[SandRat]

""Where’s my Louisville Slugger?""

The Lath Operators are on strike.

[FlingWingFlyer]

LOL!

[dalereed]

“””Where’s my Louisville Slugger?””
The Lath Operators are on strike.”

The enviros won’t let them cut down the trees.

[tanknetter]

The Lath Operators are on strike.

Hillerich & Bradsby (parent company for Louisville Slugger is indeed unionized (Steel Workers union, go figure.)

However, apart from taking steps to keep knowledge of how to hand-turn a bat alive, Slugger manufacturing is almost exclusively automated. I've been to the factory tour at the museum - the machines they have in there are truly impressive. They have one machine that can digitally store the patterns for THOUSANDS of bats and turn whichever one the machine operator selects.

So the jobs there consist of moving quantities of inputs (big bins full of billets), moving and sorting quantities of outputs (finished bats), babysitting the machines, performing the burn engraving and hanging the "dipped" (paint and lacquered) bats for drying.

I'd guess that, conservatively (this is FR, right?), if the automation were to be taken away Hillerich & Bradsby would need a workforce at least 100x what they currently have in order to meet current demand.