An Early Christmas

 

                                             

AN EARLY CHRISTMAS

Sometimes I think things happen for a reason.  Recently I noticed that a local radio station has started playing Christmas music much too early again this year.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Christmas music as much as the next person but it’s hard to get in the mood when it’s 60 degrees plus and the sun is shining bright.

On this particular day I had gone to lunch with my wife at a local restaurant that we had eaten at many times before.  The only strange thing was the restaurant had moved over one street since the last time we had been there and had opened in a brand new building.  I admit the food was still good but the atmosphere left something to be desired.  Maybe it was just too new, I don’t know.  Anyway, back to the holiday story.

So we had our lunch, paid and left the restaurant.  When we walked across the parking lot we spotted an elderly woman, about my mom’s age (early eighties) who was sitting in a 70 something Red Oldsmobile station wagon with what could have only been all of her worldly possessions in there with her.  The Olds was full to the windows with all of the things that made this woman’s life complete but when she hit the key the engine made that clicking noise.  You know the one that says “you ain’t goin’ nowhere.”  My wife and I looked at each other and without a word we knew we had to help the lady in the Olds. 

But running through my head was the fact that without my dad’s, union won, pension and survivor’s benefit this could be my mother!  Without the UAW health care benefits this could be my mom; stranded behind a restaurant.  A place she had probably come to get a warm meal . . . out of the dumpster, with all her worldly belongings and an easy target for those who would take advantage of her situation.

Well, we pulled around the restaurant, hooked up the cables and jumped the Oldsmobile.  The old wagon leaped to life and with a little smoke and rattle she was off.  Before she left she thanked us and blessed us but we already had all the blessings that we needed.  That feeling you get when you help someone out, especially when it’s someone young, old or in a bad way.  Our holiday season was complete. 

As we drove off I looked for that station with the Christmas music.  I guess it wasn’t too early after all.

 

Life Takes Strange Turns

It was November 22, 1963 and I was in the 6^th grade at Dublin Elementary School in Union Lake, Mi.  The playground was crowded, as usual, and I was up to my ears in a hot game of basketball.  The game was back and forth and hotly contested.  When the ball came loose during an inbound pass I dove to try and save the ball.  The cinders that surrounded the court were slippery and my feet went out from under me.  I saved the ball.  The bell rang. The game was over and all the players ran for the school door.  I looked down at my knee and could see that I had torn my new flannel lined jeans and blood was seeping from my skin.  While the other kids ran for class, I walked to the nurse’s office for some last minute repairs.

A short time later I was on my way to class, a little late, when I passed the janitor’s room where his little transistor radio on his bench blared “President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas, Texas.”  I was frozen to my spot in the tile floor just short of the stairs leading to my classroom.  My ten year old mind could not fully understand what all this meant but I knew it was very bad.  After what seemed like an hour,   I’m sure it was only a few seconds, I bolted up the stairs to my classroom.  Not really sure what to do, late for class and full of dread, I treated it like I would most things in my life; time to tell the world.

I threw the door wide open to my class room and yelled “the president has been shot and killed.” To say I had my little class-mates attention would be an understatement.  They all had the same look that I had had on my face a few moments earlier at the janitor’s station.  My teacher, seeing he had lost the class’s attention, blurted in his I’m the boss voice, stop lying Hufford!  Sit down and shut up!  And I did but the mood of the class had definitely changed.  Notes were passed and words were whispered. The teacher shot me a look.  Eventually we all learned the truth when someone from the office came to our room and whispered to our teacher. I recognized the look on my teachers’ face and thought I saw a tear.  The rest of the day was a blur and the next weeks and months as well with the president’s burial, the swearing in of Lyndon Johnson, the arrest and subsequent murder of Lee Harvey Oswald and the Warren Commission’s investigation of the president’s murder. This day and these events were forever burned into the brains of me and my class mates.  Our lives were changed forever and nothing was ever the same.  Our sense of safety and security were exploded with those three shots from the Texas School Book Depository.

