Continued from Talbot Chair Factory One of my first jobs was with Vernco Manufacturing which, when it was still in existence, was in Menominee, Michigan. I was hired as a material handler, which meant that I would move material from one place to another, using a handcart. The Vernco building was one of those old manufacturing plants that were on three levels, so I would move the necessary parts to the assembly points and remove the finished products to the warehouse area. Vernco produced a variety of electrical appliances and tools, such as drills, sanders, vacuums, blowers, and the like. If you've never worked in such a manufacturing plant, you might think, when you are trying to decide between various brands of tools, that each company manufactures its own product. There may be some companies that do, but most don't. We made tools for several different companies, such as Black & Decker, DeWalt, Milwaukee, and several lesser known companies and, for the most part, they were all the same except for the color of the casing on the outside. None of the internal parts changed when we switched from making an electric drill for one company to that of another. One thing that I remember was the Black & Decker required an outside casing that was noticeably thicker than the others, but the insides were the same. As an aside, I once had a friend who worked at a citrus bottling company and most of the companies they bottled orange juice for used juice from the same vat as the one before. Tree Sweet was an exception; they required a complete flushing of the vat and they brought in their own stock. Anyhow, I enjoyed working there as a material handler. The pay wasn't great but I was young, and I had two full-time jobs. Since Vernco was my second job of the day, I always got at least an hour of overtime in every day, as they usually changed products between shifts, so there was a lot of things that needed to be moved. Then they voted the union in, although I voted against it. In our first union contract, we got a five-cent an hour raise, which was barely paid for the union dues that were deducted from each check, and they cut all overtime, which was extremely noticeable. Under a union contract, no one seemed to enjoy what they were doing anymore. It was all about rules, reprimands, and grievances. Without overtime, my paycheck was smaller than it was before. If I was in the process of moving a pallet of production to the warehouse when the bell rang, ending the shift, I had to stop immediately, and leave the cart where it was. I was about twenty feet from the warehouse one day when the shift bell rang, so I just brought it the rest of the way, which was one minute, if that, and I was reprimanded. The next day, I timed things so that I was halfway in the elevator when the bell rang, and I left it there. Which meant that the elevator wouldn't respond to anyone else until it was cleared. I was reprimanded for that too and, since the problem began with the union, they weren't any help. I gave my two-weeks notice. The plant manager called me into the office the next day to ask what the problem was. I told him, and he agreed to clear both of my reprimands from my file. Now the union was upset with me because I had bypassed the proper grievance procedures, although I had gone to our shop steward about a grievance and was turned down. A few weeks later, I was promoted to drill-press operator, which was boring but it paid a little better. Mostly, I didn't even know what I was working on, as I was just drilling holes in metal using a form. I was reprimanded for changing a drill bit after it broke. Apparently, I was taking someone else's job, according to the union, when I changed my own drill bit, which any five year old could figure out and accomplish in a minute. I tried it for a while but the job was driving me crazy, it was so boring. I gave notice again, worked my last two weeks and left. A few days later, I got a call from the plant manager, who had just noticed that I was no longer working there. He talked me into coming back, offering me another job in the lacquer department. The metal plates that are attached to electrical appliances, containing the model number and serial number were dipped into a vat of acid, to clean off any oils or contaminants, and then they were dipped into another vat where they were coated with a type of shellac. I was the only one in that department, which was nice. However, the acid preparation was quite caustic, so I had to wear a protective suit, including rubber gloves. Eventually, the acid would eat through the rubber of the gloves. There was a wash-up area right there, where I could wash the stuff off my hands quickly, before donning another pair of gloves. Well, that happened one day only about five minutes before a scheduled break. The supervisor, seeing me washing my hands before the break bell sounded, assumed that I was starting my break early, which I had never done, and was extremely rude about it. He wouldn't even let me finish a sentence of explanation, so I walked out. Yes, the plant manager did call to see if I'd come back, but I told him that I had had enough, and that it wasn't so much the company that was creating a terrible workplace, but the union, so there really wasn't anything that he could do about it. Since I have held other jobs between this one and the next one that I have spoken of here, I won't leave links to my later jobs, as I have on previous threads. I'll add that later once I have filled in the blanks. Klenk Chemical Company