"I start the automobile, the first welds. From there it goes to another line, where the floor"s put on, the roof, the trunk hood, the doors. Then it"s put on a frame. There is hundreds of lines.
"The welding gun"s got a square handle, with a b.u.t.ton on the top for high voltage and a b.u.t.ton on the bottom for low. The first is to clamp the metal together. The second is to fuse it.
"The gun hangs from a ceiling, over tables that ride on a track. It travels in a circle, oblong, like an egg. You stand on a cement platform, maybe six inches from the ground."
I stand in one spot, about two- or three-feet area, all night. The only time a person stops is when the line stops. We do about thirty-two jobs per car, per unit. Forty-eight units an hour, eight hours a day. Thirty-two times forty-eight times eight. Figure it out. That"s how many times I push that b.u.t.ton.
The noise, oh it"s tremendous. You open your mouth and you"re liable to get a mouthful of sparks. (Shows his arms) That"s a burn, these are burns. You don"t compete against the noise. You go to yell and at the same time you"re straining to maneuver the gun to where you have to weld.
You got some guys that are uptight, and they"re not sociable. It"s too rough. You pretty much stay to yourself. You get involved with yourself. You dream, you think of things you"ve done. I drift back continuously to when I was a kid and what me and my brothers did. The things you love most are the things you drift back into.
Lots of times I worked from the time I started to the time of the break and I never realized I had even worked. When you dream, you reduce the chances of friction with the foreman or with the next guy.
It don"t stop. It just goes and goes and goes. I bet there"s men who have lived and died out there, never seen the end of that line. And they never will-because it"s endless. It"s like a serpent. It"s just all body, no tail. It can do things to you . . . (Laughs.) Repet.i.tion is such that if you were to think about the job itself, you"d slowly go out of your mind. You"d let your problems build up, you"d get to a point where you"d be at the fellow next to you-his throat. Every time the foreman came by and looked at you, you"d have something to say. You just strike out at anything you can. So if you involve yourself by yourself, you overcome this.
I don"t like the pressure, the intimidation. How would you like to go up to someone and say, "I would like to go to the bathroom?" If the foreman doesn"t like you, he"ll make you hold it, just ignore you. Should I leave this job to go to the bathroom I risk being fired. The line moves all the time.
I work next to Jim Grayson and he"s preoccupied. The guy on my left, he"s a Mexican, speaking Spanish, so it"s pretty hard to understand him. You just avoid him. Brophy, he"s a young fella, he"s going to college. He works catty-corner from me. Him and I talk from time to time. If he ain"t in the mood, I don"t talk. If I ain"t in the mood, he knows it.
Oh sure, there"s tension here. It"s not always obvious, but the whites stay with the whites and the coloreds stay with the coloreds. When you go into Ford, Ford says, "Can you work with other men?" This stops a lot of trouble, "cause when you"re working side by side with a guy, they can"t afford to have guys fighting. When two men don"t socialize, that means two guys are gonna do more work, know what I mean?
I don"t understand how come more guys don"t flip. Because you"re nothing more than a machine when you hit this type of thing. They give better care to that machine than they will to you. They"ll have more respect, give more attention to that machine. And you know this. Somehow you get the feeling that the machine is better than you are. (Laughs.) You really begin to wonder. What price do they put on me? Look at the price they put on the machine. If that machine breaks down, there"s somebody out there to fix it right away. If I break down, I"m just pushed over to the other side till another man takes my place. The only thing they have on their mind is to keep that line running.
I"ll do the best I can. I believe in an eight-hour pay for an eight-hour day. But I will not try to outreach my limits. If I can"t cut it, I just don"t do it. I"ve been there three years and I keep my nose pretty clean. I never cussed anybody or anything like that. But I"ve had some real brushes with foremen.
What happened was my job was overloaded. I got cut and it got infected. I got blood poisoning. The drill broke. I took it to the foreman"s desk. I says, "Change this as soon as you can." We were running specials for XL hoods. I told him I wasn"t a repair man. That"s how the conflict began. I says, "If you want, take me to the Green House." Which is a superintendent"s office-disciplinary station. This is when he says, "Guys like you I"d like to see in the parking lot."