Twenty years later we had learned to live with the events of that fall day but always in the back of our mind was that dreaded feeling.  One evening in ’83 I was playing with my band at a little club in Ortonville, Mi.  Our first set was over and we were taking a short break when a young lady made her way to my table.  She sat down and said “your name is Tony Hufford.”  I looked at her and had no idea who this woman was or how she knew me. She continued “I’ll never forget your face.  You’re the kid who burst into our classroom and told us all that the president had been killed.” I will never forget you or that moment.” I began to see a vague resemblance.  It’s hard to see someone and guess what they looked like at 10 years old.  There we sat, connected through time with a horrible event that had changed both of our lives forever.  The entire country was changed and us with it.  We reminisced for awhile and then it was time for me to go back to work.  I played the rest of the night knowing that I was not alone in the feeling of helplessness connected to this horrific event and thinking how we never know how what we say or do might impact the lives of others.

 

Life Ain’t no Walk in the Park

You Just Gotta Keep on Walking.

Well another election is over and half the country is happy and the other half is sad.  Some foreign countries are making back up plans and others are licking their chops.  Yes, we have that kind of power in the world. We have been divided into voting blocks for way too long.  It’s okay to represent as a Republican or to be a Democrat or an Independent . . . but a voting bloc?  It just means you have been categorized by someone who has something to gain by your support. 

It was about 1964, I was eleven and my dad had something important to tell me.  I always knew when he grabbed me by the shoulders and looked straight into my face it was time to pay attention.  He said “Tony, if you ever have enough money in the bank so you don’t have to hit a lick for a couple of years, you might think you are a Republican.  If you don’t, you are a Democrat.” To tell you the truth I didn’t really understand what he was speaking about but I could tell he was telling me something important. That conversation took place in the space between that little garage and house in the picture.  I have witnessed nothing in the last 60 years that would make me believe anything different. However, I did have a couple of experiences along the way that have backed up my dads’ reasoning.  Let me tell you about one of them.  

It was 1981 and I had been laid off from the Foundry at GM, about 6 months after the Reagan Inauguration.  My new wife and I were surviving on unemployment and a little under the table gig playing music.  As time went on, things got tougher and unemployment only covered essentials with no room for unexpected expenses. 

My unemployment day was Tuesday.  So that morning I gathered up all the deposit bottles in the house and loos­­­e change from the couch so that I would have enough gas money to make it to the unemployment office.  My intention was for my check to get me home.  I drove to the unemployment office in my 76 Dodge Step-Side Pick-Up that I purchased while working in the Pontiac Foundry. On this day, like every Tuesday, the line was long and slow.  After about four hours of waiting I finally made it to the head of the line.  The lady who waited on me was obviously exhausted and perhaps a bit gnarly. But having made it to the desk I was all smiles and happy thoughts when I presented my paper work to the tired lady at the counter.  She took my papers and walked to the filing cabinet behind her and quickly came back; she wasn’t smiling.  Mr. Hufford today would be the day that you could start your Federal Extension because your State Unemployment has run its course.  However, we just got word that President Reagan has discontinued the Federal Extension so I have no check for you today. What . . . no check?  How will I get home?  How will we eat this week? This and many other questions flooded my mind.  I asked “could this be a mistake.” The lady behind the counter just shook her head. My heart dropped and I shuffled to the door.

Now for those of you thinking, why didn’t you just go out and get a job?  During that time, businesses didn’t hire laid off GM workers because they knew as soon as GM called us back we would leave and return to GM.

I did make it home that day, literally running on the fumes.  I did eventually find several part time jobs and was able to cobble together a living and in November of 83, I returned to GM but I never forgot about my trip to that unemployment office and Regan’s hand in that day or the advice of my dad.  Life ain’t no walk in the park…you just gotta keep on walking.

 

 The front gate of the gravel company (now closed) where it all happened.

WHY DO I WANT TO BE IN A UNION?

This is the question that your relatives or friends, who have never worked with a union contract, might ask.  Let me tell you about my first encounter with The Teamsters Union and you will be able to see how far the union movement has come.

