Wheels, Page 3

  “No.” Zaleski sighed. “But thanks.” He hung up.

  So his first instinct had been right. There wasn’t any time to spare, and hadn’t been from the beginning, because a racial labor dispute always burned with a short fuse. Now, if a walkout happened, it could take days to settle and get everybody back at work; and even if only black workers became involved, and maybe not all of them, the effect would still be enough to halt production. Matt Zaleski’s job was to keep production going.

  As if Parkland had read his thoughts, the foreman urged, “Matt, don’t let them push you! So a few may walk off the job, and we’ll have trouble. But a principle’s worth standing up for, sometimes, isn’t it?”

  “Sometimes,” Zaleski said. “The trick is to know which principle, and when.”

  “Being fair is a good way to start,” Parkland said, “and fairness works two ways—up and down.” He leaned forward over the desk, speaking earnestly to Matt Zaleski, glancing now and then to the union committeeman, Illas. “Okay, I’ve been tough with guys on the line because I’ve had to be. A foreman’s in the middle, catching crap from all directions. From up here, Matt, you and your people are on our necks every day for production, production, more production; and if it isn’t you it’s Quality Control who say, build ’em better, even though you’re building faster. Then there are those who are working, doing the jobs—including some like Newkirk, and others—and a foreman has to cope with them, along with the union as well if he puts a foot wrong, and sometimes when he doesn’t. So it’s a tough business, and I’ve been tough; it’s the way to survive. But I’ve been fair, too. I’ve never treated a guy who worked for me differently because he was black, and I’m no plantation overseer with a whip. As for what we’re talking about now, all I did—so I’m told—is call a black man ‘boy.’ I didn’t ask him to pick cotton, or ride Jim Crow, or shine shoes, or any other thing that’s supposed to go with that word. What I did was help him with his job. And I’ll say another thing: if I did call him ‘boy’—so help me, by a slip!—I’ll say I’m sorry for that, because I am. But not to Newkirk. Brother Newkirk stays fired. Because if he doesn’t, if he gets away with slugging a foreman without reason, you can stuff a surrender flag up your ass and wave goodbye to any discipline around this place from this day on. That’s what I mean when I say be fair.”

  “You’ve got a point or two there,” Zaleski said. Ironically, he thought, Frank Parkland had been fair with black workers, maybe fairer than a good many others around the plant. He asked Illas, “How do you feel about all that?”

  The union man looked blandly through his thick-lensed glasses. “I’ve already stated the union’s position, Mr. Zaleski.”

  “So if I turn you down, if I decide to back up Frank the way he just said I should, what then?”

  Illas said stiffly, “We’d be obliged to go through further grievance procedure.”

  “Okay.” The assistant plant manager nodded. “That’s your privilege. Except, if we go through a full grievance drill it can mean thirty days or more. In the meantime, does everybody keep working?”

  “Naturally. The collective bargaining agreement specifies …”

  Zaleski flared, “I don’t need you to tell me what the agreement says! It says everybody stays on the job while we negotiate. But right now a good many of your men are getting ready to walk off their jobs in violation of the contract.”

  For the first time, Illas looked uneasy. “The UAW does not condone illegal strikes.”

  “Goddamit, then! Stop this one!”

  “If what you say is true, I’ll talk to some of our people.”

  “Talking won’t do any good. You know it, and I know it.” Zaleski eyed the union committeeman whose pink face had paled slightly; obviously Illas didn’t relish the thought of arguing with some of the black militants in their present mood.

  The union—as Matt Zaleski was shrewdly aware—was in a tight dilemma in situations of this kind. If the union failed to support its black militants at all, the militants would charge union leaders with racial prejudice and being “management lackeys.” Yet if the union went too far with its support, it could find itself in an untenable position legally, as party to a wildcat strike. Illegal strikes were anathema to UAW leaders like Woodcock, Fraser, Greathouse, Bannon, and others, who had built reputations for tough negotiating, but also for honoring agreements once made, and settling grievances through due process. Wildcatting debased the union’s word and undermined its bargaining strength.

