THE SKILLED AUTO WORKER: A SOCIAL PORTRAIT
Goode, Bill
Before the organization of industrial unions, skilled workers in America were truly an "aristocracy of labor." Commanding higher wages and a near-monopoly with their skills, they worked in...
...Part of the trouble is the jealously guarded seniority list...
...Don't you know that nobody ever asks a pipe fitter where he's going if he has a plunger over his shoulder...
...They used the resented clock, the worst of the surveillance mechanisms, to defeat the company...
...They see the high wages in the building trades but do not see the seasonal nature of that work, the fact that it is usually not done in a closed building, and that it is harder because there are no lulls caused by the need to service a production facility...
...Even the toolmakers have to handle materials covered with oil...
...In the Big Three shops, the skilled 15 percent of the work force are envied for their freedom, their pay, and their perceived better working conditions...
...The ambivalence toward work is best illustrated by the attitude toward those elected to union office...
...The sight of a sitting tradesman can produce great anxiety in a boss, particularly a superintendent or general foreman...
...As the only apprentice and the youngest man in the gang, this gave rise to some good-natured raillery...
...but it has given the skilled workers a stronger sense of identity and a recognition of their own problems...
...q 397...
...One aspect of skilled work that production workers do not usually experience is dirt...
...These minor infractions resulted in a network of mutual obligation and reciprocity between the union and management...
...The old mechanic in a few hundred well-chosen words told the "young punk" where he could shove his "trigolometry...
...With the exception of a few jobs (gauge inspectors, for example), skilled work is filthy...
...A break from hard work would seem to be a treat, but most workers are so defensive about loafing that they create elaborate rationales excusing a lack of work for which they have neither responsibility nor control...
...With the advent of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), the skilled workers in the auto shops were organized for the first time...
...He was also given a conditional promise that a card would be wangled for him in a few months (or years...
...The maintenance and construction crews work in places that in most shops are usually not cleaned: underground, under floors, in the air around pipes and conduits that may not have been touched in years...
...The most common excuse is: "When I'm sitting on my ass the company is making money...
...The orders were the same, "get the plunger...
...Paradoxically, all work will become more sophisticated, presumably to disappear into a monitoring function...
...For some, the discipline iC `• is internalized, almost a compulsion to keep busy and do your job...
...The point is just to make it to 3:30, the end of the shift...
...Assemblers, the intrinsic nature of the job apart, simply have more fun...
...We were working off of the assignment board one day, doing maintenance jobs as things broke down...
...Perhaps...
...Consequently the foreman is placed in the position of creating make-work or telling the crew to hide...
...There was a strong evangelical, low-church religious belief among many Finns...
...My girl friend lived in Detroit and I came here to get married, never expecting to stay 35 years...
...Comparable to the permit worker on the outside are the upgraders or Employees in Training (EIT...
...Most of the skilled workers were building tradesmen or members of craft unions such as the Railroad Engineers...
...Hey, Goode, what kind of Communist literature you bringing in now...
...Given all of the material on the "iron horse" of the assembly line, little has been written about the interaction among workers...
...The work flow for the tool section tends to be more regular, work for the maintenance men depends on breakdowns or need for new installations of air lines or water, installing new machinery, or changing lines...
...There are always conycatchers on the line, those verbal con men who can convince the village idiot that there are oil deposits under his house lot and that people are out to steal it...
...The answers were instantaneous and diametrically opposed...
...On Monday mornings I occasionally took a section of the New York Times into work to read at lunch...
...The tool and die section is always considered the prestigious part of skilled work...
...If you have no job at the time, stand at your bench with a piece of wire in your hand so you can always say that you were making a pipe hanger in case you were asked by anyone...
...In reality, the work flow is not evenly distributed in time, and on occasion workers may not have an assignment...
...Work permits are granted by the craft union to some nonmembers when the job market is good, but you can seldom get a regular journeyman's card regardless of how long the job lasts...
...A drunken crane operator, lifting heavy loads in a bay that may be two to six floors high, is a positive menace...
...A fitter once told me never to be caught sitting down...
...This is the way apprentices learn...
...While production workers look to the skilled workers, the skilled workers look outside at their peers in the building trades who make approximately $12.00 an hour...
...When they got caught, the committeeman had to do a "kneepad job," that is, try to wheedle the supervisor or labor relations man into forgiving the offense without a penalty...
...Stories about doubling up on a moving line always leave out something...
...Even if it were possible to find a hole to sleep in, rest is not the point, only killing time...
...A new technology will create new trades, new skills that will challenge the old rankings...
...The tradition of the old mechanic, selftaught and job-trained, is disappearing...
