The following article is reprinted from the February 1995
Industrial Worker.  The Chicago General Membership Branch has an
organizing drive under way at the factory in question.

12 HOUR DAYS, SHORT PAY, NO HOLIDAYS

In September my employer announced a new work schedule which would
increase production time to the absolute maximum. The plan has two
shifts working four consecutive 12-hour days followed by two days
off, with new "relief crews" following the same schedule at
staggered intervals. The result is production around the calendar,
as well as around the clock.

Daniel J. Boorstin, in The Discoverers, traces the origins of our
seven-day week to the Chaldean priesthood during the
neo-Babylonian empire in the seventh century B.C.  Unfortunately,
three millennia of tradition does not outweigh the avarice of
management.  Therefore, my fellow workers must live their lives
out of step with the rest of the world.

It did not take long for this to produce an epidemic of marital
discord, family strife and depression among my fellow workers,
many of whom are facing a choice between keeping their jobs or
keeping their marriages.

And the new schedule means that many are unable to pay their debts
and living expenses because of the loss of overtime. (Under the
old schedule we worked six 12-hour days, and received double time
for Sundays, when work was voluntary.) Since workers are now
required to work Sundays, many have also been cut off from their
religious communities (and the social ties and services that
entails).

It is singularly ironic that the cause of this disruption in
family and community life is also the cause of a widening rift
between the victims and the cure.

I cannot help noticing that management has not imposed this new
schedule upon itself.  The weekend for bosses is still sacrosanct,
and the bosses and their families presumably continue to attend
church on Sundays. Perhaps family values are important only for
bosses and their own.

This past Thanksgiving, a number of my fellow workers were enticed
into working on a voluntary basis by the promise of triple pay.
Since the actual rate paid was double-time plus holiday pay, my
fellow workers felt cheated and misled. Management compounded this
fiasco by denying holiday pay to several workers who failed to
work the Saturday and Sunday following Thanksgiving.

When management attempted to hammer out a voluntary work schedule
for the Christmas and New Year's holidays they found the
willingness of my fellow workers to volunteer had evaporated.

Around this time management distributed flyers inviting us to
their annual holiday celebration. The flyer departed from the
custom of previous years by announcing new features such as a
raffle, door prizes, games, etc. A small group of us began
organizing an alternative holiday party and urging a boycott of
management's celebration. Our rallying cry was "Anything they can
do we can do better; We can do anything better than they." This
message was well received by our fellow workers and the word
spread quickly. A number of new slogans appeared spontaneously and
gained wide circulation, including:  "The Lord giveth, and the
boss taketh away" and "No charity without sincerity."

Apparently management caught wind of these efforts. They were
reported to be alternately embarrassed and miffed. Management was
already apoplectic over declining morale and falling production.
We have been failing to meet production targets under the new
schedule despite the increase of production time to the absolute
maximum (in fact, production has fallen from previous levels).

Management held a series of meetings in December with five groups
of workers, and asked each group to elect a spokesperson to
represent their concerns. These spokespersons are to meet with
management on a weekly basis until all issues have been resolved.

At the first of these meetings management agreed to shutdown
production of Dec. 24, 25 31 and Jan. 1 (hardly anyone had signed
up to work anyway), while making Dec. 23, 26, 30 and Jan. 2
voluntary work days paid at the rate of double time plus holiday
pay.

Management then agreed to revert to the old schedule of six
12-hour days with Sundays off, starting Jan. 2. However, this
concession was made contingent on meeting production targets.

Not a word was said about the alternative holiday party, though
the enthusiasm for boycotting management's celebration has
collapsed in the wake of these concessions. It remains to be seen
what will happen on this score, but many of us intend to follow
through with our plans.

We have reason to believe these concessions may prove short-lived,
yet they do constitute a victory of sorts.

Our fellow workers have had a taste of the potential power that is
theirs for the taking.  Management itself has sanctioned the
efforts of workers to exercise that power (in a modest way); they
have done more to forge solidarity among our fellow workers by
creating elected spokespersons than they might guess. I hope to
convert those spokespersons into the nucleus of a union job branch
on the shop floor soon.

However, there remain a number of obvious problems. First and
foremost, the awkward position of celebrating longer hours as a
victory. Many of our fellow workers are in favor of overtime; and
many favor meeting the production targets in order to keep the
schedule change. There is much need for consciousness-raising on
both of these points. There is also a lack of solidarity among our
fellow workers who are split 50/50 on both issues. It is an
interesting challenge to turn these opinions around, and I would
gladly receive any advice my fellow workers might send my way.

X341844

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