  “They’re not going to thank you at Solidarity House if we let this thing get away from us,” Matt Zaleski persisted. “There’s only one thing can stop a walkout, and that’s for us to make a decision here, then go down on the floor and announce it.”

  Illas said, “That depends on the decision.” But it was plain that the union man was weighing Zaleski’s words.

  Matt Zaleski had already decided what the ruling had to be, and he knew that nobody would like it entirely, including himself. He thought sourly: these were lousy times, when a man had to shove his convictions in his pocket along with pride—at least, if he figured to keep an automobile plant running.

  He announced brusquely, “Nobody gets fired. Newkirk goes back to his job, but from now on he uses his fists for working, nothing else.” The assistant plant manager fixed his eyes on Illas. “I want it clearly understood by you and by Newkirk—one more time, he’s out. And before he goes back, I’ll talk to him myself.”

  “He’ll be paid for lost time?” The union man had a slight smile of triumph.

  “Is he still at the plant?”

  “Yes.”

  Zaleski hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. “Okay, providing he finishes the shift. But there’ll be no more talk about anybody replacing Frank.” He swung to face Parkland. “And you’ll do what you said you would—talk to the young guy. Tell him what was said was a mistake.”

  “An apology is what it’s known as,” Illas said.

  Frank Parkland glared at them both. “Of all the crummy, sleazy backdowns!”

  “Take it easy!” Zaleski warned.

  “Like hell I’ll take it easy!” The burly foreman was on his feet, towering over the assistant plant manager. He spat words across the desk between them. “You’re the one taking it easy—the easy out because you’re too much a goddam coward to stand up for what you know is right.”

  His face flushing deep red, Zaleski roared, “I don’t have to take that from you! That’ll be enough! You hear?”

  “I hear.” Contempt filled Parkland’s voice and eyes. “But I don’t like what I hear, or what I smell.”

  “In that case, maybe you’d like to be fired!”

  “Maybe,” the foreman said. “Maybe the air’d be cleaner some place else.”

  There was a silence between them, then Zaleski growled, “It’s no cleaner. Some days it stinks everywhere.”

  Now that his own outburst was over, Matt Zaleski had himself in hand. He had no intention of firing Parkland, knowing that if he did, it would be a greater injustice piled on another; besides, good foremen were hard to come by. Nor would Parkland quit of his own accord, whatever he might threaten; that was something Zaleski had calculated from the beginning. He happened to know that Frank Parkland had obligations at home which made a continuing paycheck necessary, as well as too much seniority in the company to throw away.

  But for a moment back there, Parkland’s crack about cowardice had stung. There had been an instant when the assistant plant manager wanted to shout that Frank Parkland had been ten years old, a snot-nosed kid, when he, Matt Zaleski, was sweating bomber missions over Europe, never knowing when a hunk of jagged flak would slice through the fuselage, then horribly through his guts or face or pecker, or wondering if their B-17F would go spinning earthward from 25,000 feet, burning, as many of the Eighth Air Force bombers did while comrades watched … So think again about who you’re taunting with cowardice, sonny; and remember I’m the one, not you, who has to keep t
his plant going, no matter how much bile I swallow doing it! … But Zaleski hadn’t said any of that, knowing that some of the things he had thought of happened a long time ago, and were not relevant any more, that ideas and values had changed in screwy, mixed-up ways; also that there were different kinds of cowardice, and maybe Frank Parkland was right, or partly right. Disgusted with himself, the assistant plant manager told the other two, “Let’s go down on the floor and settle this.”

  They went out of the office—Zaleski first, followed by the union committeeman, with Frank Parkland, dour and glowering, in the rear. As they clattered down the metal stairway from the office mezzanine to the factory floor, the noise of the plant hit them solidly, like a barrage of bedlam.