One foreman I know, he"s about the youngest out here, he has this idea: I"m it and if you don"t like it, you know what you can do. Anything this other foreman says, he usually overrides. Even in some cases, the foremen don"t get along. They"re pretty hard to live with, even with each other.
Oh yeah, the foreman"s got somebody knuckling down on him, putting the screws to him. But a foreman is still free to go to the bathroom, go get a cup of coffee. He doesn"t face the penalties. When I first went in there, I kind of envied foremen. Now, I wouldn"t have a foreman"s job. I wouldn"t give "em the time of the day.
When a man becomes a foreman, he has to forget about even being human, as far as feelings are concerned. You see a guy there bleeding to death. So what, buddy? That line"s gotta keep goin". I can"t live like that. To me, if a man gets hurt, first thing you do is get him some attention.
About the blood poisoning. It came from the inside of a hood rubbin" against me. It caused quite a bit of pain. I went down to the medics. They said it was a boil. Got to my doctor that night. He said blood poisoning. Running fever and all this. Now I"ve smartened up.
They have a department of medics. It"s basically first aid. There"s no doctor on our shift, just two or three nurses, that"s it. They"ve got a door with a sign on it that says Lab. Another door with a sign on it: Major Surgery. But my own personal opinion, I"m afraid of "em. I"m afraid if I were to get hurt, I"d get nothin" but back talk. I got hit square in the chest one day with a bar from a rack and it cut me down this side. They didn"t take x-rays or nothing. Sent me back on the job. I missed three and a half days two weeks ago. I had bronchitis. They told me I was all right. I didn"t have a fever. I went home and my doctor told me I couldn"t go back to work for two weeks. I really needed the money, so I had to go back the next day. I woke up still sick, so I took off the rest of the week.
I pulled a muscle on my neck, straining. This gun, when you grab this thing from the ceiling, cable, weight, I mean you"re pulling everything. Your neck, your shoulders, and your back. I"m very surprised more accidents don"t happen. You have to lean over, at the same time holding down the gun. This whole edge here is sharp. I go through a shirt every two weeks, it just goes right through. My coveralls catch on fire. I"ve had gloves catch on fire. (Indicates arms) See them little holes? That"s what sparks do. I"ve got burns across here from last night.
I know I could find better places to work. But where could I get the money I"m making? Let"s face it, $4.32 an hour. That"s real good money now. Funny thing is, I don"t mind working at body construction. To a great degree, I enjoy it. I love using my hands-more than I do my mind. I love to be able to put things together and see something in the long run. I"ll be the first to admit I"ve got the easiest job on the line. But I"m against this thing where I"m being held back. I"ll work like a dog until I get what I want. The job I really want is utility.
It"s where I can stand and say I can do any job in this department, and n.o.body has to worry about me. As it is now, out of say, sixty jobs, I can do almost half of "em. I want to get away from standing in one spot. Utility can do a different job every day. Instead of working right there for eight hours I could work over there for eight, I could work the other place for eight. Every day it would change. I would be around more people. I go out on my lunch break and work on the fork truck for a half-hour -to get the experience. As soon as I got it down pretty good, the foreman in charge says he"ll take me. I don"t want the other guys to see me. When I hit that fork lift, you just stop your thinking and you concentrate. Something right there in front of you, not in the past, not in the future. This is real healthy.
I don"t eat lunch at work. I may grab a candy bar, that"s enough. I wouldn"t be able to hold it down. The tension your body is put under by the speed of the line . . . When you hit them brakes, you just can"t stop. There"s a certain momentum that carries you forward. I could hold the food, but it wouldn"t set right.
Proud of my work? How can I feel pride in a job where I call a foreman"s attention to a mistake, a bad piece of equipment, and he"ll ignore it. Pretty soon you get the idea they don"t care. You keep doing this and finally you"re t.i.tled a troublemaker. So you just go about your work. You have to have pride. So you throw it off to something else. And that"s my stamp collection.
I"d break both my legs to get into social work. I see all over so many kids really gettin" a raw deal. I think I"d go into juvenile. I tell kids on the line, "Man, go out there and get that college." Because it"s too late for me now.
