In the Sanding Booth at Ford
King, Rick
In the Sanding Booth at Ford by Rick King It’s a cold, windy morning in January 1974. The recession is getting worse, and manufacturing plants all over the San Francisco Bay area are laying...
...For a week, cars would periodically come down our line with a huge, sculpted penis where the gear shift was to be installed...
...Denny builds and rebuilds fantasy motorcycles or thinks of his ex-girlfriend and their little girl...
...The noise of the sanders makes it necessary to shout to be heard...
...It is three car lengths long and 15 feet wide...
...The gloves were produced...
...Speed is sold openly, when it’s available...
...They have no room to mwe around and can’t see anything...
...There’s no place in the country, no place in the world, that’s going to hire people like you, without any skills, and pay them over $5 an hour...
...They were never rehired...
...Ron works next to Art and is just married with a baby girl...
...At 6:30 there are already 20 people in line...
...While ulcers are a common problem among foremen, heart attacks are also frequent...
...They demanded that the foreman be transferred and that they get their gloves...
...I know if Art is sick, feeling good, or feeling tired, even if we don’t exchange more than a few sentences...
...A member of the International happened to be at the meeting and counseled against any type of action...
...One friend installs dream quarter panels into his girl friend’s back...
...One day we noticed there was no E coat on the cars...
...Don’t worry...
...In addition to my normal job, I now have to sand around the tail and headlights, and help Denny, in front of me, with the sides...
...Clearly his body is used to massive amounts of the drug...
...I arrive home, drink two beers, eat a steak, and go to bed four hours early...
...They asked for the gloves again...
...Everyday, mirrors are smashed and quarter panels are ripped...
...There is only one man over 30...
...He didn’t mention the dead man...
...Every problem becomes a crisis, because it threatens to disrupt the smooth flow of the line...
...I counted at least 75 cars that passed without any E coat...
...They’re coming...
...It was something about gloves and safety equipment, but she isn’t sure...
...Carefully we put on our safety glasses, file out of the room, and walk through a door that says “Safety Equipment Required Beyond This Point...
...Our reliefman, who studied four years to be a Jesuit, gives me another sander...
...She wakes him up, but the minute he falls asleep, he starts all over again...
...Art, who works across from me, uses the mask I give him...
...The car comes to him first...
...Yet, such moments are rare...
...The primer coat is lead-based and 1 wear a surgeon’s mask that 1 bought in San Francisco...
...The plant is turned upside down...
...When the welders came back from lunch, the foreman was still there...
...If you get through the first week, you have a chance...
...Moving from the quiet of the office, we are assaulted by a noise level like that of an airport runway...
...UAW stands for United Against Workers, a friend tells me...
...Consequently, he couldn’t investigate the problem...
...Some want to work for a few years and then go to school...
...No one talks...
...We follow the group leader through the plant, respectful and wide-eyed as if ir a cathedral for the first time...
...Then I sand the whole surface area with the air sander...
...One time, St, Louis workers stayed on the line with a foot of water on the floor...
...If people would just come to work faithfully and work a little harder, we’d all be better off...
...But the union does, and some of the worst contempt is reserved for union officials...
...Sometimes, on the line, I fantasize about that sound, and the rhythm spreads and spreads...
...At the same time, the welders have to wear bulky protective clothing...
...If you don’t have any guts, you’ll quit the first day...
...Half an hour later, when the gap arrives, we hear there has been a walkout in the arc welding booth...
...If management is harsh, at least it doesn’t pretend to help you...
...A steel plant has closed...
...The next car is proceeding normally and will run over my foot in a few seconds...
...My hands are bleeding and I feel like an idiot...
...That’s mostly the way I remember it...
...Local 560 can be characterized by my own representative, who spent ten minutes one day delineating the problems of the auto industry to me...
...We called Stan and he went to talk to the department supervisor...
...I shrug, wave goodbye, and escape to my car...
...I open the passenger door and sand quickly inside with the sandpaper in my left hand...
...Five are women...
...The booth is our world...
...What I have done is no big deal, just odd...
...You’ll be sorry...
...Workers came from all over the plant to look at these wonders...