It was the winter of 1973 and I was fresh out of high school and working for a gravel company owned by an old Italian gentleman and his brother.  I had been there for about a year and in that time I had learned how to drive a gravel truck, operate a front-end loader and helped operate and maintain the gravel plant.  At the time, I was the youngest employee so I got bounced around to whatever was available but I made pretty good money, the work was okay and I was learning a lot.

I didn’t know it but everyone on the site, except me, were members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from Pontiac, MI.  During the entire first year that I was employed there; not one peep about a union.  Then came a day when that all changed. 

It was a non-eventful Monday morning, a couple of weeks before Christmas, and I was taking my first 15 yard load of gravel out of the front gate to the near-by pipe plant that would use the gravel to make big cement pipes.  I could see ahead, through a light snow, that the entrance was blocked by two black Cadillac sedans pulled into a v shape across the driveway. On the trunk of one of the cars lay a shotgun.  I didn’t know at the time but over the weekend someone from the gravel plant had called and reported a non-union employee working at the site; that was me.  What happen next seemed right out of an old black and white movie.  I put the brakes on in my truck and came to a halt.  The doors flew open on both Cadillac’s and large men, in trench coats, exited the vehicles.   One stood next to the trunk of the Cadillac near the shotgun.  The other placed his hand inside the breast of his trench coat and climbed onto the step of my truck where he said, “Let me see your union card boy.”  With my 19 year old voice shaking I explained that I didn’t have a union card.  The man stepped down from my truck and said, “You will before this truck moves; turn it off.”I complied with his wishes and turned off the truck.  I could see other gravel trucks lining up behind me.  Essentially, the gravel plant had been shut down.

Before long I saw the owners’ red Cadillac pull up to the side and the gravel plant owner jumped out to speak with the gentlemen from the black Cadillac’s.  From my vantage point I couldn’t hear what was being said but by the looks on their faces I would say it was a tense conversation, to say the least.  After a few minutes of these pleasantries being exchanged the gravel plant owner reluctantly reached into his pocket and pulled out a large roll of bills.  I saw him rip off three crisp one hundreds; that must have been my initiation fee and then another fifty, my first months dues.  The man in the trench coat took the money and headed to the car.  He came back with long white legal papers and a pen.  He motioned for me to come out of the truck.  With a slight wobble I made it to the rear of the Cadillac where I signed the papers on the trunk lid, raised my hand and took an oath and was welcomed as the newest member of Teamsters.

The men loaded back into the caddies and headed off and I stood there half thinking how cool that was and half thankful for not being shot on site.  Here’s the thing; the owner knew he was caught with a non-union employee, me, on his work site.  The guys loading out behind me weren’t moving any gravel until this was settled and I had just witnessed how justice is won in the workplace. I was now a member of a special group; the National Brotherhood of Teamsters.  This made me smile and by the way, the next week I got a buck an hour raise and lived to tell about it.  What a day this was!

So take a moment and realize that you too can be a member of a special group just like those who haul gravel, work construction, fly planes, teach children, operate railroads, drive buses and many others.  We are all part of an exclusive group referred to as Unionized Labor.  As you shop, or anytime, look for the union label. It is a sign of quality and a clear sign that the items you purchase were manufactured by a worker who was treated fairly and it’s been a long time since anyone had a “shotgun” sign up like I did.

The next summer GM put an ad in the paper looking for help in their Pontiac facilities.  Myself and a cast of thousands showed up at the Pontiac Retail Center to fill out applications to work for GM.  Just prior to the 4^th of July in 1976 GM called.  I was to start in the Pontiac Motor foundry on the 7^th of July.

 

                                                              Photo of my Foundry friend James by Bob Dick
  

THE FOUNDRY YEARS

The day I started in the Pontiac Motor Foundry, there were 30 of us sitting in the General Foreman’s office to receive our departmental and job assignments. I was assigned to the Foundry Line #7 as an Iron Pourer.  GM was launching a new engine (the Iron Duke) and we were scheduled to work 12 hours a day 7 days per week.  Within two weeks, of my original group of 30, only 5 or 6 remained.  The rest had left for greener or perhaps cleaner pastures.  

