Working. Part 14

If a man's due any respect, he'll get respect. Got foremens in here I have no respect for whatsoever. Everyone is pa.s.sing the buck. Management and they've got groups under them and it spreads out just like a tree. Some foremen is trying to make it big, want to go to the top, and they don't last too long. Respect . . .

You couldn't guess what I'd like to do. I'd like to farm. But there is not a decent living unless you're a big-time farmer. Because you got these different companies like Libby's, they have these big farms now. Yeah, I would just like to farm. You set your own pace, you're your own boss. When it comes a little cloud and it comes a little rain, you quit. Wait till the sun comes out before you do the work. But here it's different. (He's intense; he feverishly acts out his job, moving his arms in the manner of a robot.) Lightning can strike and it can rain or be eighteen degrees below zero, and you're still in there, grindin'.

Suppose a car could be made by robots, and all the people were free to do what they most wanted for a living . . .

The land's runnin' out. Maybe they would like to have a service station or a grocery store or sit on the creek bank and fish or be a loafer or turn hippies or whatever or nothin'. I'd say it'd be thirty percent hippies in the country. They'd just give up.

It wouldn't be safe for you to walk out of your front door, because you'd have too many people with unoccupied minds. They got the money and that's all they care. They'll either have a gun, they'll either have dope, they'd be hot rodding. They'd be occupied with trouble. Because someone has got to work.

Thirteen more years with the company, it'll be thirty and out. When I retire, I'm gonna have me a little garden. A place down South. Do a little fishin', huntin'. Sit back, watch the sun come up, the sun go down. Keep my mind occupied.

NED WILLIAMS.

I done the same job twenty-two years, twenty-three years. Everybody else on that job is dead.

He has worked for the Ford Motor Company from 1946 to now. His wife is a seamstress. They have six children. In the parlor of his two-story frame house he acts out his life, his work. He cannot sit still. He moves about the room, demonstrates, jabs at the air in the manner of an old-time boxer. He has a quickness about him-for a moment, in the guest's mind, is the portrait of the agile little forward who led Wendell Phillips High School's basketball team to triumphs in the late twenties.

I started out on truck tires. I made sixty to eighty jobs a day, and this is all times six. We put in six days a week. A job's a whole truck. And six tires to a truck, plus spare. There was a trick to putting the rim in, so that it had a little click. You had to be very fine to know. So you would put this clip around and then you stand over it, and I would just kick it over-boom!-in there. This I had to learn on my own. Didn't n.o.body teach me this. I'd take this tire, roll it up, I'll lay it right beside. I'd come back, get another tire, put it on, get another tire, put it on . . .

He indicates a photograph on the end table. It is a young Ned Williams, smiling, surrounded by a whole wall of tires. He is wearing gloves.

After you mount it, you just don't leave them there on the floor. We had to put air in 'em, and then roll 'em on to little stalls. And these tires come on racks. I'd go get 'em, and you can't reach in the rack and grab any tire. You got 7/15s, you got 6/15s, you got 7/18s, you got 10/20s.

I could knock down five tires like that. Just take my left hand, guide 'em with my right. If you don't get production, you're out of there. I got my skill playin' basketball. Gotta speed it up. You had a quota, startin' time in the morning and another in the afternoon. At that time there was two of us, then they cut it down to one.

Bend and reach-like a giraffe. I had to jump all the time. Sometime I had to climb. I continually told 'em to lower the racks. They wasn't supposed to put but seventy-five on the racks. But they put 125, 140, 150. And it's up as high as you could get up on a ladder. A lot of times you pull a tire around like that (feverishly he relives the moment in pantomime)-it might go around your gla.s.ses, around your head. Some got hurt.

I wish I had a penny for every time I jumped. You really don't have time to feel tired. I'm tired, yeah, but I got a job to do. I had to do it. I had no time to think or daydream. I woulda quit. (Laughs.) Worked on the line till about two years ago.

I'm arrogant. Not too much now. Before I was. The only way I could object is-don't do it. When I get tired, I come in there with one of my mean days . . . I didn't care if they let me go and they knew it. I was proud of my work. Just don't push me. I was born here.

For the first four hours I worked there I was gonna quit. I had been addressed just the wrong way. I just came out of service. This foreman, he walked around like a little guard. Shoot me in the back, I was doin' the best I could. I had never been on an a.s.sembly line in my life. This thing's moving, going. You gotta pick it up, baby. You gotta be fast on that. He was like a little shotgun. Go to the washroom, he's looking for you, and right back.

He was pushing. Somebody's pushing him, right? After I went and ate, I felt pretty good. I said, "I'm gonna defeat him." I worked under him for ten years. That man sent me a Christmas card every Christmas. We had a certain layoff in 1946. He said, "I'm gonna get some job for you here." That's when I got into tires. See, I been here four hours now and he's on my back. I came back in the afternoon, after that he was love and kisses. I wanted to do a job really.

I had a sense of responsibility. I been to the Green House many times, though, man. That's for a reprimand. You goofed. How I goofed? Say I'm runnin' 400 jobs, 450. I can look at that sheet, and after you look at that paper so long you may read the same thing twice, right? I'd be reprimanded. It's fast work, but they didn't see it. You can do twenty years of right and one hour of wrong and they'd string you.