...Everybody knows that safety equipment is kept in lockers close to the work area...
...The UAW, one of the most liberal uEions in the country, constantly proves itself unresponsive to workers’ needs...
...But nothing happened...
...If the department supervisor is displeased with a foreman under him, he will do anything to frighten him into performing better...
...On the east, small pickup trucks...
...It manifests itelf in little ways...
...I hold a ten-pound air sander in my right hand and a handful of sandpaper in my left...
...And you’ll want to quit...
...As work is done further down the line, it becomes progressively more difficult to repair the original problem...
...So, the worker settles into a slow, cynical wait for retirement...
...He never puts in more than four...
...Let me take the x-ray once more, just once more .” “It’s not going to do you any good...
...Ron’s wife has just had a baby...
...Without the support of the union, unable to muster a significant following inside the plant, the welders be cam e in creasingly discouraged...
...He switches parts among a few old sanders and is able to disguise the fact that my sander was ever destroyed...
...The fantasies on the line are replaced by dreams at night...
...Art hears music...
...Unfortunately, I am able to do about one fifth of the work assigned me...
...I hear a strange noise suddenly, like the beat of jungle drums in a Tarzan movie...
...Three hours later, another rumor arrives...
...When asked why not, he pointed out that the man hadn’t filed a grievance...
...Art works on the driver side of the car...
...I am supposed to be a block r:.mder...
...I drive to work with Denny, a block sander who was hired on the same day I was...
...Foremen in ties appear from nowhere and furiously try to figure out what has happened...
...The booth is enclosed to prevent the dust from escaping...
...They all walked out...
...Art is getting married in a week...
...Once inside the factory, the fear system is immediately apparent...
...The foremen’s neat shirts, ties, and slacks are a stark contrast...
...Staying Human From what I’ve said, working at Ford must seem like a circle in Hell...
...You’re going to hate Ford, this plant, your foreman...
...Strangely enough, their drive to extract the utmost from the workers carries over to the machines, which are used until they break...
...All 20 of us dutifully follow his advice...
...The root of the problem, he explained, is that workers are lazy...
...He is...
...Cars extend as far as can be seen...
...I promise you that...
...Dealers walk through the plant on a half-hour break and sell 20 bags...
...When asked what negotiations, they replied that they could not say...
...Foremen work under the constant threat of being returned to the line (foremen cannot be fired, they have the opportunity to start over as workers...
...Union official after union official warned that a ’leaflet would upset the delicate balance of negotiations...
...The whole incident takes five seconds...
...it makes it too hard to breathe...
...People who have worked at both GM and Ford say that GM puts a little extra time into building its cars...
...I look at the man next to me, a young Chicano in an army jacket with Sanchez stenciled over the left pocket...
...Although opposition to Ford is not organized, it is constant...
...You’ll learn,” he says...
...Everyone waits patiently...
...I want to take a walk, go to the bathroom, have a Mr...
...A few minutes later, Stan returned and told us to keep sanding...
...All around, above ground, people laugh and walk in rhythm to the percussion...
...During the wait, there remains the dignity of not joining management...
...Most of the women are big, and everybody is healthy...
...One day they carry Luis out of their booth unconscious...
...Overly tough foremen find their work sabotaged and are subject to continual verbal harrassment...
...The story is that the chairman of the Health and Safety Committee presented his regular report at the next meeting a few weeks later...
...Usually the day passes with few such diversions...
...But folks, let’s face it...
...Many are yelling...
...Brutal tongue-lashing is common...
...A young woman with a huge afro jams gas nozzles into cars as they pass by...
...He does my job on the other side of the car...
...The hippie is getting angry...
...We start working again...
...The other three constantly exchange cigarettes...
...If we joined them, would we be the only ones leaving the plant...
...My ears gradually adjust to the din...
...Tf there’s time, I wander around the plant...
...After conversation has lost its appeal, one slips inevitably, reluctantly, into daydreams...
...In some places the assembly line goes up in the air or crisscrosses over itself...
...Art is my mirror image...
...But the real punishment is the inevitability of the line...
...Sabotage helps relieve frustration, but without some type of political context it becomes an empty gesture...