When you go into Ford, first thing they try to do is break your spirit. I seen them bring a tall guy where they needed a short guy. I seen them bring a short guy where you have to stand on two guys" backs to do something. Last night, they brought a fifty-eight-year-old man to do the job I was on. That man"s my father"s age. I know d.a.m.n well my father couldn"t do it. To me, this is humanely wrong. A job should be a job, not a death sentence.
The younger worker, when he gets uptight, he talks back. But you take an old fellow, he"s got a year, two years, maybe three years to go. If it was me, I wouldn"t say a word, I wouldn"t care what they did. "Cause, baby, for another two years I can stick it out. I can"t blame this man. I respect him because he had enough will power to stick it out for thirty years.
It"s gonna change. There"s a trend. We"re getting younger and younger men. We got this new Thirty and Out. Thirty years seniority and out. The whole idea is to give a man more time, more time to slow down and live. While he"s still in his fifties, he can settle down in a camper and go out and fish. I"ve sat down and thought about it. I"ve got twenty-seven years to go. (Laughs.) That"s why I don"t go around causin" trouble or lookin" for a cause.
The only time I get involved is when it affects me or it affects a man on the line in a condition that could be me. I don"t believe in lost causes, but when it all happened . . . (He pauses, appears bewildered.) The foreman was riding the guy. The guy either told him to go away or pushed him, grabbed him . . . You can"t blame the guy-Jim Grayson. I don"t want n.o.body stickin" their finger in my face. I"d"ve probably hit him beside the head. The whole thing was: d.a.m.n it, it"s about time we took a stand. Let"s stick up for the guy. We stopped the line. (He pauses, grins.) Ford lost about twenty units. I"d figure about five grand a unit-whattaya got? (Laughs.) I said, "Let"s all go home." When the line"s down like that, you can go up to one man and say, "You gonna work?" If he says no, they can fire him. See what I mean? But if n.o.body was there, who the h.e.l.l were they gonna walk up to and say, "Are you gonna work?" Man, there woulda been n.o.body there! If it were up to me, we"d gone home.
Jim Grayson, the guy I work next to, he"s colored. Absolutely. That"s the first time I"ve seen unity on that line. Now it"s happened once, it"ll happen again. Because everybody just sat down. Believe you me. (Laughs.) It stopped at eight and it didn"t start till twenty after eight. Everybody and his brother were down there. It was really nice to see, it really was.
JIM GRAYSON.
A predominantly black suburb, on the outskirts of Chicago. He lives in a one-family dwelling with his wife and five-year-old son, whose finger paintings decorate a wall.
He is a spot-welder, working the third shift. His station is adjacent to Phil Stallings".
He is also a part-time student at Roosevelt University, majoring in Business Administration. "If I had been white, I wouldn"t be doing this job. It"s very depressing. I can look around me and see whites with far less education who have better paying jobs with status.
"My alarm clock goes off in the mornings when I go to school. I come back home, take my shirt and tie off, put my brief case down, put on some other suitable clothing. (Laughs.) I go to Ford and spend the night there . . ." (Laughs.) As, on this late Sunday afternoon, he half-watches the ball game on TV, turned down low, his tone is one of an amused detachment. His phrases, at times, trail off . . .
Oh, anything away from the plant is good. Being on the a.s.sembly line, my leisure time is very precious. It"s something to be treasured. I don"t have much time to talk to the family. I have to be a father, a student, and an a.s.sembly line worker. It"s just good to get away.
On our shift we have lunch about seven thirty. A lot of times I just read. Sometimes I just go outside to get away from . . . I don"t know if you"ve heard of plant pollution. It"s really terrible. Especially where I work, you have the sparks and smoke. You have these fans blowing on us. If you don"t turn the fans down, the smoke"ll come right up.
They don"t use battery trucks. They should. They use gasoline. Lots of times during lunch I never stay on the floor. I usually go outside to get a breath of fresh air. The further you are from the front door, the worse it is. You can cut the heat with a knife, especially when it gets up in the nineties. You get them carbon monoxide fumes, it"s just h.e.l.l.
