#punching out

[angstyvylene-i]

[mywonderlandwasteland]

[highway62]

Taking a break. Full post back at Highway 62 dot com.

Short form: I’ll probably be back, don’t know when.

[eveyveveryv]

Stories about factory work still apply.  I feel this stuff every day at the school I work at.

In a zinc smelter in Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, a man was given a job which required pulling a series of switches that controlled the furnaces. He sat on a cot or bench in a small room and at regular intervals he had to get up to pull the switches along one wall. One day the foreman realized that although he had passed the controls room frequently, he had never seen the guy off the cot. He went in to investigate and found that he had rigged up a series of wires from the switches to the head of the cot which he could pull at the required time. The boss told him that it didn't look good for him to lay on his back all day, he'd have to take the wires down. If a higher-up saw the wires he'd have a fit. The wires were taken down. But not long afterward, the foreman noticed that once more the man never left the cot. He investigated again and found that he had wired the switches themselves, not the handles as before, and could throw the switches from his cot without any wires being strung around the room. The foreman threw up his hands and said, "If you could figure that out, then lay on your damn back all day." Machine Should Serve The Man

This is an extreme case, but only because the worker was able to keep some of the benefits. Every worker is always looking for ways to make the machine serve him. But he must spend his life fighting the fact that he has been placed in the factory to serve the machine or assembly line.

It isn't just helping his own job along that's involved. Production in a modern factory usually prohibits that. The worker can help himself only by helping his buddies. A job can be improved only by changing half a dozen operations. This is especially true on an assembly line. Improving production means a group of people cooperatively organizing the work. It can be done in no other way.

An auto worker said that the thing he hates most about his job is that the company has production so fouled up that he can't help his buddy. That's an opinion that's shared by workers everywhere.

The guy next to you on the line isn't feeling well, or he's got a hangover, or he's just feeling lazy. Or maybe he's having trouble with his tools. He starts to fall behind, moving up the line to keep up with his job. The first instinct you have is to give him a hand. You know the terrible pressure he's under. But you also know that helping him get out his production won't do him any good. He'll have the same job to do tomorrow. The company will get a few pieces they wouldn't otherwise have gotten. And you resent it. Everyone resents it.

In a shop with a strong union tradition on production standards no one would think of helping and they are bitter at not being able to help, In other shops a man might lend a hand and be just as bitter because only the company benefits from his human action.

[hemidemisemiquavers]

Oh, The Boss is Coming! - Arkells

[greenshoesandjam]

The Other Reason the Jobs aren’t Coming Back

All over the American Industrial Belt manufacturing plants are being broken down and shipped overseas.  I have been reading Punching out: One Year in a Closing Auto Plant by Paul Clemens who recounts the decommissioning of a mid-sized auto plant in Detroit.  The author was born and raised in Detroit and his family history resembles that of the riggers taking this plant apart. 

The Budd Detroit facility was a pressing plant, meaning it contained huge two-story multi-tonne presses which, with more than 2000 tons of pressure per square inch, bent, pressed and cut steel.  It also had “power shears, grinders, band saws, boring machines, radial arm drills, blast cabinets, threading machines, robotic welders, radial arm saws, planers, air compressors, cooling towers, boom lifts, forklifts, hydraulic lifts, electric lifts, die lifts, tow truck…and a whole bunch else”.  At one time employing 6,000 men, the had produced shells during World War Two, was the main plant for the Ford Thunderbird in 1957, and also produced roofs, doors, tailgates, lift gates and fenders for trucks and SUVs.  If they didn’t work the line, most of the workers in the plant nurtured these machines, installing, repairing, oiling, adjusting and calibrating them down to the millimetre. 

Henry Ford, when he revolutionized the auto industry, decided that he needed his workers to be able to buy his cars. He instituted the “5 Dollar Day” and launched the prosperous working class.  Most of the men Clemens met were second or third generation auto men, with years of experience and a great feel for the gigantic works they toiled in.  They often moved from Ford to GM to Chrysler, from auto bodies, to brakes to engines and they worked with the matter-of-factness and pragmatism Americans are known for, with very little animosity towards the workers in Mexico where some of the equipment was going.  It is unlikely that Chinese, Indian or Mexican auto workers can buy the autos they make.  Where will the prosperous working class come from then?

Behind the cars coming off the assembly line is this collection of machines and men but behind them is another collection of machines that make the equipment; shops and plants where lathes, machinists and welders build the pressers and all the other manufacturing stock. The workers themselves learned their trades alongside master craftsmen and in trade-schools. 

This whole industrial ecosystem, comprising 10,000 auto manufacturing plants and millions of workers, has been systematically clear-cut with another 80,000 plants threatened.  Even the fertile soil of small tool-and die shops, camshops and machine shops has been scraped away.  How can you rebuild this manufacturing capacity which took a hundred years to grow?  Even if American wages drop to the level of China, the work and jobs can’t come back because the plants are gone and vast swathes of the landscape of American manufacturing lies in ruins. 

[chartshaker]

Jade Ewen: Punching Out (Unreleased) I know everyone is quite happily chattering away about a possible Sugababes V1.0 reunion or Siobhan Donaghy's arrival on Twitter and thus refamiliarising themselves with her wunderbar back catalogue. But stop! Let's take a moment to listen to what could have been Jade Ewen's follow up to 'My Man', had she not joined the Sugababes in a rash moment of haste! 'Punching Out' is brilliant. It's better than any single that the band have released since the Eurovision singer joined. It's feisty without being forced. And it is was shelved so Ewen could replace Keisha. One striking lyrical couplet has her singing: 'I won't be your waitress. Clean up your own mess'. Deep, right? I can't help but wonder if she ever raises her hand to her bedroom window, gazing wistfully outside as the rain lashes against the glass, singing it to herself and thinking of what could have been. *Cue lone tear rolling down cheek*