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? Superintendent, 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.”
Have you heard of Lordstown, where the Vega plant is?
I like to read the
Wall Street Journal.
I’d like to invest some in Wall Street. I’d like to learn more about the stock market. Financially, I can’t do it yet—two small children . . . I read the entire Lordstown article they had in there. I think the union was unjustified. And I think management could have done a better job. A hundred cars an hour is quite excessive. But again, you’re building a small car and it’s easier to set a line up. But I understand there was some sabotage.
I think the president of the union is only twenty-nine years old. I imagine he’s a real hardheaded type of individual. He’s headstrong and he wants his way. If I was working with him, we’d probably be bumpin’ heads quite a bit. I’ve been known to be hardheaded and hard-nosed and real stubborn if I have to be.
“I won a scholarship at Mendel High School, but I couldn’t afford the books. At the time, my family was pretty hard up. So I went to Vocational High and it was the biggest mistake I ever made. I was used to a Catholic grammar school. I needed Catholic schooling to keep me in line ’cause I was a pretty hot-tempered type.”
I’m the type of guy, sometimes you gotta chew me out to let me know you’re still around. If you didn’t, I might forget and relax. I don’t like to relax. I can’t afford it. I like to stay on my toes. I don’t want to get stagnant, because if I do, I’m not doing anybody any good.
(
He studies his watch. It has all the appurtenances: second, minute, hour, day, month, year . . .
)
I refer to my watch all the time. I check different items. About every hour I tour my line. About six thirty, I’ll tour labor relations to find out who is absent. At seven, I hit the end of the line. I’ll check paint, check my scratches and damage. Around ten I’ll start talking to all the foremen. I make sure they’re all awake, they’re in the area of their responsibility. So we can shut down the end of the line at two o‘clock and everything’s clean. Friday night everybody’ll get paid and they’ll want to get out of here as quickly as they can. I gotta keep ’em on the line. I can’t afford lettin’ ’em get out early.
We can’t have no holes, no nothing.
If a guy was hurt to the point where it would interfere with production, then it stops. We had a fella some years ago, he was trapped with body. The only way we could get him off was to shut the line off. Reverse the belt, in order to get his fingers out. We’re gonna shut the line to see that he don’t get hurt any more. A slight laceration or something like that, that’s an everyday occurrence. You have to handle ’em.
What’s your feeling walking the floor?
Like when I take the superintendent’s job, if he’s going on vacation for a week. They drive what they call an M-10 unit. Their license plate is always a numeral 2, with a letter afterwards: like 2-A, 2-D—which reflects the manager’s car. When he’s on vacation and I take his job, all his privileges become mine for a week. You’re thirty years old and you’re gonna be a manager at forty. I couldn’t ask for nothing better. When I take the car home for a week, I’m proud of that license plate. It says “Manufacturer” on it, and they know I work for Ford. It’s a good feeling.
Tom Brand has returned. Wheeler Stanley rises from the chair in soldierlike fashion. Brand is jovial. “In traveling around plants, we’re fortunate if we have two or three like him, that are real comers. It isn’t gonna be too long that these fellas are gonna take our jobs. Always be kind to your sweeper, you never know when you’re going to be working for him.”
(
Laughs.
)
Wheeler Stanley smiles.
GARY BRYNER
He’s twenty-nine, going on thirty. He is president of Local 1112, UAW. Its members are employed at the General Motors assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio. “It’s the most automated, fastest line in the world.” A strike had recently been settled “for a time.”
He had just come from a long negotiating session. It was one of many for him during the past twenty months of his presidency. We’re in a restaurant along the highway. It’s part of a complex of motels and shopping centers, somewhere between Youngstown and Warren. The area is highly industrial: steel, auto, rubber. “Lordstown was a crossroads. People have migrated from cities around it . . . I live in Newton Falls, a little town of six thousand. Ten minutes from General Motors.”
After graduating from high school in 1959, he “got a job where my father worked, in Republic Steel.” He was there four years—“dabbled with the union, was a steward. I was the most versatile guy there. (Laughs.) I started on the track gang, I went into the forging department, a blacksmith’s helper. Then, a millwright’s helper. Then a millwright until I was laid off in ’63.” He worked at another factory in Ravenna for three years. “That’s where I really got involved in the union.” In 1966 he “went to General Motors at Lordstown.”