Ford keeps its overhead down. If I had to go a few feet to get some stock, that would be the time I"m not working. So Ford has everything set up. If you run out, the truck"ll come blowin" carbon monoxide all over your face. But it"s making sure you"ll never run out of work. I mean you"re really tied down to the job. (Laughs.) You stand on your feet and you run on your feet. (Laughs.) We get forty-eight minutes of break-thirty minutes in the morning and the other eighteen in the evening. You always go to the bathroom first. (Laughs.) It"s three flights up. You come down, you walk to another part of the plant, and you walk up another three flights to get a bite to eat. On the line, you don"t go to the washroom when you have to go. You learn to adjust your physical . . . (Laughs.) For new workers this is quite hard. I haven"t gotten used to it yet. I"ve been here since 1968.
The part of the automobile I work on is before it gets all the pretties. There"s no paint. The basic car. There"s a conveyorlike . . . Mr. Ford"s given credit for inventing this little . . . (Laughs.) There is no letup, the line is always running. It"s not like . . . if you lift something, carry it for a little while, lay it down, and go back-while you"re going back, you"re actually catching a breather. Ford has a better idea. (Laughs.) You hear the slogan: They have a better idea. They have better ideas of getting all the work possible out of your worn body for eight hours.
You can work next to a guy for months without even knowing his name. One thing, you"re too busy to talk. Can"t hear. (Laughs.) You have to holler in his ear. They got these little guys comin" around in white shirts and if they see you runnin" your mouth, they say, "This guy needs more work." Man, he"s got no time to talk.
A lot of guys who"ve been in jail, they say you don"t work as hard in jail. (Laughs.) They say, "Man, jail ain"t never been this bad." (Laughs.) That"s the way I feel. I"m serving a sentence till I graduate from college. So I got six more months in jail. Then I"ll do something else, probably at a reduction in pay.
If it was up to these ignorant foremen, they"d never get a car out. But they have these professional people, engineering time study. They"re always sneakin" around with their little cameras. I can smell "em a mile away. These people stay awake nights thinking of ways to get more work out of you.
Last night I heard one of the guys say we did 391 cars. How many welds are we supposed to put in a car? They have governmental regulations for consumer protection. We just put what we think ought to be in there and then let it go. (Laughs.) There are specifications, which we pay very little attention to.
You have inspectors who are supposed to check every kind of defect. All of us know these things don"t get corrected. I was saying about buying a car, not too long ago, "I hope this buggy lasts till I get out of college." I can just look at a car and see all kinds of things wrong with it. You can"t do that because you didn"t see how it was made. I can look at a car underneath the paint. It"s like x-ray vision. They put that trim in, they call it. The paint and all those little pretties that you pay for. Whenever we make a mistake, we always say, "Don"t worry about it, some dingaling"ll buy it." (Laughs.) Everyone has a station. You"re supposed to get your work completed within a certain area, usually around ten, maybe fifteen feet. If you get behind, you"re in the hole. When you get in the hole, you"re b.u.mping into the next worker. Man, sometimes you get in the hole and you run down. The next worker up from you, he can"t do his job until you get finished. If you"re slowin" up, that starts a chain reaction all the way up the line.
Ford is a great believer in the specialization of labor, brings about more efficiency. Actually, I can be thinking about economics, politics, anything while I"m doing this work. Lotta times my mind is on schoolwork. There"s no way I could do that job and think about what I"m doin", "cause it"s just impossible for me. The work is just too boring. Especially someone like myself, who is going to school and has a lot of other things on my mind.
"I get pretty peeved off lots of times, because I know I can do other work. They have their quota of blacks and they have just enough so you can"t say they"re prejudiced. I"m trying to graduate from college and I"d like to go into industry, where the money is.
"I have all sorts of qualifications for the kind of work I want, but none has been offered to me. In 1969 they ran an ad in the paper wanting a junior accountant. I have a minor in accounting, so I applied. They wanted a person with good apt.i.tude in mathematics and a high-school graduate. I had an a.s.sociate arts degree from junior college and two years of accounting. They took me to the head of the department. He asked, "What makes you want this type of work?" " (Laughs.) You can compare the plant to a miniature United States. You have people from all backgrounds, all cultures. But most of your foremen are white. It seems a lot of "em are from Alabama, Arkansas, a large percentage Southern white. They don"t hide their opinions. They don"t confront me, but I"ve seen it happen in a lot of cases. Oh sure, they holler at people. They don"t curse, cursing is not permitted.
