Rivethead - Ben Hamper [91]
A reporter in the back of the room leaned forward and, quoting Smith, hollered: “How can the elimination of 30,000 jobs IMPROVE job security?” Hey, this hack was on the beam. Even the Rivethead hadn't caught how hopelessly inane this statement had been. Remaining completely stone-faced, Roger Smith glanced at the reporter and reasoned: “For those who are left, their jobs will become that much more secure.” Ouch.
That cinched it. The guy in charge of the largest corporation in America had a brain the size of a fuckin’ lima bean. Not that he was lyin’. It only figured that anytime you were able to dispose of 30,000 workers you were going to be able to provide a more secure base for “those who are left.” What had me rockin’ in my recliner was Smith's casual infusion of flat-out genocide as a harmless means of streamlining the roster. He launched this verbal septic log so nonchalantly, one was left with the distinct impression that Smith actually believed that what he was saying would send a soothin’ gush of relief through the rattled wits of the blue-collars. Man, some guys had balls large enough to use on a demolition crane.
For those who are left. That sounded awful damn grim for, a solution that was intended to come off as some form of reassurance. It was entirely possible that Roger Smith had missed his calling in life. He could have been our ambassador to Ethiopia: “A food shortage, you say? Nooo problem. Simply exterminate a vast portion of your population, stack ‘em out of view where they won't upset anyone's appetite and, PRESTO!, vittles aplenty for THOSE WHO ARE LEFT.”
I swear, somedays it just doesn't pay to get outta bed. As it turned out, one of the ten targeted plants for elimination was Flint Truck & Bus. The plan was to close down Line One, the Pickup Line, and move it down south to a new facility in Pontiac, Michigan. Tastes great, less workers! New robots, less filling! The end result would mean the eventual slashing of 3,500 jobs at our plant.
This disclosure tended to fall in step with GM's stubborn desire to keep its work force forever herding southward. Consider this scenario: at least half of the guys around me on the Rivet Line were refugees from closed plants in Saginaw or Bay City. They had to drive south forty or fifty miles a day to barely hang on in Flint. Now, from the information I was receiving, in order to retain my job I would have to sign some transfer sheet and steer my nose fifty miles to the south to the plant they were constructing in Pontiac. The people in Pontiac were probably headed for the plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The folks in Fort Wayne were no doubt being packed off for new jobs at the factory in Shreveport, Louisiana. Meanwhile, these Cajuns were being prepared to duck under the border and tinker for a while in Mexico. Notice a trend here? Precisely! Sooner or later, we were all gonna scrape our heads playin’ limbo with the Equator.
And I bet it wouldn't end there. Nope, GM would have us all down there by the mid-nineties and the robots would be working out just fine. They'd have some massive burial pit ready and, before any of us could whip off a letter back home, we'd all be fifty feet under some godforsaken desert, laid out elbow to elbow with absolutely no recall rights to anywhere but the bottom of a dusty plaque hangin’ over the middle urinal inside Mark's Lounge.
One thing was for certain. I had absolutely zero interest in signing up to work at this newfangled gulag in Pontiac. I felt by doing so I'd be bailing out on my ancestral destiny as the last in a long line of kin who had spent their entire earning years in the factories of Flint. If they were bringing down the curtain, so be it. I simply felt I had to be there when it ended.
Naturally, Dave Steel thought I was nuts. “Forget this town,” he told me. “GM is movin’ us south and anyone who chooses to remain behind will be freezin’ their ass off waitin’ in line for food stamps and government cheese.”
Tony, our