  Warrenite84 Member Username: Warrenite84 Post Number: 347 Registered: 01-2007 |
LOL.( Lots of nods and chuckles here.) Sterling stamping had it's issues, but Chrysler's Detroit Axle Plant was like a soap opera in fast forward. Back when I was a newbie, it took me 90 days to bump to 1st shift because the lowest seniority person I would bump was a girl screwing the boss in another department. Of course my boss didn't care, union either. We had a union Committeeman get in a fight with a worker on the floor. Both got fired and brought back after about a month or so. Later they both ran for the Local President position. On voting day one made hot dogs across from the union hall. The other made tacos. Guess who won? The guy who made tacos, of course! We would go to one and load up on chow, and give them a nod and a wink that our vote was theirs. Then we would go chow at the other guy's camp, and give him the same nod and wink! Hey, how about that tented plastic sheeting to divert rainwater off your head? I enjoyed working under those pregnant ones full of oily water.  | ||
Detroithabitater Member Username: Detroithabitater Post Number: 164 Registered: 10-2006 |
Ford MTP, DFP, DAP 1999-2002 | ||
Steelworker Member Username: Steelworker Post Number: 1128 Registered: 02-2004 |
Im from the steelworkers local that was closed because our treasurer stole around 300,000 from just out local. crazy times working in a factory definitely an old boys establishment. | ||
Townonenorth Member Username: Townonenorth Post Number: 81 Registered: 10-2007 |
One day I was working on a fender line. I heard a huge boom to the left of me. On the other line, a can blew off the top of the draw die, punching a hole clean through the roof, and depositing it onto the street. The people working on that press were covered with oil. Tenting to stop the rain water? We used to have to put up cardboard to stop the oil from pouring on your head from the presses. Never needed a moisturizer, I'll say. And one election, the competing candidates were plying us with beer, not food. THAT never happened again. LOL. | ||
Neilr Member Username: Neilr Post Number: 765 Registered: 06-2005 |
My fraternity brother Ron's father was an exec at Dodge Truck and he was our connection for summer jobs on the afternoon shift in the plant. Ron, at 6'7'', got a job in the pit installing drive shafts while I, slighter of build, became a torque inspector. Ron has not yet completely forgotten the "injustice" of that. At the end of summer, since the job was not so stressful, school was pretty much under control and my social life was OK, I decided to continue working the afternoon shift at Dodge Truck so that I could afford my own off-campus apartment. I continued to work at Dodge Truck for about a year and a half as a final inspector and a repair paint line inspector. During that time I worked with many good men, a number were my contemporaries who talked of going back to school; but then new cars, marriages, and children required that they work full time instead. One of the reasons that I managed so well was that I clearly knew it was a short-term situation for me. I left with many good memories of my time at Dodge Truck and the people who worked there with me. | ||
Lpg Member Username: Lpg Post Number: 41 Registered: 02-2008 |
The union reps were another breed at Trenton Engine. Most of the time you could not find them, and when you did they were drunk and even more useless. I think they got into that line of work because they were too lazy or incompetent to work on the line. There were a couple of Chief Stewards that were really good, but they worked the day shift only. Being on afternoons left you on your own. In my above post about nearly losing my hands, I forgot to say the reason the line started. It was the day shift electrician, he did not reinstall the gasket and the switch was full of coolant. Day shift was when the front office was there and all the foreman wanted to look good by having everything running at full speed. I also started in 68 not 69. | ||
Richard_bak Member Username: Richard_bak Post Number: 287 Registered: 04-2008 |
Ah, yes---salt pills, useless union reps, oil everywhere, the king-size rats in the transmission racks (one of whom swiped half of my dad's sandwich two seconds after he put it down). It's all coming back to me, why I quit not one, but two auto plants. Hats off to everybody who spent even a single day on the shop floor, and a salute to all those who punched a clock (and an occasional foreman) for a full 25 or more years. This is all great stuff. | ||
Otter Member Username: Otter Post Number: 265 Registered: 12-2007 |
I gotta say that this is a very interesting thread, and I thank those who shared their experiences. | ||
Omaha Member Username: Omaha Post Number: 204 Registered: 12-2007 |