...At least you hustle...
...Our group leader from Labor Relations, who looks like Rocky Marciano, is passing out forms: medical insurance, forms for Detroit and the union local...
...Shows they really want the job...
...I grin at the people pointing at us and realize that we new hires are the only ones wearing safety glasses...
...The welders called their union rep...
...Once, I find my foot caught on the line...
...The answer is Smirnoff and lime...
...One day, hating myself and hating Ford, I smash my $150 sander into a hunk of twisted metal...
...Each worker seemingly stands alone...
...Drugs, no matter how strong, provide no anesthesia for certain conditions...
...He pauses and drops his voice...
...What was happening...
...Don’t do it,” the workers are yelling...
...Ten welders and two other workers left the plant...
...I notice his Bolt Law School ring and then look into his eyes...
...Sometimes the results are artistic...
...Another later told me, “Hell, I didn’t want to walk out right then...
...It is the same mix you see in unemployment offices...
...One day the painters in the booth next to us drop acid...
...The plant seems to be fueled by “crossroads”little white benzedrine pills with a cross imprinted on them...
...Sometimes he comes and sometimes he doesn’t...
...For the first and only time, I look away and then back to see if he is serious...
...Men in platform shoes and construction boots, Coors beer tank tops and neatly ironed, flowered shirts...
...asks one...
...Any large metal burrs or blobs of paint have to be removed with a scraper I carry in my apron pocket...
...A taper comes back from break and says the welders are hack at work...
...In the summer it gets so hot that workers have to tie wet towels around their heads to keep from overheating...
...The four of us in the booth look at each other...
...Because the departments are competitive, there is a reluctance to admit mistakes...
...1 start to walk over to body...
...Small gaps, usually a few car lengths, happen almost every day...
...Their foreman, Becker, had been brought from St...
...Becker thought his young, Califorpia workers were chicken...
...I almost did...
...Louis, where a Mercury shift had been laid off...
...This coat of paint actually penetrates the metal and prevents rust...
...He wouldn’t provide them...
...Because so many items are installed in this section, it is difficult to trace the saboteur...
...Instantly, they were surrounded by UAW representatives, Labor Relations department bigwigs, and foremen...
...There is none of the fat that would distinguish 20 randomly chosen Americans...
...I become convinced that if this behemoth almost quit, I’ll never last five minutes...
...I am one of the few who is not married...
...As we walk workers stare at us and grin...
...If the body is particularly dirty, he yells in disgust and I get ready to work a little harder...
...The big hope is that a gap won’t appear during your break...
...Most of the applicants are black or Chicano and half are women...
...Obviously, it would be cheaper to replace them as they wear out, but the mentality doesn’t allow it...
...The monotony of the line binds us together...
...We don’t talk much, but we are always aware of each other...
...The UAW assured them that the problem was being handled...
...Everyone wears a watch...
...It is the only auto plant in the United States actively hiring...
...Eight hours later, I drive home despondent...
...It got fucked UD in Vietnam...
...My responsibility is the right-hand half of the trunk, roof, and hood...
...Why had they walked out...
...They stopped work...
...Just before you get to the plant, the Galaxy bar is full of people trying out bullfrogs before work...
...Then they mysteriously ceased...
...Our group leader turns off the projector and announces that he worked on the line for ten years...
...Because we have to see any spots on the paint, the booth is white and brightly lit by neon lights...
...This is too hard.’’ Denny, my friend, is a former biker who used to ride with the Hell’s Angels and has even had a walk-on in a motorcycle movie...
...All day they stand in a narrow concrete trench working on the cars passiilg over their heads...
...It is the only time they do physical work...
...One welder put down his tools and started walking out...
...California employees shake their heads in disbelief when they hear such stories...
...Most want to last 30 years and retire with a full pension...
...The ones who remain are the most brutal and competitive...
...Many cars pulling into the plant parking lot give off the odor of marijuana...
...It doesn’t matter...
...I ask what hap-p-e ned to his leg...
...Someone was finally able to move that the union put out an informational leaflet about the incident...
...WHAT IS A BULLFROG...
...The film consists of interviews with Ford workers at River Rouge...
