When we toured some automotive plants and shops in Japan in the early 2000's, they made a big deal of stable and normal ambient temperatures in the assembly areas. It keeps machine tolerances close and worker fatigue down . One would think it'd be in Stellantis/Fiatwtf/plymouth's to have decent climate control for better quality control.

However I will comment that I have been experiencing some downfall on the Quality of recent products from Japan as well as a lack of interest in correcting them or communicating with the consumer. This has made me start to wonder if they are not heading into the late 70's early 80's detroit slump as the generations that built Japan up are retiring and their replacements do no to seem to have the same concerns. very similar to what transpired here

From the article


Might be a clue there

When’s the last time you saw something “made in Japan”….

The Okonomiyaki sauce I had with dinner.

At the very least the plant should have BAF's for the warmer months. Anyone know if they do? I would think being a casting plant the heat would be the major issue and probably year round but that's just a guess.

IDK. Having worked in a couple of different factories you would have to see exactly what they are talking about. I think it would be difficult or impossible to have climate control in a casting facility. Offices, break rooms, locker rooms, etc is different. The aluminum extruder i worked for had ducted a/c for operators in particularly hot areas during the summer heat. It blew on you at your station. I worked at a can plant in Youngstown that had no HVAC on the plant floor. Hot in the summer and the ovens kept it bareable in the winter. Dress accordingly.

Back in the 90's I worked at a tier 1 (means the parts go from there to the car plant and are directly put on the vehicle) Toyota supplier and in the summer the day shift started at 5:30am to combat the heat. It would switch back to 7:30 in the fall. Thankfully I only had to do it for a couple weeks before being put on afternoon shift. Its really hard for an 18 yr old to get up and be at work by 5:30am!

My employer had an assembly plant near Dallas and part of my onboarding when I got hired as an engineer was working there for two weeks on the line.
I was there in April and it wasn’t bad, but the previous hire group went there the previous august during a heat wave when it was 100+.
People at the plant said when real hot it was miserable, even by a fan didn’t help.
That plant got closed not long after, but we’re building a new plant in San Antonio. I’m not sure if there’s any climate control there.
At a previous employer I visited both iron and aluminum foundries. The Kansas aluminum foundry in particular sticks in my memory, we visited it in summer, and the workers were dressed in heavy denim and gloves to protect against splatters of molten aluminum. In the iron foundry, I was told the guy manning the hot crucible of molten iron was one of the most coveted jobs in the plant.
I see service centers and wonder how the techs deal with summer heat as most of those places aren’t air conditioned.
But then I see roofers and think that’s got to be the worst job in the world!
I’m not very heat tolerant especially humidity, and work an office job in AC. But I have had no shortage of chest puffing friends and coworkers tell me they thrive in summer heat and humidity and I’m a pussy for saying it messes me up. Obviously some people are really heat tolerant, I’ve known many others who can’t deal with bitter cold. I don’t like it but I do fine with it. We had a bitter cold snap a few years ago where it hit -25. I told myself if my car started, I was going into the office. It started so off I went.
It was like a neutron bomb had gone off, roads were empty. Only a handful of coworkers showed up to work. I rolled my eyes that the no shows were so weak.
So if you can’t handle heat, don’t work in a factory, garage, as a roofer, building roads etc. Theres lots of different careers out there and people need to work in jobs that suit their physical abilities and limitations.

Stellantis switching to EV is probably a bad time for a transmission plant to go on strike it would seem.

Years ago I worked in factory maintenance in two different forge shops, one for 7 years in a plant producing mainly brass and aluminum forgings, and the other for 6 years that mostly did steel forming for farm equipment.
In both factories the temp surrounding the operators at both ends of furnaces that heated the metal was 130 degrees through the summer months and around 75 degrees through the winter months. The loading end of the furnace was a better position then the unloading end where the forge operator worked. The load end paid a one step up in the wage scale then most of the floor work stations, and the operator end paid another pay scale step up, which was nearly the highest paid position in the plant. Both positions were highly valued and had a waiting list of people ready to step into the position. For the operator end, they couldn't even have a fan pointed directly at them without effecting the temp of the heated slug, having AC at that point would have been foolish.

Any job position more then 10' away from the furnace was 20 degrees cooler, and every foot farther away reduced the temps even more. The part of the buildings where the forge furnaces were, were separated from the rest of the building. Those forge furnaces provided most of the heat to the rest of the plant, iIn the winter, you really wanted to be in the forge furnace section of the plant. Most people outside of the forge section wore heave sweatshirts and light jackets and gloves during the winter.

As for the UAW strike during this time frame? I suppose they figure it may be their last hope to have a strike unless they can get into the new plant.
The labor unions are no longer there to assist the working man, they are now there to collect money to support the political party of their leader's choice, and assist those that really don't want to work.

I used to work in a cement plant, anywhere near the kilns or the mill floor and it was 135+. The higher up you went the hotter it got. We did our jobs.

Coal mines are usually at “the average yearly temperature” for a region, typically 55 to 59 degrees F.
Caves the same.

Coal cleaning plants are another matter.
140 degrees working on the furnaces that heat dry coal.
Sweating in Summer heat as you unload dry dusty coal from bottom dump rail hopper cars wearing N95 mask, hearing protection, gloves and steel toed boots.

But by far the worst is when winter rain followed by a sudden freezing snap causes wet coal in hopper cars to freeze.
You pry the doors of the hopper open, then have to swing pick axes and crow bars to break the coal loose, while sub freezing temp degree winds whip, and electric motor driven 15 ton “shakers vibrate the railcars causing 140 dB noise. You can not slow down because the longer the wet coal stays in the hopper cars the deeper the frozen layers of coal become.

I worked at a foundry for 2 years in the late 80s. I was 19 years old. I simply could not do that now at 53- or rather would only do it it if it were my ONLY option. So us older folk don't cope well with heat and humidity but the young current generation does not either. Even here in my home town the climate controlled facilities- LG Chem the biggest cannot attract and retain workers.