00:00:00.000 - 00:00:07.800

I turn them on. So again, amendment the bar there, they like Mike. I don't know. I got it. All right.

00:00:07.800 - 00:00:27.660

Tell me about getting a job. When he first started working. I started going through divorcing 990 little girl after I split with my wife.

00:00:27.660 - 00:00:42.800

And I put an application in which we were doing a lot of the hiring in 98992 thousand. And it took almost 18 months

00:00:42.800 - 00:00:53.530

for me to get hired there. I was in business for myself and I was looking for benefits. So I had the opportunity to go there.

00:00:53.530 - 00:01:05.480

And it had health insurance and retirement. Like I said, it took 18 months to get in there. There was a lot of preliminary tests

00:01:05.480 - 00:01:19.880

that you had to go to even be considered and a plated out. They told you two days before you hire a mucoid,

00:01:19.880 - 00:01:26.390

they call you on a Friday and told you to be at work on a Monday. If you wanted to draw the crease or you could even give it to

00:01:26.390 - 00:01:39.400

a notice to quit and take a chance. What did you do when you first started working? When I first started working there,

00:01:39.400 - 00:01:55.100

there was we were at six day a week, ten hour a day schedule. And you had one weekend a month off? The and it was available was second shift.

00:01:55.100 - 00:02:05.140

She worked for for the afternoon till 230 in the morning. When you come in new, you didn't have a job.

00:02:05.140 - 00:02:15.440

You were in what was called the pool. So you did whatever job they needed you to do that night? They'd give me half an hour

00:02:15.440 - 00:02:24.320

to 45 minutes to learn a job. And and hopefully you had a male that's what you did. You would do most

00:02:24.320 - 00:02:32.390

likely a different job every night. Watching while you eat the same job for a week if somebody was on vacation,

00:02:32.390 - 00:02:43.070

but she just bounced around until you found a job that you could get into. And with no seniority.

00:02:43.070 - 00:02:58.350

You get the badge out and see what jobs are listed was the bad jobs we had to start at the bottom and work your way up to perform daily variation in work night.

00:02:58.350 - 00:03:10.610

Cfl is our typical day. When he got off, if you don't have to 232 morning, he would he would not get yourself

00:03:10.610 - 00:03:20.950

relaxed to 430 or five o'clock in the morning by the time you got to sleep? To get up and be there by four. So you'd have to be up by

00:03:20.950 - 00:03:28.100

one or two o'clock to get chauffeur in your work. And when you went a year day was stored on other people's days,

00:03:28.100 - 00:03:37.080

we're ending. So it was a mindset that she had put yourself and be able to work those hours.

00:03:37.570 - 00:03:49.510

You try try to stay, concentrate on work. And Corbusier had a whole lot of family problems or rating heavy on your mind at least during week.

00:03:49.510 - 00:03:57.570

Because you had to give a moderating temperature. You didn't give me a 100, 210%. Then the measurable.

00:03:58.600 - 00:04:10.230

How did how did magnetic recipe affect family life? He had no family life. From Monday to Saturday.

00:04:10.840 - 00:04:25.400

It worked 60 hours a week. This was in the hay day up until about 2005, which means 1990, 2005. You work Monday through Saturday.

00:04:25.400 - 00:04:30.850

I'm really trying to get off on Saturday night. You had enough time to get yourself rested up.

00:04:30.850 - 00:04:38.920

Launching the next morning. We don't want Sunday morning. Spend a little bit of time with the family, maybe Saturday night, Sunday.

00:04:38.920 - 00:04:50.450

And he said, eat yourself, ready to go for Monday morning, Monday afternoon. I missed the first three years

00:04:50.450 - 00:05:03.510

of my kids lives grown up. So it it has a direct effect on family life. You have to have a strong partner to be able to get through it.

00:05:03.700 - 00:05:13.420

We went to an eight-hour schedule in about 2005. I think it was which would eat our schedule, but it was still six days a week.

00:05:13.420 - 00:05:23.630

You spend some more time with your family. But the questionnaire eight consumed, they paid you well for what you did to getting fantastic thing fits.

00:05:23.630 - 00:05:35.950

Your family was always taken care of. But did you had to make some concessions? That a lot of times most of the time was with your family.

00:05:35.950 - 00:05:47.940

Obviously, you teach baseball games, dinners, anniversaries, birthdays. You'd have to schedule around them. So it was tough.

