NONFICTION
Go Union
by Martin Polak
Lake Tool and Dye has three product assembly lines. Snow blowers are assembled by Vietnamese in the country on temporary work permits. They produce parking lots full of perfect models and exceed all management expectations by doubling the Minimum Expected Level of Production.
Lawn mowers are assembled by Greeks, also with permits, and who always meet or exceed the MELP.
And red wagons, assembled by second and third generation Americans. Red Chief is the classic wagon and an item of Americana. I had one as a kid. The cotter pins always broke, so the wheels fell off. We used bent pieces of shirt hanger to hold the wobbly wheels on.
Now on the line six nines and fitting wheels on thousands of wagons, I think about the guy doing this same job at this same station fifteen years ago, turning out thousands of Red Chiefs with those faulty cotter pins.
Our line has a high spoilage ratio. Handles and axles are put on backwards or crooked, bolts are drilled too tight and stripped, wheels missing tires, the edges of wagons bent. You wouldn't imagine so many things could go wrong with a wagon.
One day we produced at 73% of the MELP. In the midst of celebration they were all rejected because the Red Chief's head was stenciled upside down. Huge piles of Red Chiefs sit rejected with grease pencil circles on dents, scratches, problems. Our line manager, Yogi, sits on his tow motor with his head buried in his hands.
Production of accepted snow blowers and lawn mowers proceeds smoothly, in record numbers.
All three lines are fed by parts trucks. The permit people go into this rapid assembly mode until their parts trucks sit empty. Then they lounge around, laughing at our line. Management decided that instead of sitting around they should disassemble our spoilage, replace the damaged parts, then return all this to the front of our line.
This more than doubled our work and our parts trucks lined up halfway down the block. Then management considered closing down Red Chief.
At lunch, our union steward, George, sat sideways on his Harley. I said, "I don't know, George. It looks pretty bad in there. We have to snap out of this."
Hitting his flask, George said, "Don't worry. I've seen this shit before. The union will take management to court if they shut down our line."
"What about the rejects?"
George shrugged. "Look, we're on the job six nines. If management has a problem with quality they can file a complaint with the board and get a hearing next month. They just want to close an unprofitable union line and dilute the member presence."
Another guy said, "I'm tired of getting shown up by these probation people."
George laughed. "Those Greeks will do anything to get in the union. But once they're in they'll wise up, understand the management motivation, and stop making us look bad."
His eyes narrowed. "Those spooks though, don't ever trust them. I did two clicks so I know what I'm talking about. They disappear into thin air without leaving a footprint and wire kids with explosives then send them wandering into camp. We should have a real problem with them. They got the management view of things and don't want to Go Union. They are ants and thrive in the slave labor mode."
I watched the Vietnamese function the care and feeding of their line machinery. Truly like human ants over a street block of sprawling line they synchronized a steady output of complex assemblies. We couldn't even begin working at the speed of that line, I thought. We would just stand and stare helplessly as the parts ran by.
Their parts guy, Ty, never wasted a movement, applying only the effort necessary to keep parts flowing through the operation. That line seemed to live and breath as a man/machine organism with Ty the heart and the parts its blood, or food. And when they rested, their line seemed to rest. The lattice work and ratchet guns steamed and hummed as they sat quietly, rarely talking, slowly munching strange green rice balls.
Ty gave me one once. The thing was heavy, big as a baseball. I hesitated biting into it. "Go ahead," he said. "Take small bites and chew fifty times each side. Chew all food one hundred times and focus only on chewing food."
The ball of pasty brown rice was covered with a shiny, wrinkled green seaweed like a skin, or rind. I chewed a few bites and felt like a traitor. Slivers of strong tasting pickled plums were mixed in with the rice. "Very high energy food," Ty said.
I returned to our line with narcotic energy and clarity, but without the stoned headache and dizziness I got from the christmas trees, speckled eggs, white cross, and black beauties that George passed out.
I stood ready, anxious to install the thousands of wheels, to thread and bend the cotter pins. And with aspiration and focus I worked on perfecting the changeless motions until like a machine I performed the optimal execution every time.
Martin Polak has been writing in steno pads since 1978 while working a myriad of jobs between getting involved in crime, outsider art, early punk rock and garage bands. Since 1990 he has been working as a software developer in Cleveland, Ohio.