Blue Collar Blues (35 page)

“You might as well know the full truth. As you may be aware, more and more jobs have been going to Mexico. Ultimately, Champion is going to close down Troy Trim.”

“Hey, Ron,” a man spoke up. “We just ratified the contract. I don’t know about everybody else, but I ain’t too keen on going out on strike over some stupid local issues. Even if what you say about closing Troy Trim is true, how do I know Champion won’t find me another job?”

A big mistake! Khan thought.

“Brother, if you think the plant can go on forty hours, can keep shutting down units and that ain’t serious, then I suggest you pull your head out of your asshole and wake up to the fact that these are not stupid issues. They are as serious as your next meal, your rent, your car payment. I kid you not.”

“Where is your solidarity, man?” someone else shouted out.

“You might be working today, Wally, but you better be thinking about tomorrow. What’ll happen next month if we’re permanently out of a job?”

Wally lowered his head in shame.

Ron continued his speech. “If we don’t stick together we won’t have a union. That’s what has made the union a force to be reckoned with—solidarity. Our brothers and sisters before us had to miss some paychecks, go out on strike in order for us to be reaping the benefits we’re reaping today. The union struggle is a continuing struggle. We all have to stick together.”

Now everyone was clapping, even Wally, who walked up to Ron and shook his hand. The newsletters that were previously glanced at were now sought after and looked upon like the Holy Grail.

“Amen!” a man shouted.

“Uncle Ron, I need a favor,” Khan said.

“Yes?” he said, his chest poked out as proud as a robin’s red breast and looking every bit like a plant chairman. Or so he thought.

“I finished early. How about taking me out to lunch?”

Ron stopped. “You’re broke.”

Yeah, and so are half the people I work with.

“My pleasure, Khan, though I did warn you to put money away.”

Oh yeah, and what about you, Casanova? she wanted to say.

They had lunch at Cicero’s on Long Lake Road two miles from the plant. A familiar eating spot for Troy Trim employees, Cicero’s was a good place but the wait was long. It was nearly a half hour before Ron and Khan were able to sit down.

Khan knew better than to broach the subject of Valentino. Even though Ron appeared to be frustrated with his son, Khan knew how Ron worried about him. During the entire time Valentino had been in jail, Ron hadn’t missed a day of visiting his grandchild and his daughter-in-law. He made sure they had everything they needed. Yet Ron refused to see his son in jail. No one could convince him that what he was doing was selfish. He was adamant; he could not condone what Valentino had done. At the same time, Ron knew his duty was to take care of his son’s family.

Ron didn’t stop talking. He started with the CAFE laws (the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard). The law, established in 1975 by a Democratic and a Republican senator and called the Bryan bill, sought to increase the fuel efficiency of American-made automobiles.

So what? Khan thought.

Ron continued to eat and talk. Khan knew that all she was required to do was nod. And so she did.

“If the Big Four hike average auto mileage by forty percent, it would save two-point-eight million barrels of oil each day—four times the amount imported each day from Kuwait and Iraq before the Gulf War.”

Khan still didn’t get it. Why was he going on and on about this? What does this have to do with my life? Khan wondered.

“This is exactly why all nineteen ninety-nine models, according to government standards, are supposed to average twenty-five-point-six miles to the gallon.” Ron exhaled. “In order to reach this goal, Champion has had to cut their costs in other areas to compensate for the growing costs of fuel efficiency.”

“Mm-hm,” Khan said.

Before Ron finished his sentence, Khan had nodded her head. She couldn’t really retain the details of what Ron was saying; all she cared about was her job.

“I’ve got friends in pretty high places. And they tell me that our jobs aren’t secure at Champion. They know exactly what they’re doing. Every move they’ve made has been calculated. Just because they negotiated with the national doesn’t mean they’ll deal with us fairly on the local level. To put it bluntly, Khan, Champion is getting out of the trim business. Like I said back at the plant, all those divisions of each company are moving toward merger, and you know what merger always means.”