  The stairway at factory floor level was close to a section of assembly line where early subassemblies were welded onto frames, becoming the foundations on which finished cars would rest. The din at this point was so intense that men working within a few feet of one another had to shout, heads close together, to communicate. Around them, showers of sparks flew upward and sideways in a pyrotechnic curtain of intense white-blue. Volleys from welding machines and rivet guns were punctuated by the constant hiss of the power tools’ lifeblood—compressed air. And central to everything, focus of activity like an ambling godhead exacting tribute, the moving assembly line inched inexorably on.

  The union committeeman fell in beside Zaleski as the trio moved forward down the line. They were walking considerably faster than the assembly line itself, so that cars they passed were progressively nearer completion. There was a power plant in each chassis now, and immediately ahead, a body shell was about to merge with a chassis sliding under it in what auto assembly men called the “marriage act.” Matt Zaleski’s eyes swung over the scene, checking key points of operation, as he always did, instinctively.

  Heads went up, or turned, as the assistant plant manager, with Illas and Parkland, continued down the line. There were a few greetings, though not many, and Zaleski was aware of sour looks from most workers whom they passed, white as well as black. He sensed a mood of resentment and unrest. It happened occasionally in plants, sometimes without reason, at other times through a minor cause, as if an eruption would have happened anyway and was merely seeking the nearest outlet. Sociologists, he knew, called it a reaction to unnatural monotony.

  The union committeeman had his face set in a stern expression, perhaps to indicate that he hobnobbed with management only through duty, but did not enjoy it.

  “How’s it feel,” Matt Zaleski asked him, “now you don’t work on the line any more?”

  Illas said curtly, “Good.”

  Zaleski believed him. Outsiders who toured auto plants often assumed that workers there became reconciled, in time, to the noise, smell, heat, unrelenting pressure, and endless repetition of their jobs. Matt Zaleski had heard touring visitors tell their children, as if speaking of inmates of a zoo: “They all get used to it. Most of them are happy at that kind of work. They wouldn’t want to do anything else.”

  When he heard it, he always wanted to cry out: “Kids, don’t believe it! It’s a lie!”

  Zaleski knew, as did most others who were close to auto plants, that few people who worked on factory production lines for long periods had ever intended to make that work a lifetime’s occupation. Usually, when hired, they looked on the job as temporary until something better came along. But to many—especially those with little education—the better job was always out of reach, forever a delusive dream. Eventually a trap was sprung. It was a two-pronged trap, with a worker’s own commitments on one side—marriage, children, rent, installment payments—and on the other, the fact that pay in the auto industry was high compared with jobs elsewhere.

  But neither pay nor good fringe benefits could change the grim, dispiriting nature of the work. Much of it was physically hard, but the greatest toll was mental—hour after hour, day after day of deadening monotony. And the nature of their jobs robbed individuals of pride. A man on a production line lacked a sense of achievement; he never made a car; he merely made, or put together, pieces—adding a washer to a bolt, fastening a metal strip, inserting screws. And always it was the identical washer or strip or screws, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, while working conditions—including an overlay of noise—made communication difficult, friendly association between individuals impossible. As years went by, many, while hating, endured. Some had mental breakdowns. Almost no one liked his work.

  Thus, a production line worker’s ambition, like that of a prisoner, was centered on escape. Absenteeism was a way of partial escape; so was a strike. Both brought excitement, a break in monotony—for the time being the dominating drive.

  Even now, the assistant plant manager realized, that drive might be impossible to turn back.

  He told Illas, “Remember, we made an agreement. Now, I want this thing cleaned up fast.” The union man didn’t answer, and Zaleski added, “Today should do you some good. You got what you wanted.”

  “Not all of it.”

  “All that mattered.”

  Behind their words was a fact of life which both men knew: An escape route from the production line which some workers chose was through election to a full-time union post, with a chance of moving upward in UAW ranks. Illas, recently, had gone that way himself. But once elected, a union man became a political creature; to survive he must be re-elected, and between elections he maneuvered like a politician courting favor with constituents. The workers around a union committeeman were his voters, and he strove to please them. Illas had that problem now.