I was a short-timer at Lynch Road Assembly from ‘72-’73. I was on the final line, so I had a relatively clean job. The plant dated to about ’37. I’d heard it was Chrysler’s first one-floor assembly plant. Maybe that’s true and maybe not. But it was huge and very noisy! The line ran at 61 cars per hour. It was cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and when it rained outside, it would rain inside and make the final line really slick. We’d put down cardboard boxes to help with traction and when they got wet, we’d put down more. Our steward was old and close to retirement. He represented a hell of a lot of people and we rarely saw him. We’d ask the first line supervisor to find him for us when we had a problem. We complained when the final line was sped up beyond 61/hr and when we were slipping on the wet floor. I can remember complaining that the working conditions when it rained weren’t safe and he’d reply that the plant was old, wet slippery floors weren’t grievable, and besides what did I think Chrysler would do, fix the place or shut it down? Oh, and the line was always back to 61/hr when he finally showed up. After I left, the members voted to replace him with a better steward. My relief person had been there since before Chrysler was unionized. He told me stories about how during the Great Depression everyone did a good job of kissing ass in order to keep their jobs. He also said after the union came in and before final and binding arbitration was negotiated, the members on the floor knew what power was all about. There were times when the contract was being stepped on and everyone in an area may take a 10 minute smoke break until it was all sorted out! I never talked to anyone else who had been there in that time frame to see if he was pulling my chain or not. I first worked days and then afternoons. About a month into my time Chrysler started hiring for a second shift. When it became a reality I went. Boy oh, boy…shift differential and the ability to sleep in! I had enough seniority on the second shift to become relief person and then AC repairman. With each job, there was less and less humping the line. Although as AC repairman I did have the opportunity to put some cars back on the line that had been blown around in the water testing thereby saving the lives of those in the pit which was just down the line. Because when a car’s tires came off the line just a bit, it didn’t take long for shit to happen. The car would stay up top as the doors were open but they shut themselves as the line moved forward. And I was gone not a year when a former worker came in with a gun or rifle and shot a foreman and some others. It was déjà vu all over again, if you remember James Johnson at Eldon Ave. Axle. | ||
Lpg Member Username: Lpg Post Number: 42 Registered: 02-2008 |
Anyone remember the guys who would cash your paycheck in the plant and they would keep the change?? They would get a little upset if check came to $97.01. The guy at Trenton Engine was said to have a 9mm in his coveralls and a knife in his boot. Afternoon shift was paid on Thursday around 7pm. Lunch was at 7:30. There would be a stampede out the gate, as a lot of people cashed their checks at the party store. They would return with a pint or two. The coffee cups and soft drink cups would stay full for the rest of the shift. I saw a machine operator get launched over the 6 cylinder block line when he forgot to get the 2x4 he was using to trip the limit out of the way in time. He was so drunk he was not seriously hurt. Even the general foreman and other management smelled of booze. | ||
Lpg Member Username: Lpg Post Number: 43 Registered: 02-2008 |
Trenton Engine had it's share of violence. I remember a foreman being shot in the parking lot. When he came back to work, he was not so pushy. When I worked on the 6 cylinder head line 2 machine operators, whom I both liked, got into a fight and one struck the other with the side of a shovel in the neck. He was crippled for life, never to return to work. The other was fired and ended up in prison. Both had about 26 years seniority. The 30 and out had just came into being. This was the dark side of these places. | ||
Snoringbeagle Member Username: Snoringbeagle Post Number: 43 Registered: 02-2008 |
I was at Dodge truck 72-73. They had started a second shift and it seemed like I was hired in with about three hundred other guys. As we marching in towards the plant there were about ten or twelve of us at the end of the line. An arm went up and stop us and the fella said you guys are going on days. I worked in the second floor paint shop. Taping and sanding. I left too cause it was crazy in there. I seem to remember the second shift general foreman was beaten and killed with a wrench at that time. I saw my own foreman get beat up with a jitterbug sander on the end of a pneumatic hose. | ||
Omaha Member Username: Omaha Post Number: 206 Registered: 12-2007 |
Here goes some "stream of consciousness" ranting: I heard that Dodge Main was, during the 60s and 70s, the most heavily armed workplace in the U.S. My afternoon shift differential was going to pay for graduate school. It may have been the time of drugs, sex, and rock and roll but I had a goal and wasn't going to screw it up. My first second shift foreman was a great guy, he wore brightly colored shirts (not white ones) so you could tell when he was coming. He got promoted and his replacement was the previous AC repairman...Tom D. He was a master at divide and conquer. He pitted white against black and men against women. It's funny how I always remember the bad ones. Funny thing was that half way through grad school, even though I lived frugally, I had to work construction for a while and was a dues paying member of the Laborer's Union. The labor movement got me through graduate school. I do remember having guys in the plant who were very high on one drug or another. Some were even selling to supplement their great wages! Getting high was pretty dangerous for them and their co-workers. I had to talk one guy down, he was trippin' on some psychedelic. Frankg...have you thought about looking into work at Wayne State's labor education program? I think it is worker to worker and I'll bet folks could benefit a lot from what you bring to the table. | ||