If she’d been listening, Khan would have taken in the picture: everyone she knew at Champion was now at risk. But her mind was on simpler things. Buddy had promised to take her on a tour of his shortening company. The first time he’d taken her to see his home, she was astounded by how many trophies he had. Most were Boy Scout prizes. She thought his being a Scout was so cute. But when he added that he was on the national board of directors for the Boy Scouts of America, it wasn’t cute anymore; it had opened her eyes to a part of Buddy she hadn’t seen before. Lately, she’d been taking another look at this man. He was coming together like building blocks, and the more she learned about him, the more she was able to see his true shape and form. The more she did this, the more she admired him.

She thought about the night she’d seen R.C. and Tomiko at the theater. Thanks to Buddy, she’d finally gotten over R.C. She knew she really cared about Buddy because thinking about R.C. didn’t hurt anymore. She also knew that she was falling in love with Buddy and was powerless to help herself. And the beautiful part was that he wasn’t even trying to persuade her. His actions spoke for themselves.

She could feel her uncle’s eyes boring down on her. Apparently she’d missed something. “I’m sorry, Uncle Ron. What did you say?” But her mind stayed on Buddy. Khan wanted to call Buddy right then and talk to him. She was hoping she hadn’t done anything the other night that turned Buddy off. She was beginning to see just how blind she had been; now she saw that many women would give their right arm to have a man like Buddy in love with them.

“One day you’ll understand what I’m saying. Just know this: we don’t have many choices. We need to face the facts; we may all be out of jobs soon.”

“What?” Suddenly Khan heard what her uncle was saying. She realized that she’d been lost in her own thoughts, probably not wanting to listen to the reality facing her.

Throughout the rest of the afternoon, Khan began to take a serious look at her situation and began thinking about security for the first time.

Ordinarily, Khan would have been tickled by a message from Buddy when she returned home from work. But not this afternoon. She was plagued by what-ifs. What if the plant closed? How would she pay her mortgage? Her car note? The only thing she could afford to do was eat, and that would probably be sardines, or welfare cheese.

Shit! I knew I shouldn’t have come here to Detroit. I should have kept my country ass home.
The next voice she heard was Thyme’s: “You should have stayed in college and finished your degree.”

Trying to decipher everything her uncle had told her that day had given her a headache. By the time she finished writing out all her bills she was in a panic: $356.12 on Visa; $129.00 on American Express; $138.00 for her utilities.
Damn! That’s almost $625.00 and I haven’t even started on groceries yet.
She wrote out the checks, inserted them in their envelopes, and licked them shut, leaving a horrible taste in her mouth. Checking her balance, she had twenty-four dollars left to last until tomorrow, her next payday, which may be her last. Then what?

She wished she’d paid more attention to what her uncle had been saying. There was still a chance to avert the actual walkout. She prayed the plant wouldn’t strike.

Later that evening, while Khan was eating a Healthy Choice fish entrée, Champion Motors headlined the evening news. The local issues between the union and the company hadn’t been settled. The sticking points seemed to be outsourcing, overtime, and health and safety issues.

The next morning when Khan arrived at work, Allister handed her her weekly paycheck. But she noticed that half her co-workers received a layoff slip as well. Silence, like fate, fell upon the unit.

It was no longer a rumor that someone else had taken their jobs. Ron called Khan that night to confirm the union’s plans. All talks had broken off, and they would strike a week from Tuesday at midnight. They all had their schedules.

* * *

By the time Tuesday night arrived, three hundred more hourly workers had been laid off. Tensions were high. When the clock struck twelve, a third of the workforce followed Ron inside the plant, including Khan.

“Let’s walk!” he shouted.

Khan spoke her piece. “We’re striking, people. Let’s go!”

The sound of people whistling and shouting filled the air. No one was sad. Relief was apparent on all faces.

As the hourly workers formed a group and walked around the plant announcing the strike and building their ranks, Khan was scared. She’d never been involved in a strike and had no idea what to expect.

By 12:30 A.M., over six hundred employees had marched out of Troy Trim. It was as bright as daylight under the crime lights in the parking lot. The television cameras were rolling. One cameraman stuck a microphone in Ron’s face. Khan blinked and stepped back.

“Mr. Lamott, you’re the union chairman of Troy Trim?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve instructed your union workers to walk out tonight?”