...For some, work discipline is maintained by external authority, a hectoring foreman...
...that was exactly the question in many minds...
...That would be a dandy to see...
...The other asserted with equal vehemence that work was fulfillment, that it was man's nature to work and there would certainly be work in heaven...
...There is probably a sound economic reason for the contracts, having to do with fringe benefits for new workers if the job is too large for the existing crew...
...The life of an assembler on the line has been recorded by many authors, but there have been few observers of the skilled trades in the auto plants...
...Or the deflator tells the macho bear killer that his prize must have been about the size of a small dog...
...A foreman who has worked for a long time with a crew knows their hiding places anyhow...
...Certainly, a capricious management was responsible for much of this activity, too central to the workers' experience to be so lightly used...
...Our skilled group was 10 percent black, which about reflected the general population figures but did not reflect the population of Detroit...
...Discussions with the union are necessary prior to letting a contract...
...Czarist rubles," was the reply...
...Bull work, the back-breaking, heavy work, is disappearing from the shops, and automation will continue to decrease the difference between production and skilled work...
...A handful of washers on a steel floor is enough to tip over a cart that a worker must sit on to wheel himself under a car body...
...If it is not hard and dirty, it's not work...
...As of September 1975, major assemblers in the auto plants made about $5.25 an hour, plus an 84e cost-ofliving float—a total of $6.19 an hour...
...While skilled workers dislike a lazy worker, they do enjoy a monumental ripoff of the company...
...One accommodation the UAW has had to make is to grant the skilled tradesmen the right to separate ratification of contracts...
...There will be less looking to the outside to gauge their success and a greater disposition to accommodate to the rising skill level of all work...
...Something there is that doesn't like an idle worker—mostly supervision...
...The vast majority of skilled workers believe in hard work and take pride in it...
...There are provisions in the contract for union leaves and personal leaves, but workers do not readily accept the idea that someone who is gainfully employed on the outside should have his seniority remain intact...
...The pay is better and, perhaps because of that, there is more status...
...One of the decentest human beings I have ever known was a great ex-pug (Ford's was 395 full of them) who had fought in Harry Greb's stable...
...At least, we know 393 he did not subsequently apply for a job at our plant...
...Did the cub come up and lick your hand before you shot it...
...Union activity is not considered work...
...Every negotiation in the auto industry is marked by low-level grumbling about the differential, and occasionally that erupts into a major battle within the union...
...For a small percentage (far too few) the motivation is pleasure, the sheer joy of working at a job they genuinely like...
...For the production worker, the skilled tradesmen seem singularly free from the urgent demands of assembly work...
...But the assembly line will be with us for a while and the distinction between production worker and skilled worker will continue...
...A toolmaker is paid 10¢ an hour more...
...Widick (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press), copyright © 1976 by The Johns Hopkins University Press...
...His family was involved in a prosperous retail outlet, and he first took a leave for several months...
...Despite the apparent envy of the skilled men of their counterparts on the outside, this electrician anguished for days over the decision...
...There was the usual amount of drinking during the work day, usually at lunchtime, but seldom did workers bring a bottle on the job...
...The argument raged all that lunch hour and it was probably one of the most interesting debates I have heard on the nature of work, certainly surpassing much of the disputations in sociological circles...
...In my decade at Ford at Highland Park, only one skilled trade committeeman quit...
...For the shops represented security, a very real security...
...For a month they came in late and left early, setting the clock to the time they wanted, punching their time cards and leaving them in the rack...
...Maintenance work is hard work, physically exhausting, and often demanding great strength...
...I remember that this meant every time a rigging company came into our shop to move a group of machines our crew lost that work and the possibility of overtime...
...Consequently, the skilled auto worker looked both ways, "outside" to his peers in the craft unions and "inside" to his fellow unionists in' the UAW...
...Journeymen in auto shops often have 10 to 40 years seniority in one place, while skilled outside men brag about working a year and a half on one location...
...Education was recognized as a way to escape from the shops, and education was prized even if it did not achieve this end...
...He looked at me with great scorn...
...There is a division between the maintenance and construction crew (electricians, pipe fitters, millwrights, riggers, the building trades) and the tool and die section (toolmakers, machine hands and machine repairmen...
...But they have their peculiar problems too...
...This was chancy and he knew it, but his ambition was to have a shop of his own...
...Although this division along skill lines is a 392 problem for the union, every attempt to organize the skilled workers into a separate union has failed...
...This has been criticized by some as a step backward from the original purity of industrial unionism...
...He told me later in private: "Don't let them kid you...
