Working

by Studs Terkel

  Three years ago, I had plenty of grievances. We had a lot of turnover, a lot of new employees. As many as 125 people would be replaced each week. Now with the economic situation, our last raises, and the seven days’ holiday between Christmas and New Year’s, this just changed the whole attitude. They found out it’s a real good place to work. They’re getting top dollar. Twelve paid vacation days a year, and they like the atmosphere. There was a lot of fellas would go in the construction industry about this time of the year. Less now.

  I’ve had fellas come in to me and say, “I’m not satisfied. Can I talk to you about it?” I say, “Sure, come on in.” You can’t run a business sitting in the office ‘cause you get divorced too much from the people. The people are the key to the whole thing. If you aren’t in touch with the people they think, He’s too far aloof, he’s distant. It doesn’t work. If I walk down the line, there’ll be a guy fifty feet away from me. I’d wave, he’d wave back. Many of ’em I know by name. I don’t know everyone by name, but I know their faces. If I’m in the area, I’ll know who’s strange. I’ll kid with one of ’em . . .

  (Indicates identification tag on his shirt) These are a real asset because we have a lot of visits from Detroit. They come in and somebody says, “Go see George Schuessler; he’s the chassis superintendent.” He may kind of forget. So he’ll look and see the name. We have a lot of new managers in the turnover. When they brought me in from Twin City, this was a real assist for me to have them walk in and say; “Good morning, Tom, how are you?” I’ve had a lot of ’em call me Mr. Brand—men I’ve known before in the other places. I said, “Look, has it changed since I moved from that office to this office?” So it’s worked. All the salaried people have tags, not the girls.

  Not guys on the line?

  We were thinkin’ about it, but too many of ’em leave ‘em home. It was a job gettin’ ‘em to bring their glasses every day and the key to their locker. Some are forgetful, some have a real good sense of responsibility. Others do a good job, but don’t want the responsibility. We’ve asked some of ’em, “How would you like to be a foreman?” “Naw, I don’t want any part of being a foreman. I want to be one of the boys.”

  We’ve got about forty-five percent black in the plant. I would say about twenty-five percent of the salaried are black. We’ve got some wonderful ones, some real good ones. A lot of ‘em were very militant about three years ago—the first anniversary of Martin Luther King’s—about the year I got here. Since that time we haven’t had any problem. Those that may be militant are very quiet about it. They were very outspoken before. I think it’s more calmed down. Even the younger kids, black and white, are getting away from real long hair. They’re getting into the shaped and tailored look. I think they’re accepting work better, more so than in years previous, where everything was no good. Every manufacturer was a pollutant, whether it be water, the air, or anything, “The Establishment’s doing it.” I don’t hear that any more.

  “My dad worked for Ford when they started in 1908. He got to be a superintendent in the stock department. They called ‘em star badges in those days. One day jokingly I took his badge with the star on it and left him mine. I almost got shot. (Laughs.) My brother worked for Ford. My son works at the Twin City plant. He’s the mail boy. In the last two summers he’s been working in the maintenance department, cleaning the paint ovens and all the sludge out of the pits. He said, ’You got the best job in Chicago and I got the worst job in Twin City.’ (Laughs.) He was hourly then, dirty work. Mail boy, well, that’s salaried. He’s going to school nights. He’s learning a lot.”

  On Tuesdays at two thirty is the 1973 launch meetings, new models. It’s March and the merry-go-round conveyers are already in. It’s a new type of fixture. This is where we build all the front ends of the car. Between Christmas and New Year’s we put in the foundation under the floor. Usually every other year there’s a model change. Next year everything goes. Sixty-eight hundred parts change.

  “My boss is the regional manager in Detroit. He has seven assembly plants. Over him is the assistant general manager. Over him is our vice president and general manager. Assembly is one division. There’s the Glass Division, Transportation Division, Metal-stamping Division . . .”

  Assembly’s the biggest division. We’re the cash register ringers. The company is predicated on the profit coming off this line. Knock on wood, our plant maintenance people do a remarkable job. When we get ’em off the line they go to the dealer and to the customer. And that’s where the profit is.

  When I’m away I’m able to leave my work behind. Not all the time. (Indicates the page boy on his belt) Some nights I forget and I suddenly discover at home I’ve got the darn thing on my belt. (Laughs.) We just took a fourteen-day Caribbean cruise. They sent me a telegram: “Our warranty for December, $1.91. Enjoy yourselves.” That’s better than some single-shift plants in quality.

  I don’t think I’ll retire at fifty. I’m not the type to sit around. Maybe if my health is good I’ll go to fifty-seven, fifty-nine. I enjoy this work very much. You’re with people. I like people. Guys who really do the job can spot a phony. When I walk out there and say good morning, you watch the fellas. There’s a world of difference if they really know you mean it.