Snoringbeagle Member Username: Snoringbeagle Post Number: 44 Registered: 02-2008 |
Omaha...Frankg...have you thought about looking into work at Wayne State's labor education program? I think it is worker to worker and I'll bet folks could benefit a lot from what you bring to the table. Wow is that still going. I got paper back in 70's. I was there with Hal Stack and et al. | ||
Lpg Member Username: Lpg Post Number: 44 Registered: 02-2008 |
I forgot about the clothes. We had guys in suits and ties coming in and changing upstairs. They went down and picked up their mops and brooms and went to work. At the end of the shift changed back and left looking like they came out of the front office. One of my buddies from Ecorse came to work on his birthday in a bright red suit with a red shirt, white tie and white shoes and a white hat. He asked me how he looked. I said he looked like a over ripe tomato. A guy who was with him about fell over laughing. He told me I had no style. | ||
Hornwrecker Member Username: Hornwrecker Post Number: 2047 Registered: 04-2005 |
At archive.org, there is a four part film, called "Master Hands", that was made in the Flint Chevrolet factory, by Jam Handy. One of the best industrial films ever made, covers the making of an auto from the foundry, onwards. Can be watched as streaming video, or be downloaded. http://www.archive.org/details /MasterHa1936 http://www.archive.org/details /MasterHa1936_2 http://www.archive.org/details /MasterHa1936_3 http://www.archive.org/details /MasterHa1936_4 | ||
Frankg Member Username: Frankg Post Number: 491 Registered: 08-2007 |
Yeah, I have looked into WSU and I would really, really like to get there someday. Right now I am teaching labor relations as an adjunct at Oakland University. That is cool, too, I do like it at OU, too. OK, a couple more stories. I remember back in the 1970's there would be a lot of people smoking dope on the afternoon shift. People would often go out to their cars and have a beer and a joint. One fairly large group even sat in the back of a pickup truck in the parking lot daily. Security knew about it but never bothered them. I figured some day they'd get fired but security gave them the wink and nod. So did management. At the body drop, the guys upstairs would sometimes put a beer or joint on one of the claws of the body drop as a gift to the guys downstairs. When the body came down on the frame the guy guiding it on the frame would grab a beer or joint then. Then the guys downstairs would sometime put one back on for the guys upstairs. Foremen knew about it, too - you could smell the marijuana in the plant sometimes. I remember working at Plant 3, in the press room. I was on machine repair and there was a large parts storage area underneath the presses downstairs. A couple of millwrights caught a foreman sleeping down there. So they got a paper bag, filled it with acetylene gas, and woke up the foreman with a huge bang. That was the funniest thing I ever saw, that foreman waking up like that! I have also heard stories, but never witnessed myself, of skilled tradesmen being on the roof or something and dumping a bucket of oil on a foreman. I have also heard the story, confirmed by several people, of a company Christmas party, the last day before the holiday break, a young, very attractive female co-op student engineer streaking in the plant. It was the 70's, after all! I have also heard of the engineer who was put off on medical because he brought his bike in and starting riding it up and down the stairs. I also heard about a guy put off on medical because he was down on all fours in the foreman's office barking like a dog. Final assembly does strange things to a man. Also at plant 3 in the pressroom, while I was working on machine repair we had to go into the press pit to fix something. We pulled the cover off the pit and the whole entire pit was filled with whiskey bottles. Obviously someone had a drinking problem. It took us a whole shift to clean enough of the bottles out so we could work down there. And speaking of drinking problems, that is another reason I got off machine repair - besides the time the 3/4" chain link went whizzing by my head, that is. Two of us machine repairmen were being lifted up in a basket on the forks of a fork lift truck by a millwright. We were giving him hand signals. Well, this was after his 3 beer lunch and he wasn't paying close enough attention. The top of the basket caught the tooth of a large bull gear on the press, yet he kept us coming up, even though we were signaling and yelling for him to stop. Up we went until finally the spring in the fork lift and basket