00:05:51.310 - 00:06:04.700

What kind of jobs reservoir side ever done? Sometime early on. Like I said, when did they call it the pool? When you were in the pool when you've

00:06:04.700 - 00:06:13.250

bounced around on different jobs? They would they had three different apartments. They had body shop,

00:06:13.250 - 00:06:24.050

they had trim and chassis. They were all three separate entities within the same place. I was in. The chassis department.

00:06:24.050 - 00:06:35.510

There was more than nuts and bolts kind of thing working on the flames in suspension in and put in the motor gene. We're train was to finish,

00:06:35.510 - 00:06:43.760

we put a sheet in the door panels and stuff that you had to get in and out of every single vehicle.

00:06:43.760 - 00:06:53.720

Real hard on you, hard on the body. When you read a pool when he first started, the latter two were in chess, you were trained, they put

00:06:53.720 - 00:07:00.610

you wherever they needed to. So when he got to trend, sometimes I'd be for two or three weeks at a time.

00:07:00.610 - 00:07:14.230

Any job over there, which is hard. It is hard on the body of a different mindset. So beyond doubt it, and I would say is,

00:07:14.230 - 00:07:25.230

is about the hardest thing that I had to contend with. Does your patient the best at it algebraically?

00:07:30.220 - 00:07:42.460

The best the best job was. It was called body drop, is where the body of the vehicle actually met the frame of the truck.

00:07:42.460 - 00:07:53.630

And the News Journal did a big article on the question of play. And I got my face on the front page of the news journal is

00:07:53.630 - 00:08:01.560

a big article with me and one of the big bosses from Detroit and one of the big bosses for the new work plan.

00:08:01.840 - 00:08:14.840

They were made into guy with less than a year, had to get the front page of the newspaper. But I tried to do infrared and it was yeah,

00:08:14.840 - 00:08:20.660

it was definitely the best the best job that I had. I was still an infinite God that was out sick leave.

00:08:20.660 - 00:08:27.520

And I got to do that job for three or four months. You actually to to hold that job, would it had to have

00:08:27.520 - 00:08:34.790

25 years of seniority or more? And like I said, I was filling in for the eye and here comes the guy from

00:08:34.790 - 00:08:47.740

the newspaper taking pictures. Well as your relationship like with your co-workers, you had to he

00:08:47.740 - 00:08:54.430

didn't have to like your coworkers, but you had to have a certain kind of relationship with them? Because we all had to

00:08:54.430 - 00:09:04.810

work together. We didn't work together. It would make things miserable right on down the line. Because you never know one day you may be

00:09:04.810 - 00:09:09.940

working on one side where they're going to help you out. Internationally. You may be working on the other side where you

00:09:09.940 - 00:09:15.180

have to help them out. And if he didn't have a good relationship with the people that you worked around,

00:09:15.180 - 00:09:26.560

you could be in a real sink or swim situation. Did you ever see any of her clerks outside a plant?

00:09:26.560 - 00:09:39.260

I didn't hang. When when he got out of there at two in the morning or 132 morning

00:09:39.260 - 00:09:48.590

or whatever time it would be. I had worked my entire time in seconds shit. He got to remember that. It's like everybody else's

00:09:48.590 - 00:09:58.970

five o'clock in the afternoon. So you have to have some kind of a relationship both inside and outside of the plant.

00:09:58.970 - 00:10:07.280

Because there's not everybody and she machine motifs you. So year. It's two o'clock in the morning,

00:10:07.280 - 00:10:18.040

at five o'clock in the afternoon, you want to eat or whatever the case may be, to relax or somebody's house which get fired, somebody does have THE

00:10:18.040 - 00:10:23.950

want to wake them up in the middle of the night. The middle of the night for everybody else. So yeah.

00:10:23.950 - 00:10:41.150

You you had to have the camaraderie with with the people that you worked with at least to a point to to survive. What do you guys deal on the left and right,

00:10:41.150 - 00:10:51.470

whichever cloud in either. As it was before, two o'clock, we will definitely headed to a bar. I guarantee it was

00:10:51.470 - 00:10:59.960

a Friday or Saturday night and they saw it saw fit to get us out of there so we can go relax on where you get to

00:10:59.960 - 00:11:11.120

the Grand Round or local bore. Little boy that was there sometimes Woody, sometimes we drink, sometimes we do both. But you never knew what

00:11:11.120 - 00:11:19.390

time you want to get out? Because you had to make to know much. I knew how many vehicles they needed in a day.

