I have been thinking a lot about the idea of  “skilled” versus “non-skilled” work, not just in the plant, but especially in there. My line has a variety of jobs, none of which are considered skilled. But they all require training, and some have yet to be mastered by more than two or three people. That deficit makes it hard on those of us who can do the jobs, as we are left to pick up the slack and do the jobs for multiple turns in a night. A friend of mine who used to work on my team left it because she wanted to do something else. She didn’t go far, just to another team, one with less heavy lifting. However, since she’s repairing imperfections in metal, she has to learn how to weld. In the post-bankruptcy Chrysler, there are no more “semi-skilled” classifications. It used to be that if you had a skill like welding, you got paid a little more for it. After all, it added value to the car, right? A few months ago, I considered going to a team where I would learn to weld. But I was informed that not only would I NEVER get welder’s pay, the person who did the same job on day shift was grandfathered in and would Always get his welder’s pay. I gave the supervisor back the weld jacket. If I can add value, I can add wages. Some supervisor had the nerve to joke with me, “Oh, so it’s all about the money, huh?”  I can tolerate jokes of all kinds: tasteless, raunchy, off-color. But to imply that we, who are on the floor, are somehow greedy is just beyond the pale. I just told him that if I was interested in volunteering somewhere, I’d be at the soup kitchen in my neighborhood, cooking for the homeless folks. We are all skilled workers in this life. Maybe not all tradesmen, but we all have skills.

I, and 250 fellow toilers, celebrate our first year in the plant. Nearly a thousand people came in around the same time, much as we’re reading about now. We were the first big wave of brand-new tier-2 hires. Fresh off the street, many of us. A few refugees from places like American Axle, people with memories of the good life, before the 2-tier system. For a bunch of people, it’s their first job; we watch them with trepidation, hoping they don’t blow a good deal. If you’re willing to work, the work is here. Most of the time, at least. For others, like me, it’s just the right thing at the right time. I got my job in the plant right at the same time that I finally finished my degree. But I wouldn’t trade this past year for anything. Life at Chrysler has been, often in the same day, so rich and funny and human and bafflingly subject to dictatorial whims, technological disasters and plain stupidity. I’ve spent nights wandering the plant because of breakdowns and other nights working so hard, so fast, for so long that I didn’t think I’d make it back to my car, nevermind all the way home. Nights we built not one car and nights we built over 600 cars.

I’ve had my patience tested to the utmost, but not often. I’ve seen co-workers display staggering generosity for funerals, houses burning down, ‘adopting’ a kid at Christmas (which we didn’t do, so then, feeling guilty, ever single person on my team donated money, which was probably way more than we would have done anyway). I’ve seen people do the dumbest shit possible. I’ve seen people carpool like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve seen people buy groceries for co-workers, using their own Bridge cards. Cause sometimes it’s like that. I went three weeks with no paycheck, but during that time I took my son on our first ever TRIP, that we planned and paid for, bit by bit. We went to Universal Studios in Florida, stayed in the fancy resort and took the water taxi back and forth from the park to the hotel. Bought VIP passes to skip the lines. Spent money like there was sure to be more coming. And, eventually, there was.

It’s no crystal stair, though, that’s for sure. I’ve missed all the parent teacher conferences of the year. I’ve made it to one swim class (a random layoff), and for the first time in his life, spent my son’s birthday away from him. I only spend one or two days a week with him now, because working second shift means never being around to put a kid to bed. I try to remember that it won’t be forever. He’s a good, level-headed kid, though, and takes it in stride. And, he tells me, that when he sees the cars that come from my plant, he always points them out and tells whomever he’s with, “My mom builds that car. She’s tough, like Rosie the Riveter.” I am immensely proud of this, his pride in me.

And of course, it’s so easy to be sentimental about working in the auto industry. It’s Detroit, after all. It absolutely rules our narrative. Nearly everyone came here at some point because this was where the work was. Great big factories all over the place, each one a beehive of humanity and opportunity and possibility. The promise that hard work would pay off, you could buy that cottage Up North, send your kids to college, or get them a job doing the same thing, with the same good life possible. I am not looking at anything like the life my grandfather was able to build working at Chrysler. For one thing, he went in at 16 and spent 42 years there. We have no reason to do that. I’m simply too old to do that, but the youngsters in the plant don’t have that pension waiting for them. They have a 401(k), which is held by Merrill Lynch. A bank that was bailed out unconditionally, while the auto bailouts came with the conditions that allowed for the 2-tier system to be so easily implemented. I don’t know what those guys are Merrill Lynch did with their bailout money, but I can tell you that thousands of jobs came from the auto bailout. Ask RJ’s Lounge, or Maceri’s Italian Kitchen, or any of the other businesses that are thriving now because we have people working and spending money. You know, participating in the economy.

So, to cut it short, cheers, salud, mazel tov to my brothers and sisters who came in with me last year. Second tier, loud and proud, making our way. Picking through the ashes of what used to be, and creating what’s to come. “Because this is the Motor City and this is what we do.”