  Zaleski asked him, “Where’s this character Newkirk?”

  They had come to the point on the assembly line where this morning’s blow-up had occurred.

  Illas nodded toward an open area with several plastic-topped tables and chairs, where line workers took their meal breaks. There was a bank of vending machines for coffee, soft drinks, candy. A painted line on the floor served in lieu of a surrounding wall. At the moment the only occupant of the area was a husky, big-featured black man; smoke drifted from a cigarette in his hand as he watched the trio which had just arrived.

  The assistant plant manager said, “All right, tell him he goes back to work, and make sure you fill in all the rest. When you’re through talking, send him over to me.”

  “Okay,” Illas said. He stepped over the painted line and was smiling as he sat down at the table with the big man.

  Frank Parkland had already gone directly to a younger black man, still working on the line. Parkland was talking earnestly. At first the other looked uncomfortable, but soon after grinned sheepishly and nodded. The foreman touched the younger man’s shoulder and motioned in the direction of Illas and Newkirk, still at the lunch area table, their heads close together. The young assembly worker grinned again. The foreman put out his hand; after hesitating briefly, the young man took it. Matt Zaleski found himself wondering if he could have handled Parkland’s part as gracefully or as well.

  “Hi, boss man!” The voice came from the far side of the assembly line. Zaleski turned toward it.

  It was an interior trim inspector, an old-timer on the line, a runtish man with a face extraordinarily like that of Hitler. Inevitably, fellow workers called him Adolf and, as if enjoying the joke, the employee—whose real name Zaleski could never remember—even combed his short hair forward over one eye.

  “Hi, Adolf.” The assistant plant manager crossed to the other side of the line, stepping carefully between a yellow convertible and a mist-green sedan. “How’s body quality today?”

  “I’ve seen worse days, boss man. Remember the World Series?”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  World Series time and the opening days of the Michigan hunting season were periods which auto production men dreaded. Absenteeism was at a peak; even foremen and supervisors were guilty of it. Quality plummeted, and at World Series time the situation was worsened by employees paying more atten
tion to portable radios than to their jobs. Matt Zaleski remembered that at the height of the 1968 Series, which the Detroit Tigers won, he confided grimly to his wife, Freda—it was the year before she died—“I wouldn’t wish a car built today on my worst enemy.”

  “This special’s okay, anyway.” Adolf (or whatever his name was) had hopped nimbly in and out of the mist-green sedan. Now, he turned his attention to the car behind—a bright orange sports compact with white bucket seats. “Bet this one’s for a blonde,” Adolf shouted from inside the car. “An’ I’d like to be the one to screw her in it.”

  Matt Zaleski shouted back, “You’ve got a soft job already.”

  “I’d be softer after her.” The inspector emerged, rubbing his crotch and leering; factory humor was seldom sophisticated.

  The assistant plant manager returned the grin, knowing it was one of the few human exchanges the worker would have during his eight-hour shift.

  Adolf ducked into another car, checking its interior. It was true what Zaleski had said a moment earlier: an inspector did have a softer job than most others on the line, and usually got it through seniority. But the job, which carried no extra pay and gave a man no real authority, had disadvantages. If an inspector was conscientious and drew attention to all bad work, he aroused the ire of fellow workers who could make life miserable for him in other ways. Foremen, too, took a dim view of what they conceived to be an overzealous inspector, resenting anything which held up their particular area of production. All foremen were under pressure from superiors—including Matt Zaleski—to meet production quotas, and foremen could, and often did, overrule inspectors. Around an auto plant a classic phrase was a foreman’s grunted, “Let it go,” as a substandard piece of equipment or work moved onward down the line—sometimes to be caught by Quality Control, more often not.

  In the meal break area, the union committeeman and Newkirk were getting up from their table.

  Matt Zaleski looked forward down the line; something about the mist-green sedan, now several cars ahead, caused his interest to sharpen. He decided to inspect that car more closely before it left the plant.