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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 (Communications can be sent care-of the Industrial Worker, we will forward them.) Subscribe to the Industrial Worker. $15 a year (12 issues) to PO Box 2056, Ann Arbor MI 48106.