They"ll do anything to get production. Foremen aren"t supposed to work on the line. If he works, he"s taking away a job from a union man. The union tries to enforce it, but they do anything they want. Then they complain, "Why didn"t you get your people to come to work every day?"
There"s quite a bit of absentees, especially on Mondays. Some guys just can"t do that type of work every day. They bring phony doctors" excuses. A lot of time, they get the wife or girlfriend to call in: "Junior just broke his leg." (Laughs.) "Your mother-in-law"s cousin died and you have to rush home." They don"t send you home unless it"s an emergency. So lotta guys, they make up their own lies. Monday"s the biggest day. You"ll have three days off right in a row.
The company is always hiring. They have a huge turnover. I worked at Harvester for five years before I started college. You would find guys there, fifteen years service, twenty, twenty-five. You meet an old-timer here, you ask, "How long you been here?" "About three years." (Laughs.) I"m twenty-nine and one of the oldest guys around here. (Laughs.) Auto workers are becoming increasingly young and increasingly black. Most of the older workers are a lot more-shall we say, conservative. Most of the older men have seniority, so they don"t have to do the work I do. They put "em on something easy. Old men can"t do the work I do. They had one about a year ago, and he had three heart attacks. And they finally gave him a broom. He was about forty. Yeah, forty, that"s an old man around here.
I read how bad things were before the union. I was telling some of our officials, don"t become complacent. There"s much more work to be done, believe me. One night a guy hit his head on a welding gun. He went to his knees. He was bleeding like a pig, blood was oozing out. So I stopped the line for a second and ran over to help him. The foreman turned the line on again, he almost stepped on the guy. That"s the first thing they always do. They didn"t even call an ambulance. The guy walked to the medic department-that"s about half a mile-he had about five st.i.tches put in his head.
The foreman didn"t say anything. He just turned the line on. You"re nothing to any of them. That"s why I hate the place. (Laughs.) The Green House, that"s where the difference of opinion is aired out. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the company comes out winning. If I have a problem, I go to the Green House about it. They might decide against me. They say, "This is it, period." I have to take the time off. Then I can write a grievance. It could be three weeks, three months, three years from now, they could say, "Back in 1971 you were right." So if a union doesn"t want to push your particular grievance, you"re at the mercy of the company.
They had a wildcat, a sit-down related to me. This particular foreman . . . I think it"s jealousy more than anything. They don"t like to see, you know-I"m going to school every day. I would bring my books and I"d read during the break. They"d sneak around to see what I"m reading. I seldom miss a day"s work and I do my work well. But this guy"s been riding me about any little thing. One night he said the wrong thing.
I was going on my break. You"re supposed to wear your safety gla.s.ses all the time. They don"t enforce these things. I took mine off just to wipe my forehead. He said, "Get your gla.s.ses on!" It"s these nagging little things building up all the time. Always on my back. So I grabbed him, shook him up a little bit. And I went on to lunch. I came back and they were waiting for me. I was supposed to have been fired. I got the rest of the night and two days off.
These guys that worked with me, they didn"t like it. So they sat down for a while. I"d already gone. They refused to work for about twenty minutes or so. Now this takes a lot of nerve for the guys to . . . good guys. But oh, I definitely have to get away from this. (Chuckles, suddenly remembering.) One night, there was something wrong with the merry-go-round. We call it that "cause it goes round and round. They had to call maintenance right away. About six guys came, white shirt, tie, everything. You shoulda seen these guys. On their hands and knees, crawling all over this line, trying to straighten it out. They wouldn"t stop it.
Now I couldn"t see myself-what kind of status would I have, with my white shirt and tie, crawling on my hands and knees with a crowbar, with grease all over . . . ? It was pretty funny. Some of these guys who"ve been on a farm all their life, they say, "This is great, the best thing ever happened to me."
