Joh Macartney said:
>That in turn brought about
>major industrial relations problems as some women were denied their
>days off that had become part of Holy Writ. My informer said he didn't
>know how it was resolved as he was fortunately and very willingly able
>to retire.
>Perhaps this has something to do with Mark Hooper's conclusion that
>"stylish women will claw the shirt right off your
>back if you even think of wronging them"?
Hey John, are you trying to get me murdered by the thought police? <g>
The "stylish women" I was referring to are MBAs, senior engineers (one of
whom is my Director of Strategic Development)
and marketing/finance/organisation types who all work long hours and hard,
not layabouts who think it's their God-given right
to pay for no work whatever the reason.
That being said (to preserve my life should your note ever be discovered
<g>) thanks for a fascinating insight into how the industry used to work.
I recently re-watched (hate that word) the Peter Sellers film "I'm all right
Jack". Seeing what now looks like a gentle parody of union/management
relations in Britain, it is hard to credit what my father says was a storm
of controversy when it was first released.
When he joined English Electric in 1957 as a recently-graduated Electrical
Engineer from a snooty school, he went through the regulation 2-year
graduate apprenticeship program to learn the facts of life. That is 2 years
of passing several months at a shot in each of the departments of the
company from design to shipping. Half of the time was spent working as a
machinist, wirer, assembly-line worker on the shop floor. The idea was, of
course, to know a little of what you were talking about before starting to
design or sell new products. He'd been a radio mechanic in the RAF before
school so it wasn't too much of a shock. Apparently some of the other
engineers had a pretty rough time.
At the time the left wing was in full cry on the shop floors and characters
that Sellers played like the union steward in The Man In The White Suit"
spouting Lenin and crying "down the managment" were quite real although less
funny. The Americans figured this one out by hiring the red-hot union
organisers as management. It seems the British took a lot longer to adopt
this solution. Too class-stratified I guess. Anyway he had some rare old
times until they figured out he knew how to play the game and had started
from below the salt anyway.
I always thought he (my Dad) was playing it up a little about the enmity
between worker and management. However in 1980 and 1981 I did two 4-month
stints working as a caster in a large zinc smelter. All the summer positions
to replace vacationing workers were open only to sons (and I mean sons only)
of the union workers. All except for one spot reserved for the son of the
plant Director. He was a friend of my Dad and his son was unwilling to work
in that environment (don't blame him really). Since the wages were union
scale, they were much better than I could get as a computer programmer in
the research grant program and I took the job.
In Quebec, the first referendum on separation had just been defeated and
feelings were running quite high. I was dropped as an English-speaking kid
with very little French right into the middle of it all. I was viewed as a
combination of cultural enemy and spy of the bosses. It was indeed
interesting working in one of the most dangerous factories in the country as
an "enemy of the people". I can tell you I nearly got my lights knocked out
a few times! For a time I didn't know if they would get me by roasting me in
the furnace, pushing me into the ball-mill or running me over with a
fork-lift. In the end it was none of the above and I made some friends in
order to survive. But there were a few close calls.
Things seem quieter these days.
Mark Hooper
72 TR6
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