  Doing my job is part salesmanship. I guess you can term it human engineering. My boss, so many years past, used to be a real bull of the woods. Tough guy. I don’t believe in that. I never was raised that way. I never met a guy you couldn’t talk to. I never met a man who didn’t put his pants on the same way I do it in the morning. I met an awful lot of ‘em that think they do. It doesn’t work. The old days of hit ’em with a baseball bat to get their attention—they’re gone.

  If I could get everybody at the plant to look at everything through my eyeballs, we’d have a lot of the problems licked. If we have one standard to go by, it’s easy to swing it around because then you’ve got everybody thinking the same way. This is the biggest problem of people—communication.

  It’s a tough situation because everybody doesn’t feel the same every day. Some mornings somebody wakes up with a hangover, stayed up late, watched a late, late movie, missed the ride, and they’re mad when they get to work. It’s just human nature. If we could get everybody to feel great . . .

  WHEELER STANLEY

  “I’m probably the youngest general foreman in the plant, yes, sir.” He was invited to sit in the chair of the plant manager as Tom Brand went about his work. “I’m in the chassis line right now. There’s 372 people working for us, hourly. And thirteen foremen. I’m the lead general foreman.”

  He grew up in this area, “not more than five minutes away. I watched the Ford plant grow from when I was a little boy.” His father is a railroad man and he is the only son among four children. He is married and has two small children.

  He has just turned thirty. He appears always to be “at attention.” It is not accidental. “I always had one ambition. I wanted to go in the army and be a paratrooper. So I became a paratrooper. When I got out of the army, where I majored in communications, I applied at Illinois Bell. But nobody was hiring. So I came out here as an hourly man. Ten years ago. I was twenty.”

  I was a cushion builder. We made all the seats and trim. I could comprehend it real easy. I moved around considerably. I was a spot-welder. I went from cushion to trim to body shop, paint. I could look at a job and I could do it. My mind would just click. I could stand back, look at a job, and five minutes later I can go and do it. I enjoyed the work. I felt it was a man’s job. You can do something with your hands. You can go home at night and feel you have accomplished something.

  Did you find the assembly line boring?

  No, uh-uh. Far from boring. There was a couple of us that we were hired together. We’d come up with different games—like we’d take the numbers of the jeeps that went by. That guy loses, he buys coffee. I very rarely had any problems with the other guys. We had a lot of respect for each other. If you’re a deadhead when you’re
an hourly man and you go on supervision, they don’t have much use for you. But if they know the guy’s aggressive and he tries to do a job, they tend to respect him.

  I’m the kind of guy, if I was due for a raise I’m not gonna ask for it. If they don’t feel I’m entitled to it, they’re not gonna give it to me. If they think I’m entitled to it, they’ll give it to me. If I don’t deserve it, I’m not gonna get it. I don’t question my boss, I don’t question the company.

  When I came here I wanted to be a utility man. He goes around and spot relieves everybody. I thought that was the greatest thing in the world. When the production manager asked me would I consider training for a foreman’s job, boy! my sights left utility. I worked on all the assembly lines. I spent eighteen months on the lines, made foreman, and eighteen months later I made general foreman—March of ’66.

  A lot of the old-timers had more time in the plant than I had time in the world. Some of ’em had thirty, thirty-five years’ service. I had to overcome their resentment and get their respect. I was taught one thing: to be firm but fair. Each man has got an assignment of work to do. If he has a problem, correct his problem. If he doesn’t have a problem, correct him.

  If an hourly man continued to let the work go, you have to take disciplinary action. You go progressively, depending on the situation. If it was me being a young guy and he resented it, I would overlook it and try to get him to think my way. If I couldn’t, I had to go to the disciplinary route —which would be a reprimand, a warning.

  If they respect you, they’ll do anything for you. If they don’t, they won’t do nothin’ for you. Be aggressive. You have to know each and every man and know how they react. I have to know each and every one of my foremen. I know how they react, all thirteen.

  There’s a few on the line you can associate with. I haven’t as yet. When you get familiarity it causes—the more you get to know somebody, it’s hard to distinguish between boss and friend. This isn’t good for my profession. But I don’t think we ever change much. Like I like to say, “We put our pants on the same way.” We work together, we live together. But they always gotta realize you’re the boss.

  I want to get quality first, then everything else’ll come. The line runs good, the production’s good, you get your cost and you get your good workmanship. When they hire in, you gotta show ’em you’re firm. We’ve got company rules. We’ve got about seventeen different rules here at Chicago Ford Assembly that we try to enforce from the beginning.

  The case begins with a reprimand, a warning procedure. A lotta times they don’t realize this is the first step to termination. If they’ve got thirty years’ service, twenty years’ service, they never realize it. There’s always a first step to termination. If you catch a guy stealing, the first step is a termination. In the case of workmanship, it’s a progressive period. A reprimand, docked time—three days, a week. Then a termination.

  You mean discharge?

  Discharge. This isn’t always the end. You always try to correct it. It’s not directly our responsibility to discharge. It’s a labor relations responsibility. We initiate the discipline and support the case for a discharge.

  Guys talk about the Green House . . .