Phil Stallings said his ambition is to be a utility man. More variation to the job.
Well, that"s a h.e.l.l of an ambition. That"s like the difference between the gravedigger and the one who brings the coffin down. So (laughs), he can have it. My ambition is higher than Phil"s.
There"s no time for the human side in this work. I have other aims. It would be different in an office, in a bank. Any type of job where people would proceed at their own pace.
Once I get into industrial relations-I got corporate law planned-then it won"t be a job any more "cause I will enjoy what I"m doing. It"s the difference between a job and a career. This is not a career.
HOBART FOOTE.
It"s a trailer, off the highway along the Illinois-Indiana border. The quarters are cramped. He lives with his wife and two children: a boy fourteen and a girl thirteen. The dog wanders in and out aimlessly. The Holy Bible, old and scuffed, on a shelf, is the one visible book.
The clangor of trains, Gary-to-Chicago-bound, freights off the sidings of the nearby steel mills, switching and coupling cars; it"s pervasive, it trembles the trailer.
He is a utility man at the auto plant on the day shift. He has been there seventeen years. He is thirty-seven and looks older.
"l"m from Alabama, my wife and kids are Hoosiers. I was gonna work a few years and buy me a new car and head back south. Well, I met the wife now and that kinda changed my plans.
"I might"ve been working in some small factory down south or I might have gone to Detroit where I worked before or I might have gone to Kalamazoo where I worked before. Or else I mighta stuck on a farm somewheres, just grubbing off a farm somewhere. You never know what you woulda did. You can"t plan too far in advance, "cause there"s always a stumblin" block."
From the word go, the clock radio goes off. About four thirty. First thing comes to my mind is shut my eyes just a few minutes. Yet I know I can"t shut "em for too long, I know I gotta get up. I hate that clock. We lay there and maybe listen to them play a few records. And she gets up about five minutes till. Of course, I say, "Get up! Get up! It"s day, get up!" I tell you, after goin" on seventeen years, I don"t want to be late. You"re one minute late clockin" in, they dock you six.
I get up when the news comes on. Sometimes it"s five to five, sometimes it"s five o"clock. The a.s.sembly line starts at six. I go to the washroom, comb my hair. That"s routine with me. I have to get every hair in place. Drink maybe a cup of coffee or half a cup of coffee. Maybe a whole piece of toast and sometimes I might eat two pieces of toast-depends on how I feel. In the meantime, I"m watchin" that clock. I say, "I gotta go, it"s eight minutes after, it"s nine minutes after. At twelve minutes after, I gotta leave here." You get in the car. You tell your wife, of course, you"ll see her tonight. It"s routine.
We do have a train problem, goin" from here to the a.s.sembly plant. I cross one set of tracks twice, then two other sets of tracks once each. Long freight trains, going from Chicago to Gary. I have waited as high as ten, twelve minutes. Then you"re late.
If I see a train crossing, I keep going. It"s a game you"re playing. Watch the stop light, catch this light at a certain time and you got the next light. But if there"s a train there, I take off down Cicero Avenue, watching the crossings. Then if I make her okay, you got a train just over at Burnham line, you got a train there you gotta watch for. But it"s generally fast. (Takes a deep breath.) Well, these tensions . . . It don"t bother me, really. It"s routine.
So we enter the plant. I generally clock in about five twenty-eight to five thirty. You start seeing people you know. Pay starts at five thirty, but my boss don"t say anything. Then I walk up the line and I got a bad habit of checking the log book. That"s what the night foreman left for the day foreman: what happened the night before. I check what job is in the hole, what small part has to be put on. We work those jobs out of the hole. Maybe we put in a master cylinder or a headlight. If it needs any small parts, screws, clips, bolts-you know, routine.
Then I go into the locker room. Pull off my shoes, pull my pants and shirt off, put on my coveralls. Put my tools in: pliers, screw driver, trim knife. Then I come back up the line, routine every morning. Then I start checking the jobs. I"m what you call a trouble shooter in the crash pad area. Your general utility, which I am, get $4.49. We got seventeen operations in the section and I can do all of it.