00:11:19.390 - 00:11:26.560

You'd make that number and that's when he would touch it, cut you loose. If something happened and you wish it around, you have to work longer.

00:11:26.560 - 00:11:37.300

Or if the evening went well, good elderly. But there was definitely, definitely some sort of social self and your own when you're out early enough,

00:11:37.300 - 00:11:48.090

where something was to happen, whether it be a restaurant or bar, something other than a Dunkin Donuts, is you can have to work every time.

00:11:48.310 - 00:11:58.820

For the first for the first four years I was there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The overtime was insane. He made he made a ton of money

00:11:58.820 - 00:12:07.380

with your overtime achieving that time, spend it. I just say to you, you must miss your family life.

00:12:07.540 - 00:12:18.310

And you just look forward to that day off, that one weekend a month old. And it went the other way around mid-2000 where

00:12:18.310 - 00:12:24.910

we're working to reach all wanting to leech off. And we work one week, ONE or one week or one year.

00:12:24.910 - 00:12:34.890

And there we were wondering if we were going to work enough to be able to keep our benefits. So it, it it was like a roller coaster ride.

00:12:34.890 - 00:12:46.400

And everybody will have indexed. And hegemony, proud I am of women working on a plan. What's your take on that?

00:12:46.530 - 00:12:58.070

I odd partially didn't have a problem with women working in time. There were a lot of it and we had different views and outlooks on it today.

00:12:58.070 - 00:13:06.140

They they thought that they should be able to do everything in-demand could do. But he ne'er, there Steve Jobs,

00:13:06.140 - 00:13:17.860

it's just not meant for a woman to do, but initiating token, there's jobs in there. Did a woman can do the enemy and shouldn't be doing.

00:13:17.860 - 00:13:28.510

Whether it be for the finesse or the final touches, your attention to detail, whatever the case may be.

00:13:28.510 - 00:13:43.740

It seats did the woman starts. So there there is a place for, for every, everybody in the atmosphere like that. I had the craziest incidences that happened.

00:13:49.480 - 00:13:57.450

I don't know. With the craziest would be I guess the craziest would be when I'm going to get beat by the news drew.

00:13:58.030 - 00:14:07.450

It took me completely by stool. I didn't know I was in trouble. It's assault. Assault. Big lost in a bigger Boston.

00:14:07.450 - 00:14:14.840

A big, big boss walking up to me and a guy with a camera on it. I didn't know if I was to get rid of it, get fired or are not.

00:14:14.840 - 00:14:24.340

And they had somebody come up and cover my job to do the interview. So I would say that that's the craziest that that I had there.

00:14:24.340 - 00:14:37.870

We all we always had fallen or try to have fun. But that was by far the craziest. As E for HA, and never will.

00:14:37.870 - 00:14:46.730

We ran a hay day and things will go and write. Not everybody was looking at right over your shoulder making sure to G

00:14:46.730 - 00:14:58.180

dotted your I's and cross your t's. We would drink. We would have on there was something for everybody in there.

00:14:58.180 - 00:15:09.530

When he comes right down to it. Let me show my tweed with sunlight. And we always had a radio. He had to have something, make a noise

00:15:09.530 - 00:15:17.240

to pass the time. Everybody would pick a different kind of music. We listen to a different kind

00:15:17.240 - 00:15:26.620

of music every night, something that everybody would enjoy. Everybody respected that. Payday was Thursday night.

00:15:26.620 - 00:15:36.050

So music by Friday night, you were in tune with reality, I guess, in tune with things. Sometimes even get out of control.

00:15:36.050 - 00:15:45.460

But we had to do something to it to keep the mindset right? So I guess, I guess if if you want to call that fun,

00:15:45.460 - 00:15:59.080

we add dizzy now, I never had a job or not. There's there's always injuries on on the job.

00:15:59.080 - 00:16:13.570

Anywhere ego, not just of course, the more fatigue they were trying to get. Every single thing that could possibly get ADEA make as much money as they could,

00:16:13.570 - 00:16:25.910

refine their process and just get as much at a USA possibly could. Chore people got hurt, people get tight fingers.