In Solidarity,

Stepchild in the Promised Land

This week I also purchased a copy of a movie that was made by a man in my plant. I haven’t met Rodney Rhodes, the writer/director/producer of The Souls of Black Men, but I bought his movie because he made it. I’ll do that with just about any product someone presents me…if someone felt compelled to make something, I feel compelled to support it. I haven’t had time to watch it yet, but I will. And then I’ll write about it, and tell other people to check it out.

I read all the newsletters I come across, I listen to every story that presents itself to me. Another man who works in my plant is a cook. He won the reality show America’s Next Great Restaurant. He had the concept for a healthy soul food chain. Apparently, that didn’t work out, because he’s back at Chrysler, driving a hi-lo. His posts online mention the possibility of opening a restaurant here in Detroit. Other people I’ve talked to are working on books. A good friend of the family retired from GM and is now a full-time writer; she’s won prestigious awards.

This idea of fulfillment is hitting me particularly hard this week, surrounded by so much death. I can’t stand the idea that people’s lives end without them fulfilling their dreams, or at least trying to. I am really awed by people who have large dreams, or goals that they simply set and then set about attaining. I have a cousin who wanted to live in England, ever since we were kids. We come from a totally working-class background, not the kind of folks who just up and move to Europe. More like the kind of folks who came over in steerage, working to pay their passage. But she did it. She made a plan, applied to graduate school, and went. Now, she wants a life different than the one she has. So she’s working on that. I’m amazed by the ability of people to make the lives they want. I’ve always been very makeshift. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy enough in my life, but I’ve also never really wanted anything more than good music, good food and good books. Those are all fairly attainable, they don’t require much planning.

This week, I’d like to honor those whom I’ve lost and also raise a glass to those who see that life can be a grand adventure. Salud!

I am grateful for:

a resilient sense of humor; co-workers whose company I enjoy; collectively bargained rights; my more-or-less enduring good health; the opportunity to put food on the table; and the good sense to enjoy it all.

I am glad (but not grateful) for:

my paycheck and benefits. I come to work every night and work hard. I toil, I sweat in the winter, along with many, many other folks. We have no reason to be grateful for something we work so hard for. We earn it. This Thanksgiving, I’ll raise a glass to my co-workers, fellow travelers and toilers. We’ll give thanks together for the things we do nothing to earn and I’ll encourage everyone to be glad in their efforts to put food on the table. Don’t be grateful for the things you earn by the sweat of your brow. Be glad, be proud. But you earned them. We earned them. They are ours. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

In solidarity,

Stepchild in the Promised Land

What does it mean to be working class? Does it mean that you’re a manual laborer? Not necessarily, although that leads to another interesting discussion, and kinda where I wanted to go with this: the NBA lockout. I haven’t followed it very closely, though I am a sports fan, for the most part. I followed the NFL lockout a little closer this spring, but that was just coincidence. I actually like basketball quite a bit more than football. But that’s neither here nor there.This is an interesting bit of documentary about sports & politics.

But the NBA looks like it’s in a different position. I’m not going to get into particulars, because I don’t know them. But I’m really thinking hard about who actually IS working-class? And by extension, who should our working-class heroes be? In the recent crackdowns of the various Occupy cities, the police have obviously played a big part. The most notable being Oakland, CA, where police maced the crowd, shot people with rubber bullets, and in short, rioted. The police rioted, not the people. In response, the people of Oakland shut down the port a few days later. Tens of thousands of people marched to the bay and shut down one of the busiest ports on earth. But the police are made up of people. And they are most certainly working-class. I have cops on both sides of my family and I know that neither of them are wealthy. So why are they so invested in protecting a system that shits all over them, too?

The NBA lockout is interesting to me in a similar way. During the NFL lockout, the players did an excellent job advocating on their own behalf, wresting big gains in revenue-sharing and health care for players. Remember, no one comes to see what’s-his-name who owns the Steelers. They come to see Troy Polumalu,

Troy Polamalu

Not Dan Rooney

Right. This is NOT who anyone is coming to see.

Anyway, the NBA players have a sort different culture than the NFL, it seems. The show Basketball Wives is a hit, though it could just easily be called Basketball Babymothers or Basketball Ex-Girlfriends or Basketball Depressing-Display-of-Golddigging, Colonized-Women. Or maybe I’m just missing the point. In any event, it seems that the NBA players union has been less able to capitalize on the same sort of solidarity and concern that the football players were able to manage. I’m curious about that dynamic. Why? Basketball players are no less working-class than are football players, or teachers or cops or autoworkers. Their labor creates profit for the owners and the league. Even the flashiest, most eccentric owner like Mark Cuban is just a sideshow compared to the show on the court. This is a short video of Mark Cuban, throwing a tantrum. This is NOT what people pay to see. No one wears a Cuban jersey.

This is a much longer video of some of the most killer moments in a variety of NBA games. These are the moments that people come to see, that they talk about for years.

The old South End newspaper used to have the motto that “One class-conscious worker is worth a thousand students.” One class-conscious basketball player is worth a thousand owners. Just something to think about.