The foundry was like a work place out of the 1800’s.  The air was fouled with coal dust, I was pouring 2,800 degree iron with chemicals and life threatening dangers everywhere you looked.  There are many stories, in fact an entire book could be written about my time there but let me tell how being a UAW member was important to me.  I have already detailed the conditions in the Foundry but the thing that made the conditions bearable was the people.  General Motors had a program where they hired former convicts to work and many of them ended up in the foundry and about 75 percent of the workforce were minorities.  We all stuck together for each other and for our very lives.  It was super easy to be seriously injured or even killed in the foundry.

We had worked in this place for about six months; seven days a week twelve hours a day.  Those of us who could handle the work had stayed and settled in and those who couldn’t had left.  The work was hard, the conditions were draconian and the bosses were no nonsense.  In the foundry that meant doing what they had to do to get the work done.  They were literally in the same boat as the UAW Members; breathing the same air and facing the same dangers. 

By the late summer those of us working in the place called the pouring loop were miserable.  You wore your blue workers pants and shirt covered up by a silver spark proof (yea right) suit meant to keep you safe but also made you even hotter in the 110 degree heat of the foundry.  Top off your attire with a hard hat, dark safety goggles, respirator to keep the coal dust out of your lungs and earplugs covered by ear muffs to save your hearing from the 100 plus decibels of foundry noise and you have a recipe for misery.  After months of sweat running down your body, up to 7 or 8 pounds of it per day, and your whole body was chaffed and raw.  It was common for Iron Pourers, working across from each other to ball up and fight over who’s sparks hit who when the real issue was they were just on edge and miserable.  The foreman would just pry them apart and tell them to get back to work.  If they fired everyone who got in a fight, there would literally be no one to run the production line.

Our UAW Rep, Eddie, would come to the production line during our break time to check in with us to see if all was well.  He was an old timer, at least compared to us, who had twenty years plus seniority.  By November we were all exhausted and were looking for some relief.  A few weeks before Christmas Eddie came to the production line office, also known as the only air conditioned spot in the foundry, where we all huddled, complaining about the long hours.  Of course, Eddie had heard it all before and because he originally came from that same line he fully understood.  So on this beautiful Sunday in December Eddie said this, “I don’t want to tell you guys what to do but if you all just all walk out together at lunch; there is really nothing they can do.” “You all have your ninety days in (the time allowed where you were fully covered by the union contract) and your records are clear and I will be here to represent you on Monday if needed.” So, with faith in Eddie and our union contract in our pockets we all hit the street for a glorious afternoon off, our first since July.  When we hit the time clock on Monday at 6:30 a.m. not a word was spoken of our afternoon off.  The boss seemed glad to see us all back and we all felt a new power with the unity of the UAW.

Just one more short-story from the foundry.  After toiling in the foundry for several years, a plan came through for a Family Day where our friends and relatives could come in to see the foundry and experience it first-hand.   Through my warnings- not to come- my wife was adamant that she would be present for the Family Day to view this place and to experience the adverse conditions that I had spoken of many times. 

You need to know that GM Management spent a lot of time and money cleaning up the foundry over the next few weeks trying to make these dark gates of hell presentable to the general public.  I must admit, when Family Day arrived I had never seen the foundry look so good.  You could actually see through the coal dust air.  They had obviously changed all the take-up air filters.  Much had been spent on general clean up and all was ready.

Seeing my 21 year old wife in her summer dress in this environment, even with the improvements, was like seeing a flower growing in a hot, dirty fire.  She had never looked so beautiful and I couldn’t wait to get her out of there.  I was embarrassed for her to see where I worked.  As she looked around at my work place she said, “We have to get you the fuck out of here.”

Okay, you talked me into it; one more short story from the foundry.  As previously mentioned the Pontiac Motor Foundry was a very unhealthy place to work in the 70’s.  In 1977 after a year in the foundry I was beginning to find my way into a groove.  Every day I would see a guy walk past my work station on his way to the Cupola Area, the place where they melted iron and got it ready to be delivered to the production line.  His name was Lenny and he was a vision of male health.  He was about 250 Lbs. of muscle; 6 ft. tall, arms like tree trunks and a huge smile.  He obviously felt great.  I knew I had to find out how he did it.  So each day when he walked by my line we would chat for a few brief moments so that I could learn some tips about Lenny’s style of healthy living.