...The roof is two stories high...
...Lew, who is teaching me the job, assures me that it is all right...
...I have to plan ahead to get a drink of water: five seconds to the fountain, five seconds for the drink, five seconds back into the booth...
...The torches and general heat in Body Section combine to make the area like an oven...
...There’s always another Gar...
...A few days later, the company rehired three of the welders who were not considered “ring leaders...
...International Harvester and Raytheon have laid off a shift...
...However, there is never enough to fill the demand...
...I point out that I will do anything to get the job: stand in line again, fill out another application...
...We tell each other about our lives before we joined Ford...
...The executive parking lot is uniformly populated by late model Fords...
...The word is quickly spread and the whole line slows down...
...Among workers there is a strong, unstated feeling of trust...
...Some of the welders appeared at the plant gates and passed out leaflets asking people to come to the next union meeting...
...But the Milpitas Ford plant is hiring a swing shift to make more Pintos and Mustangs...
...Every worker benedb the line is beating on the bottom GP the cars with his wrenches...
...United Against Workers Ford won the battle of attrition...
...The pay is over $5 an hour (by 1976 it will be over $6...
...There have been no significant technological breakthroughs since Henry Ford first designed the line...
...We pass by alternating orchards, factories, trailer parks, and billboards...
...But to destroy a tool is simply childish...
...I have few problems, but friends are haunted by nightmares of the line slowly devouring them or of falling further and further behind...
...Within the booth, we rely on each other for entertainment...
...Papa,” who works behind a friend of mine, takes one every morning with breakfast...
...Since the line speed is usually between 55 and 58 cars per hour, 1 have to perform my job within 67 se conds...
...I’m 24, unemployed, and trying to avoid going to law school...
...I also have the least capacity to endure the frustration...
...Your leg isn’t going to change,” the executive says flatly...
...Aside from a few islolated ex-student revolutionaries, there are no political movements...
...Everywhere there are cars of all different colors, lines of cars moving in different directions...
...Faced with the daytime prospect of working on 400 cars, it’s nice to have a little artificial energy...
...When there were no stands left, he joined Ford...
...The atmosphere is one of smoke-filled back rooms and secret bargains...
...Jobs that a worker used to be able to finish with a few seconds to spare suddenly become unbearable...
...The painters complain of being unable to breathe and of getting headaches...
...I grab him by the arm and pull him outside...
...We watch a movie, “Don’t Paint It Like Disneyland...
...This is what we all wait for...
...He works next to me, on my right...
...Even the foreman, Stan, hates him...
...I’ll do it if you do it...
...The closer you look the more you want to stick it up Henry Ford’s ass,” Denny tells me...
...But the atmosphere is not one of total defeat...
...The ventilation in the paint booth never seems to work too well...
...Gradually they grew larger and larger until the last was at least four feet long...
...They had been hired directly from the program...
...To steal from Ford or to sabotage a car is understandable...
...We let two cars go by...
...Most recently, he supervised a crew that remodeled most of the Kentucky Fried Chicken stands in northern California...
...As long as you kill yourself for them, they’ll keep you...
...In the end, only the two or three most militant welders kept passing out leaflets and trying to organize legal help...
...In our case the acting is to no avail...
...One day, however, a Frederick Taylor efficiency expert appears with a stopwatch and lurks behind pillars hoping we won’t notice him...
...Many new foremen quit in disgust and go back to the line...
...General foreman wants it that way...
...There is a clear distinction between exploiter and exploited...
...It was promised that the foreman would be replaced during lunch...
...Denny, next to me, doesn’t...
...Another time...
...But most sabotage takes place in the Trim department, where dashboards, mirrors, inside panels, windows, and extras are installed...
...The cars enter and exit through a narrow opening at either end...
...Similarly, the liquor stores do a rush business on beer...
...Efficiency experts are forced to hide while doing their inspections...
...He calmly scoops the tablets up and eats them all...
...Got to keep to the area, Rick,” Stan tells me...
...Within a few weeks, everything is more familiar...
...Anybody passing out leaflets was, of course, a ring leader...
...A huge banner over the employees’ entrance proclaims, “The closer you look, the better we look...
