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.