...Once, two millwrights had found an old-time clock and, being good mechanics, they got it into working order...
...It is obvious that skilled workers want the production worker to get a break, but they also jealously guard their craft and carefully watch the seniority list to see that their position is maintained...
...There is nothing to compare with the relentless tedium of a moving assembly line or the demands of an hourly production quota...
...But discussions with the workers would also prove of value...
...When there is a major move or model change, production workers with some experience are brought into the skilled trades to supply the necessary manpower...
...I always read the financial pages of the Times...
...An assembly line always has materials for 394 involved horseplay: tubing, metal washers, bolts, empty kegs, all provide the materials for elaborate gags...
...When I became an apprentice I remember feeling that those damned draftsmen and engineers never seemed to be busy...
...I said, "Bricky, what do we need a plunger for to repair a water fountain...
...Major changes are in the offing and things are generally in good shape...
...The subterfuges extend even when working...
...Skilled work, by contrast, is spasmodic...
...The number of auto workers will not increase at the same rate as the work force...
...If you are working in the air the problem is critical...
...They last for as long as there is work to do and then go back to their old jobs...
...There is a spontaneity about the play on a line that is unmatched by skilled work...
...As industrial workers, they were organized into the same union as production workers...
...The differential of between a dollar and a dollar and a half an hour is a source of irritation to the unskilled worker...
...Disdained by the old AFL, they had never experienced the privileges or exclusiveness of their counterparts on the "outside...
...It was an artificial situation, a compound of company paternalism and a high-seniority group with long experience working together...
...There was just something too damned unfair about it that these workers resented...
...But to the workers contracting is an affront, a slur on their skills, and, besides, "they pay them more...
...Much of the attitude toward work evinced by older workers is partly a result of the old brutal, preunion days in the shops...
...it meant risk, and he could not possibly foresee its outcome...
...If someone is defeated in an election, they "go back to work...
...Working with a drunk partner is at best a terrible inconvenience and at worst very dangerous...
...This entirely justified trading-off kept the already crowded grievance procedure relatively free of minor cases...
...It is often said of stewards or committeemen that no one could get any work out of them anyway, so the department elected them to office...
...Occasionally, there would be movement from within the shop to the outside...
...It takes considerable skill to operate in this setting without one party completely dominating the other...
...One electrician in our gang was offered a job on the outside, working on permit...
...The "good mechanic" has a special status in the shops, no matter how ill-natured or even antiunion he may be...
...This play is largely slapstick, never subtle, and often with more than a touch of malice...
...Four hours work, eight hours pay...
...What did you invest in, Jimmy...
...They never left...
...This required considerable ingenuity because they had to know when the timekeeper was going to pick up their cards...
...Because of the different shifts in a large plant, workers streamed in and out constantly...
...Tubing and cold water provide great, if not delicate, possibilities for humor...
...Sometimes craftsmen from the outside world came to work inside the plants...
...An electrician now makes about $7.56 an hour...
...Some grumbled that the Communist party had probably planted him...
...A millwright makes about $7.32 an hour...
...They also have perhaps the finest fringe benefits in industry, medical and dental coverage, a retirement plan, and life insurance...
...This often makes for uneasiness...
...They seem to be walking around the plant all day, perhaps carrying some tools, perhaps pushing their wagon of tools and fittings...
...Skilled workers are more apt to get precious overtime...
...But, more important, it was a blow to the pride of the regular workers...
...Occasionally, workers will refuse to work with someone who has been drinking...
...One of the best mechanics and most respected fitters in the gang made a public defense of my reading habits...
...He took the job and, given the casual nature of relationships in a large industrial city, we never heard of him again...
...Some apprentices "took low" and dutifully went to the crib to get a lefthanded monkey wrench or went on other fool's errands because it was expected of them...
...Pipe fitters, in self-denigration, refer to the necessary attributes of their trade as "a strong back and a weak mind...
...When are you going to grow up...
...Finally, he left to join the family business...
...But I got out of World War I, made a bad investment with my money, and here I am...
...Almost all auto workers, if given a chance, would exchange places with the skilled tradesmen in their shop...
...But the most envied aspect of This essay is adapted from Bill Goode's "The Skilled Trades: Reflections," which appears in the newly published book Auto Work and Its Discontents, edited by B.J...
...If you are working on the ground, the rhythm of work is disturbed...
...The skilled trades in the auto industry are harassed by the same problems facing all workers—layoffs, racial friction, and the growing demands of women for entrance into this previously exclusively male group...
...Getting out of the shops to a better job grinds less on the skilled group than on production workers, but it does exist for the skilled worker too...
