My wife's niece had a family get together this weekend.  Her father (the niece's) was once a tool and die maker for a large company in Warren, OH.  (As were my wife's brothers.)  All of them were union members but not what you'd call "militant unionists".

I was talking with him about his days at the plant and some themes came out of our talk:

1. Neither engineers or managers ever asked the folks actually doing the work for much input.
2. Changes were rarely discussed but always imposed by management.
3. New equipment, tooling, procedures etc. were designed by people who didn't actually have to use them.
4. Problems were pretty much always seen as somebody's fault.  Problem solving was more of an effort to assign blame than an effort to determine root causes.
5. Workers were generally pretty good at figuring out ways to make things better and quicker.  They often did this in direct opposition to management's directives and policies.
6. Workers often figured out how to make things easier and quicker so as to make their work lives easier and a bit more relaxed.  Managers often looked at this as illustrative of worker laziness and insisted that they do things in ways that were harder and led to lower quality.
7. Engineers spent much company money and time designing equipment and machinery that didn't work.  They generally blamed operators when it didn't.

The fun thing was that he had specific examples for each of these themes.

Later on, I was talking with a friend of the family who had 39 years as a millwright at a steel mill in Warren.  He had stories around the same themes.

Now, I know I was hearing one side of the story but I've seen these themes in action myself.  What bugs me is that these barriers are fairly easy to overcome.  It takes time and perserverence but it's just not that hard to do.