gave way, and we were thrown several feet in the air. Luckily, we landed back in the basket, but many of our tools didn't, they were thrown all over the place. Our safety glasses got thrown off our heads, too. Those two incidents gave me cause to want to switch to a less dangerous trade. Nowadays they give people safety harnesses to tie themselves to the basket. When I was working on the old, manual feed press line for fenders, a chain conveyor stopped working. We asked the foreman to call an electrician for us. The foreman thought he would troubleshoot it himself. Well he touched the wrong thing because he got quite a shock of 220 and got thrown about ten feet back right on his ass. The next week they demoted him back to being a production worker. And then there was the time Nancy Anderson got promoted to permanent supervisor. She had been on the floor for a number of years and was good friends with almost everyone - until the day she went on as a per-diem foreman, then she changed quite a bit. The day she made permanent our whole department of about 100 people wore either black t-shirts or black armbands. | ||
Frankg Member Username: Frankg Post Number: 493 Registered: 08-2007 |
Oh yeah, our plant was huge, like 10,000 or 15,000 people working there or something like that. So on breaks you could roam around quite a lot. There were a lot of bathrooms, and not many janitors, apparently, because the bathroom walls were filled with graffiti. I remember having a little spiral notebook and I went around and visited as many bathrooms as I could and wrote down the gems. Somehow I lost that notebook but there were quite a few gems in it! My favorite was: I wish I were the ring, upon my lovers hand, So every time she'd wipe her ass, I''d see the promised land | ||
Dfd Member Username: Dfd Post Number: 489 Registered: 09-2004 |
I've heard that years ago a left handed machine operator was in more danger than right handed because the controls were arranged for right handed people. Does this ring a bell with anyone? Richard, when was your dad on the fire dept.? (Message edited by Dfd on August 09, 2008) | ||
Richard_bak Member Username: Richard_bak Post Number: 307 Registered: 04-2008 |
Dfd, That was my grandfather, Alex Koscielny. I believe he started in 1921 or 22 and stayed 25 years. He was a rounder with a ton of great stories. Prior to being a fireman he was a cavalryman for six years. He served with Black Jack Pershing in the punitive expedition in Mexico in 1916, chasing Pancho Villa. My grandmother told us that he would lay face-down on the bed while she kneaded his back so he could cough up all the black shit he'd inhaled while fighting a fire. This was the days before masks, I guess. Unsurprisingly, he died of cancer---probably from all the carcinogens he inhaled. He also was a helluva checkers player. He taught me how to play as a kid and one of my proudest moments was when I reached the point where I occasionally beat him. Love checkers to this day, though I don't know anybody who really plays anymore. Do they still play checkers in firehouses? | ||
Lpg Member Username: Lpg Post Number: 45 Registered: 02-2008 |
This thread keeps bringing back more memories. In the fall of 68, I was on afternoons, being low man on seniority, I was sent home due to the line being down. Since my car (68 Roadrunner) was in for repairs, I had no way home. One of the guys in my department named Jackson, gave me the keys to his new car. He said just be back at 11:00pm to pick me up. I did. A few months later the same thing happened to him. He got a ride in, but no way home. So I offered, he accepted. I remember heading north on Fort Street to 12th Street in Detroit and heading west. We drove for a few blocks and he told me stop, that he would get out and walk the rest of the way. I said I would take him all the way home, but he said it was too dangerous for me to be in that area. So he got out and said "Don't sit at a red light, if no one is coming just keep moving." One of the nicest people I worked with. Another memory: Day shift was when all the big wheels were in the front office. So days was when everything was running full speed, no delays. I was running a automated transfer line (the same one I nearly lost my hands in) and I was getting tired of changing all the tooling as soon as my 2nd shift started. I asked the day shift foreman and his toady, suckass operator if everything was OK as far as tooling and they said yes. I would run a few parts and the inspector would say valve guides were oversize, valve seats were out of round,etc. So I hatched a plan to get even. As usual, I had to change all the tooling as soon as the shift started. So I did, but at the end of the shift I put all 1st shift worn out tooling back in. The next the 1st shift foreman was livid. He even came upstairs to the lunchroom-changing area, which was usually unheard of, to start screaming at me , and told me to get downstairs as the general foreman and others were waiting. I told him I started at 3:30pm, and that's when I would be down. I thought he would explode. When I got downstairs, the mob was waiting for me. When the general foreman asked why I was running bad parts. When I told him I had changed all the tooling at the start of my shift, then changed it all back to what was left for me, I thought he was going start on me. All he said was get back to work and not to do that again. The 1st shift foreman and his operator got their asses chewed out. Later on the same foreman got caught cheating on the production count, getting paid for parts that weren't there. This came about when my line went down, and there were no parts to feed the motor line. I spent a short time on days and he watched me like a hawk. | ||