My routine in the morning"s the same. I clean up cardboard. I tag up defective stock, put the damaged in the vendor. If my foreman tells me to take it over there, I take it over there. Of course, I don"t take no hurry. After seventeen years, you learn to sort of pace yourself.
I like to work. Now two days this week have been kinda rough on me. I guess I come home grouchy. Absenteeism. When the men don"t come to work, the utility men get stuck. One of us has got to cover his job until they bring a new man in there. Then we"ve got to show him the job.
I think one reason for our absenteeism over here right now is the second shift. We got this young generation in here. Lot of "em single, and a lot of"em . . . They"re not settled yet, and they just live from day to day. When they settle down, they do like myself. They get up and they have a routine. They go to work every day. I go to work here and I didn"t feel like going to work, I shoulda stayed home. But I felt if I go to work, I"ll feel better after a while. And I do.
I think a lot of it is in your mind. You get like what"s his name that works in the body shop-Phil Stallings. He"s grown to hate the company. Not me. The company puts bread and b.u.t.ter on the table. I feed the family and with two teen-aged kids, there"s a lot of wants. And we"re payin" for two cars. And I have brought home a forty-hour paycheck for Lord knows how long.
And that"s why I work. And those other people when they settle down one of these days, they"ll be what we call old-timers. He"ll want to work. Number one: the pay"s good. Number two: the benefits are good. When I"m off work I draw $105 a week. And you don"t get that everywhere.
The more settled a fellow gets, he quiets down. He"ll set a pace. See, I set a pace. You just work so fast and you do just so much work. Because the more you do, the more they"ll want you to do. If you start running, they"d expect you to do a little bit more. If they catch you readin" the paper or some kind of old book or if he picks up some kind of wild magazine he comes into, they"ll figure out how to break up this man"s operation.
You get used to a job and you take short cuts. When you learn these short cuts, all of a sudden time standards: he"s gonna come around and he"s gonna time your job. They"ll say you"re working fifty six minutes out of the hour. I told foremen I won"t do it all day and keep it up, "cause it"s too much of a strain. I mean, it"s hard on a man, but the company says the man has time to do it.
"When I first started work, I was hangin" doors. That"s the first time I got cut at the plant. I would say a man average gettin" cut, a minor cut, twice a week. At "54, I went over to drillin" doors for chrome. They have air drills now. Back then it was the big electric drills. Your hand swell up from holdin" the big drill.
"Then I got laid off. So I took off back south. I was called back to work at Ford"s. I got a telegram. I worked ten nights puttin" off cars in boxcars and then they said you"re laid off again. So it was a bunch of us came up here five and six hundred miles, just to work ten nights. So we went in to talk to the man from labor relations and the union rep, and I was put on the a.s.sembly line.
"We had the Depression in "58, I was laid off again. I got a job in a warehouse liftin" bags from sixty to a hundred pounds. Me and my partner were working at liftin" from twenty-two hundred to twenty-four hundred bags a day. I lost twenty-five pounds in two weeks. Then I got my second call back to the Ford Motor Company."
I refused to do a job one time and I was fired. The window riser was in two pieces. You had to take a piece in each hand and stick it in the two holes in the door and hook it up inside. When you wasn"t used to the job, you was cut in the arms. So I just told the foreman I wasn"t gonna do it and I cussed him a little bit.
They took me up and said, "We don"t need you any more." They say, "You"re fired." Make you feel like you"re through. Then the union rep, he starts talkin". "What about this man"s family? He"s a good worker." And the foreman says, "Yeah, he"s a good worker." They talk backwards and forward. Then they said, "We"re gonna give you another chance." They tear a man down and threaten "im and then they"re gonna give him another chance. I guess they just want to make you feel bad.
I had a record, of different little things I"d done. You get disgusted, you get a little bored, you want to do somethin". It was what you call horseplay. Or maybe you come in late. You build a record up. And when they take you in there for something, they pull this record out.
They felt I was gonna beg for my job. To which there has been people who have cried in labor relation. The company"s gonna put "em back to work, after they give "em the day off. They dock you, what they call R and W, a reminder and warning. There"s been people, they just sit there and they just fall apart-rather than fly back and cuss the foreman out.