...The art lies in sabotaging in a way that is not immediately discovered...
...He told them things would be all right...
...As we walk through the parking lot, he starts to calm down...
...We constantly peer down the line to see if any are coming...
...I look up at my frimds...
...The only difference is that all the women wear pants, as if to point out that they are ready for manual labor...
...A piece of machinery fell on him...
...Each department (Body, Paint, Trim, Chassis, and Pre-Delivery) has a quota to meet...
...He has been overcome by the paint fumes...
...I’ve learned which parts of the job 1 can skip when I get tired...
...A few nlinutes before 4:30, I clock in, drink two cartons of chocolate milk for energy, go to the bathroom (no chance again until break), hop over two lines, and walk into the booth...
...Usually, we like people to stand outside longer,” he confides, adjusting his tie...
...They kept asking for replacements of the long gloves that protected their arms...
...It is hard to find a union official in the plant...
...The work is trivial and the conditions poor...
...If it rains and people stay in line, we think that’s a good sign...
...Militancy on an individual level is high...
...Rick King is a California filmaker who worked at Ford for seven months in 1974...
...As Jerry, our reliefman, says, “I may have been born here, but I’m not going to die here...
...Three months later, I take a physical and am ready to work...
...On a break, a complete stranger will tell you about his deepest marital problems or his feelings of despair, simply because you too are wearing overalls...
...Becker was playing with them...
...Already there are six applications for every place...
...The message is clear: the work is hard but the pay is good...
...The refusal to become one of the exploiters is the constant, steadfast expression of humanity in the face of Ford’s regime...
...Another form of sabotage is to ignore work...
...At 9:OO I am sitting across from my interviewer, a black in his middle thirties...
...He is impressed by my enthusiasm and assures me that one application is enough...
...We yell at each other or speculate about whether we’ll go home early...
...One of my clearest memories of Ford is walking down the Chassis line one afternoon...
...We stare at each other through the whole interview...
...When a department supervisor has a problem he can’t solve, he often just hides it...
...Someone shows me a Newsweek article with a picture of an autoworker playing a guitar while the line rolls by...
...I promise myself I won’t look down until he does...
...The supervisor made sure they were duly inspected and passed...
...At the same time, we stand around grinning and give specious advice...
...He raises his eyes in an expression of resignation and agreement...
...A private railroad brings in parts from the midwest and divides the plant in half...
...Of course, all locals are different...
...While working, although we may be immersed in our own thoughts, there is always an unconscious awareness of the other three, Unused to repetitive work, I am the most absentminded...
...While I’m with another friend, he drops nine crossroads on the floor in front of a foreman...
...They’ll ship ’em to Boston and blame it on the rock salt,” was the general prognosis...
...He plays three instruments and is beginning to give up his dream of supporting himself playing rock and roll...
...Within the confusion I notice a iew specific jobs...
...On the line, he is never referred to as an efficiency expert, but as “that mofherfucker...
...At the union meeting it took two of the three hours and a challenge to the chair to bring up the question of the arc welders...
...I work in the Paint department in an enclosed booth...
...You’re going to hate that job so bad during the first few weeks...
...Luis, who has two kids and a condominium on time, paints sitting down, can’t talk, and skips lunch...
...The system is based on forcing men and women to produce as much per minute as possible...
...Still, 30 years is a very long time...
...I look around the table...
...Coping The four of us adjust, The work is always physically exhausting, like playing a game of football or soccer...
...It gathers force and grows louder, drowning out the sound of the rest of the plant...
...As I walk out of the infirmary, a hippie with long blond hair is pleading with an impatient Ford executive...
...After five minutes, he’ll look at his watch, wave goodbye, and rush back to the job...
...In Paint, for example, 75 per cent of the cars are supposed to pass inspection...
...Before the cars come to us to be sanded, they are dipped in an ionized paint solution called “E” coat...
...He likes to smoke dope and hopes to be a janitor...
...There is a legendary Trim worker whose job is to install six screws...
...By the time the office opens at eight, the line has tripled in size...
...The implication is that the work is so easy it’s possible to take time off to play a little blues...