“That’s correct. Champion Motors is refusing to bargain with the union. They’ve cut off negotiations. We have reason to believe that the company is planning to ship four more of our units down to their Mexican operations. This has caused a recent layoff of over three hundred union workers in this trim plant. We won’t stand for that. We demand fair treatment. We understand competitive wages. We understand helping developing nations. But not at the expense of our labor force here in Michigan.”

“How long do you feel the strike will last, Mr. Lamott?”

“I can’t answer that. Only Champion Motors can answer that.”

They were cut off by cheers and whistles. A van arrived with the picket signs. Hourly workers picked up their signs and began forming a line on the street just outside company property.

“As you can see,” Ron said, smiling, “our union brothers and sisters are behind us. We plan to strike until we have our jobs back and the company brings enough business back into this trim plant to keep our workforce employed.” A confident grin. “We won’t accept any less.”

Khan, standing behind her uncle, saw Thyme’s car pull out. She gestured to Ron. The newspeople had moved to talk to workers on the line.

“Don’t blame her,” Ron told Khan. “This was out of her hands. Sending these jobs to Mexico was an executive decision.”

“You’re telling me she’s not to blame at all?”

“No, not for the outsourcing. I know she did what little she could.”

“I don’t get it, Uncle Ron. I thought you said that Thyme must have withheld the information? Where does Thyme stand, then?”

“I’m saying that she had no say about the outsourcing.”

“But how do you know?” Khan insisted.

“I have my ways.”

“Elaine?”

“Let’s not get into that, shall we? For the record, yes, it was Elaine who told me. As Thyme’s secretary, she is privy to some useful information at times.” His voice was serious. “Thyme is in as bad a position as we are. Here comes Louis with the picket signs.” He placed a caring arm on her shoulder. “You ready?”

“Yeah. I’m ready.” Khan tried to sound tough, but out of fear her words sounded like a whisper, and more confused than ever.

Louis handed her a dozen signs that read in bold letters: UAW, AFL-CIO; UNITED AUTO WORKERS AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS, LOCAL 1099 ON STRIKE. Ron held others voicing the issues: STOP OUTSOURCING! JOB SECURITY! BETTER PLANT SECURITY! UNFAIR LABOR!

Khan checked her watch. It was fifty minutes past midnight. Tires screeched to a halt as hundreds of Champion employees arrived by the car loads. As if preparing for an all-out war, workers gathered and rationed out picket signs like ammunition.

As more and more workers joined in the unified effort, Khan felt proud to be a union worker. Among the crowd, there was a sense that they were waiting for something.

After an hour, Ron and Khan broke from the line to grab a cup of coffee provided by the strike committee.

Someone handed Ron a fax. As he read it, he frowned.

“Uncle Ron, what happened?”

“I see why Champion doesn’t have that much motivation to settle.”

“What do you mean?”

“This fax states that the company has hired scab workers to sew the new seats. They’re coming in tonight. The union won’t stand for this.”

“What? Scab workers?” Khan knew this meant one thing: a fight.

“I didn’t realize how much I depended on Ida until now.”

Khan hugged her uncle and said, “Don’t worry, Uncle Ron. Everything will work out.”

“Don’t let on to anyone what I just told you.”

“Don’t worry,” Khan said as her uncle drifted away from her.

A third of the workers were armed with picket signs, and the others banged on the chain-link fence that surrounded the entire Champion complex.

Khan cringed inwardly. She felt an odd tension in the back of her neck that spread out along her shoulders. A part of her wanted to turn around and run back to the safety of her car. Standing on her tiptoes, she tried to find her uncle. Somehow, in all the shuffling, she’d lost him.

The first person she recognized in the darkness was Daddy Cool. “Hey, baby girl. Come on over here by me.”

Khan stood again on her tiptoes, trying to see. “Have you seen my uncle Ron, Daddy Cool?”

“He’s down there.” Daddy Cool pointed toward the guard shack at the east employee entrance.

That scared her. She could barely spot her uncle’s thick body as he talked with two of the security guards. “But he knows that he’s not supposed to be on company property. What’s he doing?”