Patrick Member Username: Patrick Post Number: 5489 Registered: 10-2003 |
So did all these potheads and drunks on the line help contribute to the demise of quality in the Big 3 products or was it management's fault? | ||
Richard_bak Member Username: Richard_bak Post Number: 308 Registered: 04-2008 |
There weren't as many potheads and drunks as I guess we're making it out to be on this thread, but, yeah, at least in my experience there were enough to affect quality to a degree. But I also remember being told during speed-ups to skip every other weld by my foreman in order to get those popular vans (this was 1972-73) out the door and into the hands of eager buyers---who, of course, were then turned off by what they had just bought. It's no wonder buyers started taking a serious look at imports. U.S. plants cranked out a lot of crap in those days and we're still paying for it today. Personally, my biggest problem was with the bums who---high, sober or somewhere in-between---simply refused to earn their paycheck. I worked at three different shops (Dodge Truck, Rouge, Foundry Flask) and I've always maintained most folks work hard and earn their dough. But it was frustrating when you would have to work alongside some asshole who simply didn't feel like working; slowing down the process and making an already long shift seem twice as long. All three places were unionized, which of course meant it was almost impossible to get rid of the guy once he had his 90 days in. Best you could hope for was to get him someplace where he didn't affect the work-flow. Protecting shitty workers has always been an aggravating aspect of organized labor that drives conscientious union workers nuts. | ||
Lodgedodger Member Username: Lodgedodger Post Number: 295 Registered: 05-2008 |
Richard_bak, are you the author of, "Henry and Edsel"? | ||
Lpg Member Username: Lpg Post Number: 46 Registered: 02-2008 |
I agree that management was most of the cause. My reason for doing what I did (see above post) was to show that they were running defective parts that would end up in someone's car. The only number that counted was the one on the production counter. There was a lot of "just let it go". How could the last part be OK on 1st shift and the first on 2nd shift be bad ? The foreman go a bonus for every part over the production quota. In the machining area I worked in a lazy operator was not tolerated by the other operators. I was responsible for 10-12 machines, 3 probe stations (They checked for broken drills or taps) all running off 1 control panel. Plus I had a final inspector checking valve guides and valve seats and he could shut the line down. I had no time to play games with anyone. We did have a operator who gave us problems (could not understand why you could not tap a hole that was not drilled), but we made his life as miserable as we could. | ||
Richard_bak Member Username: Richard_bak Post Number: 314 Registered: 04-2008 |
Yeah. "Henry and Edsel" was me. I'm happy to say a couple of reviewers favorably noted that it was a HF bio written in part from the shop-floor perspective---which was unusually insightful on the reviewers' part but is precisely what I set out to do. You can't understand Ford history and the birth of the UAW and subsequent rise of the middle class and even Old Man Ford himself unless you get a bit of understanding and appreciation for what factory life was like for average joe back then. | ||
Lodgedodger Member Username: Lodgedodger Post Number: 296 Registered: 05-2008 |
I ordered the book this afternoon, and I noticed the author's name. Small world. I'd love to talk to you once I've read the book. I am also a writer. | ||
Richard_bak Member Username: Richard_bak Post Number: 322 Registered: 04-2008 |
Too bad I didn't know. I have some extra copies---including the Chinese edition. (Always a hoot to see your name in a foreign language.) I could've sent you one. Who do you write for? Do we know each other? Always a bit mysterious dealing with cyberspace correspondents. | ||
Lodgedodger Member Username: Lodgedodger Post Number: 301 Registered: 05-2008 |
Thank you for your offer. I don't believe we know each other. My published stuff is mostly small potatoes. The magazine I used to write for is now defunct. After that, I went out on my own. Have you been to the "Forgotten" Ford Plant? | ||
Richard_bak Member Username: Richard_bak Post Number: 328 Registered: 04-2008 |
Forgotten Ford plant? Which one? Even the ones still running a shift qualify. What was the name of the magazine? Hey, small potatoes is still potatoes. You can still make a pierogi out of 'em (make sure you put in a little cheese, too). Hit me up at [delete] if you want to shoot the shit some time. (Message edited by richard_bak on August 09, 2008) |