  I never call it a Green House. This is childish. It never seemed right to me: “I’ll take you to the Green House.” You wanted to tell a guy in a man’s way, “If you don’t do better, I’ll take you to the office.” Or “We’ll go to labor relations to solve this thing.” It sounds a lot more management. Not this: “I’m gonna take you to the Green House.”

  When you worked on the line, were you ever taken to the . . . office?

  No. I didn’t take no time off and I always did my job well, wore my glasses and everything. I don’t think I’ve missed three days in the last five years. My wife likes to nag me, because if she gets sick I pick up my mother-in-law and bring her over. “You stay with my wife, she’s not that bad. I’m going to work.”

  Dad never missed work. He worked hard. He used to work a lot of overtime. He’d work sixteen hours. They’d say, “He gets his wind on the second shift.” He started off as a switchman. Now he’s general yard master. He’s been a company man all his life. I always admired him for it.

  Do you feel your army training helped you?

  Considerably. I learned respect. A lotta times you like to shoot your mouth off. You really don’t know how to control your pride. Pride is a good attribute, but if you got too much of it . . . when it interferes with your good judgment and you don’t know how to control it . . . In the army, you learn to shut up and do your job and eat a little crow now and then. It helps.

  There’s an old saying: The boss ain’t always right but he’s still the boss. He has things applied to him from top management, where they see the whole picture. A lot of times I don’t agree with it. There’s an instance now. We’ve been having problems with water leaks. It doesn’t affect the chassis department, but it’s so close we have to come up with the immediate fix. We have to suffer the penalty of two additional people. It reflects on your costs, which is one of my jobs. When the boss says pay ‘em, we pay ’em. But I don’t believe our department should be penalized because of a problem created in another department. There’s a lot of pride between these departments. There’s competition between the day shift and the night shift. Good, wholesome competition never hurt.

  Prior to going on supervision, you think hourly. But when you become management, you have to look out for the company’s best interests. You always have to present a management attitude. I view a management attitude as, number one, a neat-appearing-type foreman. You don’t want to come in sloppy, dirty. You want to come in looking like a foreman. You always conduct yourself in a man’s way.

  I couldn’t be a salesman. A salesman would be below me. I don’t like to go and bother people or try to sell something to somebody that they don’t really want, talk them into it. Not me. I like to come to work and do my job. Out here, it’s a big job. There’s a lot of responsibility. It’s not like working in a soup factory, where all you do is make soup cans. If you get a can punched wrong, you put it on the side and don’t worry about it. You can’t do that with a five-thousand-dollar-car.

  There’s no difference between young and old workers. There’s an old guy out here, he’s a colored fella, he’s on nights. He must be fifty-five years old, but he’s been here only five years. He amazes me. He tells me, “I’ll be here if I have to walk to work.” Some young guys tell you the same thing. I don’t feel age has any bearing on it. Colored or white, old or young, it’s the caliber of the man himself.

  In the old days, when they fought for the union, they might have needed the union then. But now the company is just as good to them as the union is. We had a baseball meeting a couple of nights ago and the guy’s couldn’t get over the way the company supported a banquet for them and the trophies and the jackets. And the way Tom Brand participated in the banquet himself.

  A few years ago, it was hourly versus management—there was two sides of the world. Now it’s more molded into one. It’s not hourly and management; it’s the company. Everybody is involved in the company. We’ve achieved many good things, as baseball tournaments, basketball leagues. We’ve had golf outings. Last year we started a softball league. The team they most wanted to beat was supervision—our team. It brought everybody so much closer together. It’s one big family now. When we first started, this is ’65, ’66, it was the company against the union. It’s not that way any more.

  What’s the next step for you?

  Superintendent. I’ve been looking forward to it. I’d be department head of chassis. It’s the largest department in the plant.

  And after that?

  Pre-delivery manager. And then production manager and then operation manager is the way it goes—chain of command. Last year our operation man went to Europe for four months. While he was gone I took the job as a training period.

  And eventually?

  Who knows? Superi
ntendent, first. That’s my next step. I’ve got a great feeling for Ford because it’s been good to me. As far as I’m concerned, you couldn’t ask for a better company. It’s got great insurance benefits and everything else. I don’t think it cost me two dollars to have my two children. My son, he’s only six years old and I’ve taken him through the plant. I took him through one night and the electricians were working the body hoists. He pushed the button and he ran the hoist around and he couldn’t get over that. He can now work a screw driver motor. I showed him that. He just enjoyed it. And that’s all he talks about: “I’m going to work for Ford, too.” And I say, “Oh, no you ain’t.” And my wife will shut me up and she’ll say, “Why not?” Then I think to myself, “Why not? It’s been good to me.”

  I like to see people on the street and when they say, “I got a new Ford,” I ask how it is. You stop at a tavern, have a drink, or you’re out for an evening, and they say, “I’ve got a new Ford,” you like to be inquisitive. I like to find out if they like the product. It’s a great feeling when you find someone says, “I like it, it rides good. It’s quiet. Everything you said it would be.”