...The employees’ lot is crowded with ’56 Chevies, Toyotas, Datsuns and some exquisite, hand-painted motorcycles...
...Most people on the line estimated that the cars would rust out within a year...
...After a few months, the work is routine...
...A few years ago, someone was killed in Body Section...
...Another 14 days and I am sitting at a seminar table with 20 other new hires...
...What makes the assembly line work efficiently is fear, not engineering...
...Our job is to sand the car smooth before it receives its final coat of colored paint...
...Despite protective gloves, welders’ arms are crisscrossed with scars from the sparks thrown up by their torches...
...Intense discipline is combined with poor planning...
...If the expert thinks fewer workers are needed, the responsibility for enforcing an increased workload falls on Stan...
...Before work I walk slowly toward the time clock, relishing the few moments of freedom...
...I scream...
...The pass rate on their paint jobs is normal...
...I don’t know any more about it than you do...
...Occasionally, the line breaks down...
...Louis plant is reputed to be the tightest in the Ford organization...
...People hurry by in blue overalls or aprons...
...Gradually, Ford hired back the welders who had lost heart, the ones who stopped passing out leaflets at the plant gates...
...He has worked previously making hiack trucks...
...PhysicaLy we are similar: small, energetic, and white...
...The booth is hazy with dust from the shift before...
...Why the Welders Walked Out The arc welders who walked out had been trained together in a federally financed manpower program in San Jose...
...Typically, union officials seem more at home with Labor Relations executives than with workers...
...A man walks by with FUCK FORD written on a piece of white tape stuck to his overalls...
...And not so hard...
...Almost all the UAW officials voted against them...
...After all, it’s a steady job...
...When it came to a vote, all the workers from the line voted unsuccessfully for the welders...
...Discipline in the St...
...There is a coating of dust on everything...
...The many paint runs, grease spots, or specks of dirt have to be ground down to bare metal and smoothed out...
...Ron and Denny trade statistics from the Guinness Book of World Records, We invent a form of basketball using a trashcan as a basket and play fast games during gaps...
...Two men grab tires off a rack, bounce them on the floor, deftly catch them, secure them to each car, and bolt them tight...
...Woikers are united in one thing-hating Ford...
...They were all fired...
...It’s steady work, man...
...Also, the small grill in front of the windshield has to be sanded over three times...
...One part of the line runs above the workers who assemble the undercarriage...
...Arc welding is one of the dirtiest, most painful jobs in the plant...
...This time the welders have walked out of the plant...
...By the time they got to Ford, they already knew and trusted each other...
...Two people are taken out of the booth and the four remaining are given extra work...
...You Die in Little Ways ~~ Sabotage against the cars themselves is common, As a matter of course, we used to force the trunks closed in a way that ensured the cars couldn’t be painted properly...
...For once, Ford is paying us to do nothing...
...I’ll do it if you do it...
...When you have a problem, you have to telephone and then wait for your representative...
...Just a little labor problem,” mutters our foreman...
...He advises that we take Blue Cross instead of Kaiser health insurance...
...Denny comes back from his break and announces a big gap coming up...
...Becker continued to supervise their work...
...Once outside the paint section, the paint job would never be inspected again...
...They push the moving car back up the line and then free my foot...
...Half an hour later, he eats two cheeseburgers...
...Convsyor belts hanging from the ceiling carry tires and parts...
...Ford provides masks, but they are uncomfortable...
...They are amazed...
...But shit, when he’s walking out of the plant, what can you do...
...Ron mostly dreams about sex...
...People who supported the welders were baited as college agitators (as indeed some were...
...The Closer You Look...
...The recession is getting worse, and manufacturing plants all over the San Francisco Bay area are laying off...
...You die in little ways...
...Goodbar...
...I imagine going to South America and learning Spanish...
...On the west side, cars are made...
...Under one roof, it has a floor space of 10 football fields...
...Instantaneously, without need for explanation, Ron, Denny, and Art snap out of their private thoughts...
...Sections of the line buy a couple of $5 or $10 bags and split them up over a week...
...they’re expensjve and he wanted to make them last longer...
Vol. 7 • January 1976 • No. 11