One day on Lenny’s way by he asked if I had ever done a clean out to expel toxins from my body.  I thought for a moment about all the chemicals that we came into contact with in the foundry every day.  The chemicals that were riding with me in my body and told Lenny no.  I had never heard of a “clean out” but it sounded like something I needed.  Lenny handed me a large capsule and told me to take it with my diner and by bedtime I would experience the clean out and be toxin free.  Upon further review of the capsule I could see what appeared to be sticks and other fiber-like items inside.  At dinner I washed it down with a sip of milk and couldn’t wait to be toxin free.

Soon it was nine o’clock and bedtime.  No clean out had happened and I was feeling kind of let down.  I turned in and wrote the lack of action off to a bad capsule or perhaps I didn’t have the amount of toxins in my body that I thought I did.  I was sleeping and dreaming of things that every foundry worker dreamt about, air-conditioning, fresh air and the GM Proving Ground.  That’s when it happened.  It was 2:00 a.m., the house was quiet and the entire neighborhood was asleep.  You need to know that I had no idea what a colon cleanse was but I was about to learn.  I sat straight up in the bed with an incredible pain in my lower stomach.  I raced to the bathroom like a squirrel fleeing a Shih Tzu.  Things left my body that evening that I don’t remember eating.  My insides squeezed like a human sponge until only air was available like a reverse heave.  After over an hour I hobbled back to bed to await my 5:00 a.m. alarm.

The next day I walked into the foundry feeling extremely light and with a renewed pep in my step.  I saw Lenny coming down the aisle with the biggest smile I had ever seen on his face. I did feel pretty good that day but I never asked Lenny for another clean out capsule.

I lasted in the Pontiac Foundry for 4 years until being laid off in May of 1980.  I was in the streets where I played drums in a band, worked maintenance at a hotel and worked as an attendant at a group home for the State of Michigan.  In November of 1983 I started a new part of my union life at the brand new GM Orion Assembly Center in Orion Township, Michigan.  This place would make up the largest part of My Union Life as a member of UAW Local 5960.

 

Time Marches On

It was the summer of 1983 and most of the autoworkers from the Pontiac Fisher Body Plant and the Pontiac Motors Facility had been laid off for over two years.  That’s when the call came to report to the Williams Lake School in Waterford to attend teamwork and orientation training prior to hiring into what would become our future, Orion Assembly Center in Orion Township, Michigan.  The facility had been under construction on the site of an old airstrip for several years.  There were a few salaried employees working out of trailers and UAW Skilled Trades Members inside the empty plant working to finish up construction of the facility that would eventually house a workforce of approximately seven thousand team members.  Later that fall of ’83, the first hourly employees were brought in to begin start of production the following spring.

The following 40 years includes a rich history of hard work and innovation by a workforce that was second to none in a very competitive industry. From being the first facility to build five car lines on a single production line while winning J.D. Power Awards to hosting Oprah Winfrey and then producing General Motor’s first mass produced electric vehicle, the plant and workforce really led the way.

And so now the next chapter of the Orion Story begins.  As the Williams Lake School, opened in 1945, meets its day with the wrecking ball; the facility it so proudly supported has gained in size and responsibility.  Orion Assembly is a big part GM’s New Green Future and will soon assemble a mixture of vehicles that will provide customers with reliable transportation into the foreseeable future.

Orion Assembly and UAW Local 5960 have been around for over 40 years now.  That means that some autoworkers, that have only ever worked at Orion Assembly, are now eligible for retirement. Well done Orion Assembly and UAW Local 5960!  No job is more important than this one.  Our credo was, Great Cars, Built by Great People and we did all this while supporting the local community and our customers. We always felt after working on a customers’ vehicle that we were riding along with them and their family.

And so now a new generation of autoworkers will carry the torch into the future.  My friends and I, mostly retired, will cheer you on as you do great things for The UAW, GM and our customers. Best of luck to all of you; now and into the future. Although we can’t be there to advise you we have left some pretty deep tracks for you to follow and it all started at Williams Lake School.