6年的协议于1990年到期后，通用和其他车商又对协议进行了补充，使其不但涵盖那些受到技术革新影响的员工，还包括受销售疲软影响的员工。通用还把此后3年对该计划的拨款提高到17亿美元。
那些所在工厂关闭的员工并不能立即加入Jobs Bank。他们起先可以接受公司给他们上的失业补助。如果劳资双方磋商期间工厂关闭的时间累积达到48周，他们就会被转入Jobs Bank。
几大汽车厂商有时会推荐Jobs Bank成员从事义务劳动，不过公司也欢迎他们提交自己的计划。在密歇根州首府兰辛的Jobs Bank成员去年夏天整了该县的一处公园。
有些Jobs Bank工人则会去念书。电工技师汤姆?亚当斯(Tom Adams)在密歇根州立大学(Michigan State University)攻读历史学博士学位，眼下正在撰写一篇超过300页的论文。从2001年到现在他一直呆在Jobs Bank里，中间曾为一个卡车项目工作了18个月。他的论文题目是：通用汽车、全美汽车工人联合会和弗林特市。
1910年前后，亚当斯的祖父弗兰克?亚当斯(Frank Adams)从如今的捷克共和国来到美国。他在Flint Wagon Works的车间工作，该公司是雪佛兰(Chevrolet)的前身。亚当斯的父亲在弗林特为雪佛兰干了37年的制模工。1976年，亚当斯开始在弗林特为别克(Buick)工作，主要是为Buick LeSabre生产变速器。他后来当上了电工技师，为了成为按月领薪水的工程师，20世纪90年代他又开始攻读工程学位。在看到按月领薪的同事被解雇后，他放弃了当工程师的想法。
亚当斯身材不高，待人热情。他说自己参加过37次马拉松，其中一次是在Jobs Bank期间为了给福利机构筹款。亚当斯还曾被指派为弗林特的橡皮屋安装有线电视，为的是让“工人们看上动画片。”
他说Jobs Bank“对我来讲棒极了。它做了自己该做的事，它让我不至成为社会的负担。”不过根据他的研究，他对通用汽车的评价并不高：“他们吸收了丰田汽车的员工终身制的思想，并将其应用到通用汽车，结果却制造出一种官僚文化。”
那些找不到外出活动项目或者不愿外出活动的人就呆在橡皮室里。虽然安装著有线电视，但这些房子通常来说不会很讲究。福特汽车买的椅子就很不舒服。通用汽车一位管理人士说，公司Jobs Bank的橡皮室里夏天不开空调。除密歇根以外，在巴尔的摩、印地安纳波利斯、纽约的洛克波特和加州的Rancho Cucamonga也有橡皮室。
通用汽车和全美汽车工人联合会在2003年的全国合同中同意“非生产性的活动违背了”他们的Jobs Bank协议初衷，不过工人说，这一表态对该项目并没有什么影响。
2004年下半年，为福特效力13年的汤姆?冈萨雷斯(Tom Gonzales)在新泽西州埃迪逊的橡皮室坐了两个月，后来福特汽车为他在俄亥俄州安排了一份工作。他回忆说，“有点儿像高中时的禁闭，我们坐在一个有桌椅的大办公室里，除了有时读点东西之外无所事事。”这间橡皮室在一家已经倒闭的卡车厂的旧址上。大约200名无事可做的工人在那里看看书或者玩玩电脑，五、六个管理人士监督著他们，比如不让他们打牌等。
寻求节流
底特律三大汽车巨头明年在和全美汽车工人联合会重新谈判合同时，可能会要求减少此类项目。全美汽车工人联合会可能难以保全Jobs Bank项目，这不仅是因为公众的反对，还因为这一项目阻碍了一项和解协议，德尔福公司就因此不能脱离破产保护。德尔福在法庭文件中表示希望减少30%也就是8,000名非正式员工。工会希望通用汽车能够雇佣这些员工，不过这可能有些困难，因为通用汽车自己在Jobs Bank还有许多富余员工。
通用汽车的首席执行长里克?瓦戈纳(Rick Wagoner)最近表示，Jobs Bank“显然不利于我们的竞争力。”工会人员意识到公众难以认同Jobs Bank，不过如果缩减该项目的开支，那么对社会又将产生冲击。
阿特?卢纳(Art Luna)是全美汽车工人联合会Local 602的总裁。该机构紧挨著通用的一家废弃的工厂，在它的停车场旁边挂有警示牌：非北美产汽车将被拖走，费用由车主自理。该机构距一处堆满凯迪拉克的停车场只有几个街区。Local 602有840人现在Jobs Bank，其中有600人从事社区服务或者在学校就读。
卢纳祖孙三代都为通用工作。他说，“2007年以后，Jobs Bank可能还会存在，不过和现在会有所不同，现在对社会的影响太糟糕了。Jobs Bank成员为学校、各种机构和公园做了很多事。不幸的是，我们确实有人坐著无所事事，只是看看书或者玩玩猜谜。”他还说，“这些人觉得，‘这是他们欠我的，’这么想太糟了。我可不想说违背自己良心的话。”
在弗林特，梅隆预见到变化即将发生。“我明白Jobs Bank必须终止。我是说，过去6年我除了玩21点以外什么都没做，他们却付给我40万美元。我不想再过这种日子了，让我退休吧，按工龄一次性补偿给我每年2千美元就可以了。我希望这样，你知道他们一直在下调我们的医疗保险和退休金标准。这样到我们退休时就很惨了。”
梅隆最近被安排在弗林特浸礼会的一处名为Freedom Temple的教堂作社区服务。他为当地一个治安状况不佳的街区为老年人安装行动感应器。今年弗林特已经发生了14起谋杀案。
梅隆说，“现在我可以出去，为教堂做些善事，而且还能拿到公司付的钱。我不能继续在橡皮屋荒废时间了。我想做点儿事。”
