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Reasons to appreciate the American labor movement
- Article by: DAVID MCGRATH
- Updated: September 2, 2012 - 6:58 PM
It took labor unions in this country, including the three I would eventually join, to restore representation, dignity and human decency to the American worker.
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'Do it if you want to keep your job." He slammed down a one-pound box of flooring nails on the tailgate of the pickup truck. He had warned me earlier that week that I wasn't hustling up enough business, and that if things didn't get better, I'd better dump the nails onto the interstate highway from the nearby overpasses.
It was among the worst jobs I had ever had: driver and laborer for a emergency mobile tire repair service. It was headquartered at a truck stop roughly bordering Indiana and Illinois, where I fielded radio calls from drivers of 18-wheelers crisscrossing the Midwest.
It was one among several rotten jobs that I recall today, on the occasion of Labor Day, a holiday that pays tribute to the labor movement in America.
When I did get a call at the truck stop, I'd hop in the pickup, merge onto the interstate, and drive to the mile marker where a semi was reportedly disabled along the shoulder.
Drivers never shut off the engines, in order not to lose pressure in their air brakes, which made it all the more daunting to crawl underneath to place the jack under the axel, where the gravel was like hot embers in the sun, where other trucks and cars were roaring by mere inches away from my feet, and where I had an irrational fear that the chugging engine would suddenly lurch into gear, crushing me underneath.
The wheels themselves, once you removed them for patching, were hugely heavy and as tall as a man, with split metal rims that could explode apart if improperly aligned, causing fatal injury to the tire repairman trying to inflate them.
My boss, however, had peculiar ideas about "stimulus measures," essentially ordering me to puncture customers' tires and endanger their lives. Rather like a fireman setting fire to homes to make work for himself.
Refusing to toss his nails onto the highway, I was eventually let go. Having had no say in how I did the job, I had no influence or means to protest termination.
• • •
The most physically grueling job I ever had lasted a mere week, when I was promised two dollars an hour to haul buckets of mortar up four flights of stairs of a building being rehabbed at the Great Lakes Naval Center in Glenview, Ill.
"Keep your shoulders back," the foreman advised, after watching me struggle up the stairs, lugging a 50-pound bucket in each hand.
On Monday night, my knees, back and shoulders were nearly paralyzed. On Friday, the foreman handed a check for only half of what he promised, along with a feeble excuse about cost overruns. No contract was violated, no law broken. So all I could do was take consolation in the fact that my thighs and biceps had been chiseled rock-hard.
• • •
I was still in my teens when a Montgomery Wards store hired me as a "porter." It was just a fancy word for janitor, and my main responsibilities were to clean the men's and women's toilets on all three levels, and to empty the wastebaskets in all the departments, several times a day.
A stinky job with stinky pay, but I was fortunate to be mentored by A.C. Brown, a veteran porter who showed me the ropes, such as which cleaners to use in the aisles (lemon extract for stains on tile and vinegar for carpet spills) and how to bale up cardboard without slashing my hands on the baling wire.
Yet when the Blizzard of 1967 stopped all commerce and traffic in the Chicagoland area, my boss placed a call to my home.
He asked if I would act as maintenance supervisor for the next several days, or however long it would take the city to clear the streets. "A.C. can't make it?" I asked him. "I didn't call Brown," he said. "Don't get me wrong: A.C. is the best man I have. But you can't have colored in leadership positions."
Not shocking to hear such a sentence in 1967. Nonetheless, it had been my first experience of witnessing a flesh-and-blood human being cruelly dehumanized by an employer.
• • •
In fact, what had been true of all three of my earliest jobs was the voiceless, helpless status of the worker. All that separated them from the realm of slavery was that you could leave if you wanted.
It took labor unions in this country, including the three I would eventually join, to restore representation, dignity and human decency to the American worker.
Even today in 2012, when sweatshop abuses are history-book horrors to most people, anyone who has ever worked for a living has experienced or can easily imagine the potential for tyranny and oppression, absent the accomplishments of American Labor.
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David McGrath, of Hayward, Wis., is the author of "The Territory," a story anthology.
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