00:16:25.910 - 00:16:36.650

Baroque wasn't in everyday deal. But it did happen to me or the fatigue of doing the exact same thing 400

00:16:36.650 - 00:16:48.890

times a day that it will toggle when to pull muscles. Just everything that goes along with that are doing

00:16:48.890 - 00:17:07.590

the same thing 400 times a day. They may not call an injury on paver, but it's a hard way to make a little imaginative play.

00:17:16.000 - 00:17:38.530

Doing an interview. To look at cool. I was really proud of gene like race or class. There were racist people influential.

00:17:38.530 - 00:17:49.300

But in order to, to work in a plant like that, within an environment like that. You couldn't be racist.

00:17:49.300 - 00:18:00.860

It could be most of the black and white with India and the world warming. Because everybody's doing the same job. Everybody's able to say angle,

00:18:00.860 - 00:18:12.320

the same orientation of what has to be done. Yes, they're all racist people that work there. But you pretty much have

00:18:12.320 - 00:18:24.680

to keep it to yourself if your, because there will be discipline action on the racism because it's, it's a 0 tolerance policy for that.

00:18:24.680 - 00:18:33.400

Any place that you work should have it. They definitely had it. They told you about it. So the ratio where

00:18:33.400 - 00:18:44.180

they they had to keep to themselves. I've always been in it did customer oriented business. So I've never had in their views

00:18:44.180 - 00:19:00.080

your elbows are would've been able to to get where I'm at today. Such as on its head for almost every SUN, drinking or drugs or

00:19:00.080 - 00:19:11.500

any kind of tough I love epic span. The idea. There was definitely a drink it and drove there.

00:19:11.500 - 00:19:20.960

There's there's drug getting drugs anywhere you go. It was more in their manufacturing atmosphere.

00:19:20.960 - 00:19:28.970

It's not really a crisis saying or GM thing or afford day. It's a where Yale. And to keep your mind,

00:19:28.970 - 00:19:41.140

to keep your mind right. A lot of times you have to turn to alternative substances. It was everywhere. Chrysler. There wasn't

00:19:41.140 - 00:19:51.020

just one area or one feeling. It wait for a management. Right to the custodians. Everybody had their thing.

00:19:51.020 - 00:20:02.930

Some people would have a heroine deal. So much smoke pot, somewhat drain, somewhat populist. Somebody would do

00:20:02.930 - 00:20:11.540

any combination of the above. It was everywhere. If you wanted to get help for it. Crusher, they

00:20:11.540 - 00:20:19.150

offered you the help that you wanted. If you wanted to help, they offered you helped to G it would get you the help that she needed.

00:20:19.150 - 00:20:29.840

Will it be a detox or an outpatient or a 28-day day, anything that you needed. They were right there with you because they knew the demands

00:20:29.840 - 00:20:39.090

of working in a job like that. We're going to take its toll certain amount of people. And it does.

00:20:41.490 - 00:20:54.640

Gender had any involvement with helium? The first served for years I worked in have much involved with with the union. Just because I was trying

00:20:54.640 - 00:21:06.400

to raise a young family. I didn't have the extra time to put into it. I was trying to spend with my family there towards good last three or four years.

00:21:06.400 - 00:21:22.040

We've worked with the food closet. We had a fee clause or that the union hall. And I'd go over there one day a week and passed yet to food for the day.

00:21:22.040 - 00:21:30.790

People that needed help, and sometimes people that needed the help. We're actually Chrysler employees that were our own disability or

00:21:30.790 - 00:21:44.320

I get fired for drinking. We're trying to get through we would have fund raisers get involved with the Meals on Wheels.

00:21:44.320 - 00:21:56.940

If it was a good day, kind of get back to the community. Question. Always treated me well. So there's my way given back.

00:22:07.800 - 00:22:22.690

How does studying artifacts your life? Personally? Other people now as the plant shutting down 60 thousand or your job,

00:22:22.690 - 00:22:34.920

sometimes more with full benefits, Food Pantry, retirement, everything that you needed. And with it shut down,

00:22:34.920 - 00:22:48.410

they offered you a 100 thousand out of $200 thousand to go 40 different journal, which He's not bad day.