...But the most despised worker is the lazy one...
...These negotiations were usually cajolery, the union pleading non compos mends or chronic alcoholism as a defense...
...N ext to overtime grievances, the most vexing problem for a skilled committeeman or steward is outside contracting of work within a plant...
...Someone was asked one day at lunch whether there would be work in heaven...
...But in truth there is no assembly line in any auto plant where it is possible to double up for more than a few minutes at a time...
...It is hard to tell whether the fool is as innocent of wit as it seems or is just playing a role—still, it helps kill time in a pleasant way...
...It was interesting to hear two old friends raised in the same neighborhood, both intensely religious, discuss the nature of work...
...In the workers' view, this is sanctioned loafing time...
...Fifteen years after the event, white tradesmen recalled with indignation a white brother who cavilled at contributing money for a watch traditionally given to workers going into the Army during World War II because the worker was black...
...While there may be no work in heaven, there will be plenty of it on earth, and the skilled worker has much the better of it...
...Just as there probably is sound economic reason for forcing men to work overtime instead of putting on more men or another shift...
...skilled work is its apparent freedom...
...Ordinary mechanical operations become matters of great concentration for the drinker and great exasperation for his partner...
...The reaction to this new way of doing things is varied...
...He probably shared them when he was in overalls...
...After several jobs we had a call to fix a drinking fountain...
...His opposite, the "shoe-maker" or less talented worker, is given short shrift...
...Commanding higher wages and a near-monopoly with their skills, they worked in isolation from the rest of the American work force...
...Then he returned for a similar period...
...The extra burst of energy needed to do this can be invigorating for a little while, but it is sure to be killing over a long period...
...Compressed air is used to get dirt out of coveralls...
...If a crew had a few beers at lunch they may have decided to extend their 30-minute lunch to an hour...
...Usually, in our shop, adequate men and equipment existed to cover the job...
...They played their role...
...An articulate, knowledgeable worker was respected...
...Highland Park, Michigan, an enclave inside Detroit, was for years a center of the Finnish community...
...Solvent cleaners and harsh soaps are used to get exposed parts of the body clean...
...Now most new plants are one-floor structures, but older plants were built up rather than out...
...A system of apprenticeships is replacing it...
...The skilled worker's pay varies by classification...
...There are tales telling that two workers can handle each other's jobs, one doing two jobs, while the other loafs...
...There is usually a lull in work just prior to a model changeover...
...A wrench dropped from even 10 feet up can fracture a skull...
...Work is by nature arduous and onerous...
...It meant giving up his seniority, assuring him of a steady job...
...Others rebelled against the older men and fought back...
...During the Korean War a new employee in his early forties made a literate, effective speech at a local meeting...
...For the auto worker killing time is a real problem, particularly for the skilled worker...
...It will be many years before such days return again...
...Old man Ford always had a numerus clausus for blacks in his plants...
...The racial harmony in our gang in the old days was unbelievable, compared to today's relationships...
...Education was admired and respected but there was also considerable ambivalence about the literate folk...
...Young men are now given a grounding in mathematics, physics, and the theory of the trade...
...Supervision tends to get sloppy and the atmosphere is relaxed and easygoing...
...All of the enticements of outside work, high wages and all, could not get them to leave...
...That bit of baiting caused an immediate explosion...
...The foreman usually knows where his men are hiding or tells them to come back in an hour...
...On one occasion hundreds of workers stormed over to the union hall on a wildcat when it was thought that one of the highest seniority blacks was being denied his rights on shift preference...
...Uneasy, threatened and yet proud of his work, the tradesman represents a great tradition in American working-class life...
...Anticipating the other members, he asked rhetorically, "You're probably thinking, what's he doing working in a factory...
...One maintained that work was punishment for the sin of Adam and Eve and that, of course, there would be no work in heaven...
...Drinking and loafing both are ways of killing time...
...He was right...
...Of equal interest would be to watch the reaction of skilled workers as women first invade the nonapprenticeable trades, toolgrinding and others, and eventually reach into the construction trades...
...One apprentice, not so innocently, asked the only master plumber in the gang how he could possibly consider himself a master without ever having taken a course in trigonometry...
...Industrial unionism is the overwhelming choice of both production and skilled workers in the auto industry...
...They were admired for their audacity by the rest of the crew because they beat the company at their own game...
...The skilled worker carries the marks of his trade under his fingernails and in the creases of his hands...
...Oil is everywhere...
...We had a fairly busy day and every time a job came up he told me to get the tools and a plunger...
...when I have to work it means something is broken down and the company is losing money...
Vol. 23 • September 1976 • No. 4
