Working

by Studs Terkel

  “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 button on the top for high voltage and a button 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 button.

  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.)

  Repetition 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 nobody 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 titled 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 damn 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 nobody stickin’ their finger in my face. I’d’ve probably hit him beside the head. The whole thing was: Damn 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 nobody was there, who the hell were they gonna walk up to and say, “Are you gonna work?” Man, there woulda been nobody 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 assembly 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 assembly 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 hell.

  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. The
se 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 bumping 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.