00:22:48.410 - 00:22:58.460

Usually people will pay on $1000 to leave. But it definitely I took the job there because I didn't have any health insurance or

00:22:58.460 - 00:23:09.530

benefits before I went to work there, I was looking for the benefits and I was looking for the benefits, your retirement, and the security for

00:23:09.530 - 00:23:23.090

my kids and shutting down, I lost. It took me a year and a half to spend money and go back to living paycheck to paycheck.

00:23:23.090 - 00:23:36.980

So it's got a direct effect that same scale. It anymore. I still don't have health insurance. I have to try it for my retirement plan,

00:23:36.980 - 00:23:51.590

which I haven't had a chance to do there for four years. Is there anything else you wanna say about the failure time

00:23:51.590 - 00:24:05.120

there anything about the people you worked with and I built necessarily miss the job. And then he was a good job.

00:24:05.120 - 00:24:17.140

But like I said, it was it was hard on the body and it leaves demanding. I am sad to see to play it being torn down. I have to pass by the plant.

00:24:17.140 - 00:24:25.070

When I get to see my brother village and helped him, I passed by the plate AND sad to see it come down.

00:24:25.070 - 00:24:33.970

Every week or two, I see come down a little bit more. It's not necessary that I miss the job. I miss the people.

00:24:33.970 - 00:24:48.670

Mr. Mani benefits. But it was therefore a lot of years. A lot of years, and there's a lot of old toddlers and young people to seek out.

00:24:48.670 - 00:24:59.530

And everybody that I have taught two shapes I'd been added. Hello there in April 2007. And everybody that I have seen shared said,

00:24:59.530 - 00:25:08.690

they say they don't list the job. They miss two people. These two people, the people, the people are what really

00:25:08.690 - 00:25:18.830

do make the dough immunities, what the job is, what you may go. And they've been around the people, having good people, rarely.

00:25:18.830 - 00:25:32.810

Being Swedish, everything. Just reflect. Ii said that your grandfather worked he worked in a plant. Yeah.

00:25:32.810 - 00:25:46.820

My my grandfather. He was originally from Kentucky. And the coal mines in Kentucky. We're laying off, shutting down,

00:25:46.820 - 00:26:00.210

getting a little bit of automation in place to whether they need as many people in the coal mines. And that was late 40s, early 50s.

00:26:01.300 - 00:26:12.160

When everything finally we come to do Hey, they said it was work in North North Carolina. So I packed up the family.

00:26:12.160 - 00:26:26.350

There was three sisters and two brothers, including my dad. And packed up. The family went to North Carolina

00:26:26.350 - 00:26:35.480

because they're supposed to be what they're found that there was no work in North Carolina. So they had heard a rumor that there

00:26:35.480 - 00:26:50.060

was work at Chrysler in Detroit. So he way alone to Detroit, my grandfather data and left his wife and kids in North Carolina.

00:26:50.060 - 00:27:03.610

He got a job at Chrysler and started work and started the same way as me in Detroit in the early fifties. Can any bought family owned up to Detroit,

00:27:03.610 - 00:27:14.450

got everybody settle up there. I was there for one year. And they had cutbacks in Detroit or are they closed the plant or cut back?

00:27:14.450 - 00:27:24.240

I don't know exactly what the case was, but they they told him he could either quit or he could transfer of depth. So he transferred to Della.

00:27:24.340 - 00:27:34.340

He was there. Move down here once again left a family and each week for six months why he came down

00:27:34.340 - 00:27:43.400

here to get acclimated? Him and his brother. So I've got a great uncle, my grandfather, my green algal,

00:27:43.400 - 00:27:54.470

both retired from Chrysler and came down here. And they were the first ones they were in. The first first quarter was made

00:27:54.470 - 00:28:01.910

after the tag after the room remodeled to play it. Don't from making the tank to make it a color.

00:28:01.910 - 00:28:16.500

She was the first one. And he would go right on up to a building to take OR and retired in 1981. Hey, just died about two months ago.

00:28:16.960 - 00:28:29.300

March of 2011 here. He had just died and I didn't know the whole story until they were redone it after reviewing.

00:28:29.300 - 00:28:38.810

I knew the whole story. But the question, you know, it, it, it affects a lot of people. Each, each move people a lot of places.

00:28:38.810 - 00:28:51.080

It's not a lot of good for people. And I just didn't just carry on, just hope, wish the best day to anybody still working

00:28:51.080 - 00:29:01.140

in the automotive industry, manufacturing industry. What do I see that I did it. I can check it off my list.