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'   --Percy Bysshe Shelley

We are an unhappy and divided lot, the once-mighty United Auto Workers. We have left the table, squabbling and arguing over whose lot is worse, who got screwed the worst. And THIS is inevitable result of a two-tier anything. A two-tier union, a two-tier family, anything. One of the slickest things about capitalism is that it thrives on division with small treats distracting from larger rewards. If people are starving, throwing crumbs distracts them from the big-ass pie from which the crumbs originate. It’s the same idea that women have when they get mugged for their purses: Throw the purse in one direction and run like hell in the other.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the only weapon we have is education. Last night, in my plant, the bosses called a meeting of all the Team Leaders and kept them in the office for a good while. No one knew why, or what was going on. That is the Chrysler way: Keep everyone in the dark and feed them shit. After a while (and one or two line stops), the Team Leaders all came out, and told everyone there was cake in the conference room. Apparently, we ran a perfect build for one shift last week. I guess that means that we ran well enough, from one end of the factory to the other, that the maximum output of cars was achieved. It’s never happened at a plant like ours, and it was only the 4th time in Chrysler history. So we got cake. I can’t imagine what the management got: They had a perfect build just two days after eliminating two jobs from the body shop! I asked the center manager what his bonus was, but he insisted it was just the cake. I’m sure. Anyway, we only worked 8 hrs last night, when everyone usually expects to work 9 or 10; we all need the overtime. We figured that $60-$100 they saved by running a regular shift was to pay for the cake.

But the question that I didn’t hear nearly enough was: What do the managers get when we run a perfect build? What do the managers get when they trim jobs? What kind of “quality” or “performance” bonuses do they get, relative to whatever we get? After all, even though they’re supposed to be the brains of the operation, if there aren’t enough of us peons, they can’t run the line. We saw that last week. Literally, they ran such a thin margin on the manpower that they couldn’t start the line for 15 minutes into the shift.

It might not sound like much, but the assembly line doesn’t play. An oft-quoted line from the bosses is that every minute the line is down costs the company something like $10,000 or so. That’s a lot of leverage, isn’t it? And we have people who are willing to work through their breaks for a paid lunch…for a tier-two worker, that’s about $7.50. In order to keep the line running after break. So we’re selling off $10,000 worth of leverage for less than 40 bucks a week? Damn. Things really are tough all over. But I have hope…it’s been bad before, it’ll be worse again. The only thing we can do is fight, fight, fight like hell. And so we shall.

I think we’re in a real moment of possibility here. I have to think so. I know that things look bad for us, that we’re in a position of vulnerability and division. But it won’t always be like this. We have to just take the moment we’re in and see it for what it is: fucked. But it’s also just one moment in history. There were times when things were even worse and we didn’t have the luxury of mass, instantaneous communication or an historical legacy of struggle. Things are bad for everyone. We don’t get any sympathy from any arbitrator, or legislator or any other kind of -ator. We have very few options right now. But as the old heads have mentioned to me, he who runs away, lives to fight another day. I hate that, but it’s got its practical applications. So for now, pretend like it’s 1935 and we’re getting ready for a four-year-long drive of education and solidarity building. There are so many of us down here on the bottom, and so many more coming in, that it is time for all hands on deck. Education, solidarity, bridge-building. I can not overstate the importance of these things right now. Pretend like it’s the 1930s…the bosses act like it is, we should be responding with similar. We know we can’t get any more now than what we’re getting, but we should also keep in mind that it doesn’t mean that we have to volunteer to give anything else up. We want: libraries, resources, information, representation. We have these rights, we demand these things. Because the next four years are going to be fought in the trenches. We need to arm ourselves accordingly. If the weapons used against the working class are fear, misinformation and intimidation, then we must counter with boldness, truth and solidarity. This isn’t the end of any fight, but the beginning of one. So like my man Pete Seeger said in the song, “Take it easy. But take it.”

In Solidarity,

Stepchild in the Promised Land

In Solidarity,

Stepchild in the Promised Land

There is so much to be angry about. The media blackout of the Wall Street protests,budget cuts, war, poverty, the systematic dismantling of any worker protection…the list goes on. I found myself getting carried away; just so angry. But as I wrote to a friend telling him to bring his kids to Occupy Detroit, it struck an old, hidden chord. The most important reason to fight and fight and fight until our last breath is because we have kids, or younger siblings, or the idea of youth. I remembered the demonstrations and protests that I had attended as a child with my mother and the thing that I can remember the best, the clearest is the sense of joy. The deep and abiding sense of joy, pride and comraderie in a shared struggle. My favorite thing about getting to talk to all these Autoworker Caravan retirees is the sense of knowing that they’re on the right side of history, even if it’s not the winning side. It’s a very particular sense of joy that comes from knowing that your fight is the fight of everyone, that your fight (even if it feels like you’re not winning it) is the fight that will do the most good for the most people. It’s thrilling and so uplifting to know that all those people on Wall Street are there not just because they got parking tickets or something, but because people are starting to put together that our struggle is big. And that our humanity is big. And because of that, our power is big.  Remember, all of this outrage is because all we really want is a better life, a fair shake. That, for me, at least comes from a desire for more happiness, more purpose, more joy.