I don"t get mad like I used to. I used to call "im, "Buddy, you SOB," in no uncertain terms. But now I"m settled down. After a long time, you learn to calm yourself down. My wife"s shakin" her head. I do come home grouchy sometimes. But when you get mad, you only hurt yourself, you excite yourself. In the long run, you may say something the company may use against you.
My day goes pretty good on the average. Used to they didn"t, but now I have a pace. Who I joke with, who I tease about did they have to sleep in a car that night. Just something to keep your day going. I"m always jokin". We even go so far as to throw water on the fan. Something to break the monotony. Of course, you know who to do it to.
It"s the same routine. But I can rotate mine just a little bit, just enough to break the monotony. But when it catches up with ya and all of a sudden it"s real quiet, n.o.body says nothing-that makes the day go real long. I"ll look at the watch pin on my coverall and see what time . . . you would look at your watch and it would be nine twenty. And you look at your watch again and it"s twenty-five minutes of ten. It seems like you worked forever. And it"s been only roughly fifteen minutes. You want quittin" time so bad.
I can be off a day and the colored guy that works here, he"ll say to this one lady works over there, "Millie, sure was quiet over here." "Cause I"m always teasin", keeping something goin". We"re teasin" one guy "cause he"s real short and his wife left him. And then they"ll get off on the way some guy looks. Some guy looks a little funny and they"ll wonder what happened to him. How did the other guy look? Maybe they"ll tease "im just because his nose is crooked. Or else the way he got his hair cut. It"s just routine.
They have had no black and white fighting on the day shift. On the night shift they used to have it. I pa.s.sed words with one not too long ago. It got pretty wild. I told him just what I thought. We kinda had to get something straightened out pretty fast. But there"s no contact being made, because men"s too smart for that. As they get older, they don"t want no physical contacts. Because it"s too easy to fall off the shelf, you could get hurt pretty bad.
What"s most of the talk about?
Somebody"s old lady. I"ll be real honest about it, they"re teasin" this guy about his old lady. All of a sudden, they"re on you about your old lady. And the routine. Nothing serious. We make jokes with different black people. Like Jesse Jackson this, Jesse Jackson that. The black man makes jokes about George Wallace. But any other time, there"s baseball, it"s hockey, it"s football.
We got drugs in the plant real bad. "Specially on the night shift. They"re smokin" or they"re poppin" pills. When they"re high, they got their sungla.s.ses on. We been havin" a candy sale for Little League. One colored guy was buyin" a lot of candy from me. When they need all that dope, they can take somethin" sweet and it"ll hold them over. This guy was buyin" that big eight-ounce milk chocolate bar from me.
He is active in the Little League activities of the trailer community. He is president, and "this crossbreed here, my wife, is president of the women"s auxiliary. We"re tied up six days a week at the ball park.
"When I first startin" umpirin", they would get on me. I even told one manager if he didn"t shut his wife up, I was gonna send her out of the park. I did have that authority."
Used to daydream on the job, now I don"t. My mind would be a long ways off. I just really was not conscious of what I was doin". Like I been goin" to work in the mornin", when I go through the light, sometime I know it and sometime I don"t. I don"t know whether that light is red or green. I went through it. I had drived and yet my mind was somewheres else. Now it"s jokin". It used to be daydreamin".
Comin" outa the plant when the sun"s shinin", you kinda squint your eye. A lotta "em wear sungla.s.ses and I wondered why. Now I know. Because you got your fluorescent lights in there, and you open the door and there"s the real bright light. You get used to it. It"s that same routine. You speak to some of the guards, make a wisecrack about one of the guys, about his hair or mustache or he had himself taken care of so there"ll be no more kids. I crack jokes about that. And then you come across the same set of tracks you cross in the morning. Get in the car, roll your window down, and you"re not in a hurry to get home, because you"re not timed to go home. If you get caught by a train, occasionally I"ll stop for a milk shake or a cup of coffee.
I"m proud of what my job gives me. Not the job. I couldn"t say I"m proud of workin" for the Ford Motor Car Company, but what makes it good is what the union and the company have negotiated over these period of years.