If somebody else is treated bad, I'll talk for him. Maybe he don't have sense enough. They say, "Tend to your own business." My business is his business. He's just like me. When a foreman says to me it's none of my business I say, "If I was in the same shoe, you'd try to do that to me, but you better not. No, they ain't never gonna get me till I'm down and dead."

Sometimes I felt like I was just a robot. You push a b.u.t.ton and you go this way. You become a mechanical nut. You get a couple of beers and go to sleep at night. Maybe one, two o'clock in the morning, my wife is saying, "Come on, come on, leave it." I'm still workin' that line. Three o'clock in the morning, five o'clock. Tired. I have worked that job all night. Sat.u.r.day, Sunday, still working. It's just ground into you. My wife tap me on the shoulder. Tappin' me didn't mean nothin'. (Laughs.) Sometimes I got up on my elbows. I woke up on a Sunday goin' to work. We were working six days a week then. I still thought it was another workday. My wife, she sees me go in the bathroom. "Where you goin'? Come back." I got washed up, everything. "Where you goin? You got a girl this time of the morning?" I said, "What? What girl? I'm just goin' to work." She says, "On Sunday?" I said, "Today's Sunday? Jesus Christ!" A mechanical nut. Yet, honest to G.o.d, I done that more than once. Nineteen fifty-four, I know I done it twice.

I was sleeping in front of an American Legion post. I had more than a few drinks. This was Sunday. Somebody says, "Go home." I thought they said, "Go to work." Whoosh! I had a brand-new 1955 Montclair Merc and I whoosh! I cut out of there. I went out to the plant and drove all the way to the gate and got there, and I don't see no cars. I don't know what, baby.

It just affected all the parts of my life as far as that go. I'm looking at the fellas been here longer than me. They the same way, worse. I talk to'em every day, and I hear fellas that got forty-two years, thirty-seven years, thirty-five years. Mechanical nuts.

The union does the best they can. But if the man has a record, there's nothin' union can do. They put the book on the table and he gets his time off, maybe a week, maybe three days, maybe three weeks. It's no paid vacation.

Some of the younger guys are objectin', oh yeah. They got nothin' to lose. Just like my boy I got hired out there. Some of 'em are twenty, twenty-two, ain't got no wife, so they don't worry about it. They don't show up on Monday, they don't show up on Tuesday. Take 'em to the Green House. Give 'em a week off, they don't care. If I could figure 'em out, I could be a millionaire and just sit on the porch out here. I could retire right now if I could figure 'em out.

If I had my life to live over again, it would be the first thirty-five years of my life. I didn't do nothin'. I don't like work, I never did like work. There's some elderly people here right now who looked at my mother and said, "I never thought that boy would work." My hands were so soft, like a sponge. Went to a manicurist twice a week. I always wore gloves at work. I didn't want to get my hands messed up.

I am a stock chaser now for the audit area. I get all the small parts you need, that I carry on a bicycle-like a mirror or chrome or door panels. I get 'em as quickies, 'cause I'm on the sell floor. This job is ready to go. Been doin' this last two years. Up front. There's hardly anybody there that's under twenty years' service. That's old folks home.

It's a cut in pay. I have what you call a nonpromotion job. It's easier work, I don't have to bend down now. It ain't right, but this is what you live under. I was a good worker, but I suffered that for this. Say you lose $1.20 a day. I come home and I can still play volleyball.

I don't feel tired, just older. I haven't talked in my sleep since I got off that job. I don't bring nothin' home now. I got the keys to the bicycle and that's it. (Laughs.) I don't worry about it till I get there.

Is the automobile worth it?

What it drains out of a human being, the car ain't worth it. But I think of a certain area of proudness. You see them on that highway, you don't look and see what model it is or whose car it is. I put my labor in it. And somebody just like me put their area of work in it. It's got to be an area of proudness.

TOM BRAND.

He is plant manager at the Ford a.s.sembly Division in Chicago. He has been with the company thirty years, aside from service in the Navy during World War II. At forty-eight, he exudes an air of casual confidence, ebullient, informal . . .

He came up from the ranks. "I was in the apprentice school in Detroit. Then I moved over to the Highland Park plant and was a leader in the milling department. I was eighteen. They were all women and they gave me a fit. All had kids older than me. 'Hey Whitey, come over here.' They kidded the life out of me." (Laughs.) After the war he attended the University of Michigan and earned a degree in engineering. "Went to work for Ford Research." Various moves -test engineer into quality control, processing . . . five moves around the country: St. Louis, Twin Cities, back to Detroit, Chicago. "I've been here three years."

There's a plaque on the desk: Ford, Limited Edition. "That was our five millionth car. There are about forty-five hundred people working here. That's about 3,998 hourly and about 468 salaried." Management and office employees are salaried.

You're responsible to make sure the car is built and built correctly. I rely on my quality control manager. Any defects, anything's wrong, we make sure it's repaired before it leaves the plant. Production manager takes care of the men on the line, makes sure they're doing their job, have the proper tools and the s.p.a.ce and time to do it in. But the quality control manager is really our policeman. Quality control doesn't look at every item on the car. Some by surveillance. You take a sample of five an hour. Some, we look in every car. They make sure we're doing what we say we're doing.

