“Not again,” muttered Paul Pirie, who wasn’t supposed to be working the overnight shift anyway. He had seniority, and that meant he got the day shift. It was in the labor contract. But it was also in the labor contract that he had to cover for other foremen of comparable seniority and responsibilities. That was fine when the other foremen properly scheduled their absences. Vacation time required a minimum lead time of three months. Major illness required a package of medical records proving the illness was legitimate and required a lead time of one month. If the illness was suspect, as determined by the elected captain of the local, then you better get sick on your vacation and you better schedule it, like the book says, three months in advance.
Moller, the overnight foreman, had given no notice, the inconsiderate son of a bitch. Just went and died without letting anybody know about it ahead of time, and who suffered because of it? Who had to work extra hours because that A-l asshole Moller had to eat bacon and doughnuts every day for breakfast? Who paid the price? Paul Pirie, that’s who. And he wasn’t going to take it. He had grievances filed against the company and against the estate of the late Mortimer Moller. When the claims analysts told him he didn’t have the basis for grievance, Pirie filed a grievance against the claims analysts.
“I fought for this union, and for once this union is gonna fight for me!” Pirie pounded on the desk of the head of the local, spilling beer. Tom Berry, head of the local, wiped it up without complaining and strolled into the break room to pour another. He returned to his seat and sipped the foamy head off the beer.
“In fact, we’ve fought for you nineteen times since 1999,” Berry said, pushing a frosty mug over to Pirie.
Pirie drained his glass halfway. “This is different!”
The claims analyst looked expectant and took a sip. Pirie took a long, slow draft to stall for time. “There should be somebody else to cover in case of absences,” he argued.
Berry nodded into his mug. “That’s you.”
“Somebody hired only to cover unexpected absences,” Pirie insisted, and took an angry swig.
“Somebody union, of course,” Berry said, suddenly taking Pirie more seriously.
“Of course.” Pirie clomped his beer glass on the desk.
“Get you another?” Berry took the empty mugs into the break room and emerged with them full. He also had a paper plate of Krunchy Kreme doughnuts. “Just got the two o’clock delivery—still warm,” Berry explained.
Pirie chomped half a doughnut in one bite. “Very nice,” he said. Not just the fresh doughnuts—the whole setup was nice. Free beer, free doughnuts. Pirie wondered if he ought to try to get the job as head of the union local next time they had an election.
“Now, I hear what you’re saying, Paul. We need a designated employee who has seniority enough to take a foreman’s role, but who isn’t a full-time employee. Maybe a retired foreman, who can be on call to fill in when an unexpected absence occurs.”
“Yeah,” Pirie said, chewing thoughtfully. “But he’s hired to be the fill-in guy, see. He expects to be inconvenienced. See, it ain’t fair that I got to cover the late shift for that fat ass Moller. I didn’t plan on it, and I ain’t being compensated for it. Well, not adequately compensated.” In truth, Pirie got double time and a half for every minute of the late-night shift. He and Berry estimated that it would take at least quadruple time and a half to adequately compensate somebody for covering a shift if he had not expected to cover it.
“I’ll present it to the company first thing in the morning,” Berry said. “They’ll go along.”
“You think? Won’t they say it’s too much money?”
“They always say that. But if we get an agreement out of them now, then we don’t ram it through at next year’s contract negotiations. It’ll cost them a hell of a lot less to play ball now.”
That guy Berry was the smartest union politico that Pirie had ever known, and he’d known several. Berry kept the local branch of the union working like a well-oiled machine. Damn, the U.S. of A. needed more guys of such caliber, then maybe all the damn unions wouldn’t be withering away, and taking workers’ rights into the toilet with them.
Despite making double time and a half, he was still surly about working the night shift. It was a smaller work crew and he, the foreman, was required to even work the assembly line from time to time. That’s what he was doing when the lights went out—trying to get imperfect plastic doggie heads onto plastic doggie bodies.
There was no plastic head, no matter how messed up, that could be made to go onto its dog body. Sometimes, when you were done, it didn’t look as good as it was supposed to look. But who cared about some, fool cartoon dog from some fool cartoon movie? And the kids got the fool doggie for free anyway when they bought their Hamburger Hooray Meal—so what if the dog had a scorched plastic welt where his mouth should be.
