The death certificates of all the men who died at the GM plant on Saturday read that they died at Cranston General Hospital. No one had ever died at a GM plant. It was a company law, and the company doctor followed that law. He was in the first ambulance with Rudolph while it was at the plant, shouting orders at the EMTs. When they left for the hospital, Rudolph’s mangled, dead body was hooked up to an IV and a respirator.
The only body he really had trouble getting out of the plant was that of Steve Brown. The caved-in skull and near decapitation would normally indicate death. But when the ambulance arrived down at V line, there was the plant doctor giving Steve chest massage—pushing, pushing, pushing, pounding. And before the technicians even got a look at the body, the doc was shouting orders, then got the man’s head under a sheet, and rode with Steve Brown in the back of the ambulance.
The doctor was really a doctor. He had wanted to be an apprentice at a General Motors plant, but could never score high enough on the apprenticeship test to get in the program. He just wasn’t good at taking tests, he told everyone. He decided that if he could not be an electrician or a die maker, he wanted to be a doctor. He made it through college okay; truth be known, it was easier to get a college degree than it was to become a skilled tradesman at General Motors. And his daddy, a vice-president of marketing at GM, found a medical school in Grenada for him to attend.
Dexter B. Flag, M.D., read the sign on the metal, fireproof door at the plant hospital. The doctor had his own little office with metal bookshelves, a clinic with two nurses and two beds, two small observation rooms, and a private examination room where the doctor did all the pre-employment physicals. His eyes were so bad that he had to get right down in the men’s groins in order to check them for hernia, at least that was the story he had told to the police the day a man kneed him and broke his nose after he touched the man’s dick with said nose. He wished the nurse had never called the police, but as a doctor you just learn to deal with things. Word got around the plant, and that was a good laugh for awhile, because the doc had touched every man’s dick with his nose before they got hired.
Doctor Flag was a curious sight that Saturday afternoon as he roamed among the corpses in the hospital emergency room. The doctor on duty threatened to call the police to get rid of the strange little man who kept checking the dead workers with his stethoscope. Finally, Dr. Flag muttered with great sorrow, “They’re dead. Every last one of them is dead. I thought I could save them, but it wasn’t to be.” The ER nurses and doctor watched Dr. Flag slowly exit the hospital, shaking his head on his skinny shoulders as he made his way outside and lit a cigarette.
The hospital staff all knew the drill. “What is good for General Motors is good for Cranston General,” was the hospital president’s answer whenever he was approached about the GM encroachment on the hospital. And what he said was a true thing—32.8% of the entire revenue of Cranston General was from the employees and families from the GM plant, and over sixty per cent of the psychiatric unit’s income was due to GM’s business.
After being plucked off the labor and business stages and loaded into ambulances, John Dunham, Darius Delaney, Milt Jeffers and Jimmy Hatfield were taken to this bastion of high finance—the psychiatric unit of Cranston General. They were all strapped down and unconscious as they were wheeled through the glass doors and down the cheery, lime and yellow hallways of this newest wing of the hospital.
This was the age of electroshock therapy, the largely unregulated practice of shocking people’s brains in order to cure their mental illness, usually labeled depression. The truth was that GM did not recognize alcoholism as a disease, and when men could not go another day drinking and functioning, their doctors arranged that they come into the hospital to dry out under the guise of treatment for depression. And treatment for depression at Cranston General came to mean electroshock therapy several days a week. The practice had started with management personnel, most of whom really were insane (but also drunkards) from working at the plant, but once the hospital and local doctors recognized the plan for the money maker it was, the program grew rapidly and the alcoholism/insanity/depression line grew fuzzy.
For each treatment, the hospital got $1500 for providing the equipment and straps, the psychiatrist got $500 for eight minutes of work, and the family doctor signed the chart for $50. As the practice had ballooned, the number of psychiatrists in Cranston had swelled to ten times the per capita norm nationwide. A shrink could earn enough in only a few years at Cranston General, treating autoworkers for depression, to consider retiring. And with all the money flowing from GM to the doctors and hospital, a dozen more money managers could make a living in Cranston. And all of these high wage earners needed new homes. It really was true that every auto industry job created ten more jobs. Indeed, what was good for General Motors was good for the country. History will show that no one actually ever said that, but it sure sounded good.
The lounge was full of chain smoking autoworkers, sober for the first time in a decade, marveling that there was a world functioning all around them. “There’s the fucking plant manager!” Dancin’ Dan called excitedly as the first gurney was wheeled past the lounge. Dan had killed so many brain cells from drinking wine that he danced everywhere instead of walking, a gangly, jerky motion mostly involving his upper body. Dan’s dancing had actually increased in intensity since he had arrived at the hospital, so happy he was to be out of the stinking factory and watching TV all day.
Then Milt Jeffers could be seen on the next gurney. “There’s the fucking shop chairman!” shouted Crazy George, a production foreman who had taken to masturbating at the end of the quarter panel line whenever quota was not met. One day someone had thrown a bag over his head, and next thing he knew, here he was. He, too, was happy to be here in this light and airy place.
Then right there in the lounge of the psychiatric unit of Cranston General Hospital, the men started shaking hands with one another. Though the hourly and salaried men had always kept a distance from each other, the sight of the plant manager and shop chairman both arriving for treatment for insanity instantly dissolved any animosity they felt for each other. Then they were hugging—foremen hugging tow motor operators, parts stackers hugging superintendents, and electricians hugging accountants.
History was being made. They could not possibly know it, but their spirit of mutual understanding was to become the basis of tolerance and cooperation between the union and management. They could not state what they felt, but it was real and genuine—insanity was the great equalizing force in the auto industry. They were all fucking nuts! Why not just get along from now on?
Dr. Flag was at the hospital when the four men began waking up that evening. The big men from Detroit had stood stoically before the four rooms, taking turns guarding the miscreants who were costing GM big money and the union its credibility.
The doctor sat in a chair along the hallway, listening to the party atmosphere in the lounge, secretly wishing that he could be a part of it. He was a working man; he should be in there with them chain smoking and playing grab ass. “Doc,” one of the big men called.
Doctor Flag entered the room of Darius Delaney with his clipboard. The luau chairman sat up in the bed, looking around in disbelief. He had no idea where he was. Had he been in some sort of accident? The last thing he remembered was talking to Sylvia Porter. “How are you feeling, Darius?” the doctor inquired.
“What day is this?” Darius asked. Maybe it was tomorrow and he had already been quoted by Sylvia Porter.
Doctor Flag went about his work, listening to Darius’ breath with his favorite stethoscope, and he checked his blood pressure. “Please stand up and drop your drawers.”
Darius did as he was told, but before the doc could check him, there was a commotion in the hallway. “Bring ‘em to their fucking knees,” Jimmy shouted, then ran down the hallway, a couple of the big guys chasing him.
In the lounge, Dancin’ Dan and Crazy George were politely discussing the
steel lubrication problems of the quarter panel metal. They heard the ruckus and listened. As Jimmy neared, and they heard the rant, they both knew who it was. Together they moved quickly to the lounge doorway. The two had played high school football, so when Dancin’ Dan muttered, “I got him low,” Crazy George knew to hit him high.
Insanity as equalizer; working together for progress. Dancin’ Dan and Crazy George tackled Jimmy and showed what was possible when union and management were willing to work together. Although it would be many years for the Quality Work Life program to be born, it was recognized industrywide that it, and many other joint programs, began right here in the nut house in Cranston, Ohio.
Part II
Transition
Wildcat Page 18