Okay, we've got to build forty-seven an hour. Vega, down in Lordstown, had a hundred an hour. They got trapped with too much automation. If you're going to automate, you always leave yourself a loophole. I haven't seen their picture. I want to show it to all my managers. Okay, we build 760 big Fords a day.

These things go out the door to the customer. The customer, he comes back to the dealer. The dealer comes back to us and the warranty on the policy. That's the money the Ford company puts out to the dealer to fix any defects. We listen better. If the customer comes in and says, "I have a water leak," the dealer'll write up an 1863 and the company pays for that repair. Everybody's real interested in keeping this down. We've been very fortunate. It's been progressively getting better and better and better. In December, we beat $1.91. It's unheard of for a two-shift plant to beat $1.91 in the warranty.

I'm usually here at seven o'clock. The first thing in the morning we have a night letter-it's from the production manager of the night shift. He tells us everything's fine or we had a breakdown. If it was a major problem, a fire, I'd be called at home. It's a log of events. If there's any problem, I get the fellas, "What can we do about this? Is it fixed?" It's eight o'clock in Detroit. I might get an early call.

Then I go out on the floor, tour the plant. We've got a million and a half square feet under the roof. I'll change my tour-so they can't tell every day I'm going to be in the same place at the same time. The worst thing I could do is set a pattern, where they'll always know where I'll be.

I'm always stopping to talk to foremen or hourly fellas. Or somebody'll stop me, "I got a suggestion." I may see a water leak, I say to the foreman, "Did you call maintenance?" Not do it myself, let him go do it. By the time I get back in the office, I have three or four calls, "Can you help me on this?" This is how you keep in contact.

Usually about nine thirty I've looked at our audit cars. We take eight cars, drive 'em, rewater 'em, test 'em put 'em on a hoist, check all the torque, take a visual check. We look over the complete car for eight of'em. Then there's forty more each day that we go and convoy and take an expanded audit look.

We usually have a manpower meeting, we'll go over our requirements for next week. In our cost meeting every Thursday afternoon, we have both shifts together. The operating committee meets usually every other day: my a.s.sistant plant manager; an operations manager, he has two production managers; a controller; an engineering manager; a quality control manager; and a materials manager. That's the eight key figures in the plant.

We have a doctor. We like him here at ten o'clock in the morning, so he overlaps into the night shift. There are four nurses and one standby. If there's an accident, they're the first one to go down. Is it carelessness? Is it our fault? Was there oil on the floor? Did they slip? Make sure everybody wears safety gla.s.ses. We provide them prescription lenses free-and safety shoes at a real good discount. If I went into the store to buy these, they'd probably run around $30. Here they're only $11.50. And we bought 257 earm.u.f.fs in the body shop where we do a lot of welding and in various areas where we have compressed air. Or big blowoff stations. The federal government says you must provide ear protection for anybody in a high noise level area. We baffled all those. Some of the fellas said, "I'm not gonna wear 'em." We said, "Either you wear 'em or you're not gonna work here." We've never had a hard of hearing comp case in all the years I've been with Ford.

We have a big project now on the spot-weld guns and manifolding of all our guns. The company's paid a lot of money. Earplugs and earm.u.f.fs. A fella wears 'em and if it's ninety degree temperature, okay, they get warm. I can appreciate that. I wouldn't like to wear 'em all day myself. So what we've done on the big blowers is put insulation that thick. You can stand right next to it. We're well within the noise level requirement. In the summertime, we have big 440 fans. They really move the air. It's much cooler in the plant than it is on a ninety degree day outside.

We had an accident about two years ago, a fella on the trim line. He slipped and he hit his head and he was laying on the conveyer. They shut the line down. It didn't start up again until the ambulance took him to the hospital. There isn't any car worth a human arm or leg. We can always make a car. But if anybody's hurt, an act of G.o.d-a human eye-my brother's got only one eye. That's why I'm a bug on safety gla.s.ses.

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 att.i.tude. 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 a.s.set because we have a lot of visits from Detroit. They come in and somebody says, "Go see George Schuessler; he's the cha.s.sis 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 a.s.sist 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 gla.s.ses 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 a.s.sembly plants. Over him is the a.s.sistant general manager. Over him is our vice president and general manager. a.s.sembly is one division. There's the Gla.s.s Division, Transportation Division, Metal-stamping Division . . ."

a.s.sembly'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 eyeb.a.l.l.s, 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 cha.s.sis 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 n.o.body 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 a.s.sembly 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 ent.i.tled to it, they're not gonna give it to me. If they think I'm ent.i.tled 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 a.s.sembly 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 a.s.signment 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 a.s.sociate 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 a.s.sembly 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 gla.s.ses 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 cha.s.sis 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 compet.i.tion between the day shift and the night shift. Good, wholesome compet.i.tion 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 att.i.tude. I view a management att.i.tude 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 partic.i.p.ated 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 cha.s.sis. 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 b.u.t.ton 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.