David L. Brown discusses his career as a production worker and UAW member at the Fisher Body plant in Lansing, MI


Cheryl McQuaid:	This is Lansing Fisher Body Historical Team.  Today is May 3, 2006.  It's approximately 9:15 a.m.  We're at the UAW Local 602 Frank Dryer Greenhouse.  First, we'll introduce the team:

John Fedewa:		John Fedewa.

Jerri Smith:		Jerri Smith.

Cheryl McQuaid:  	And I'm Cheryl McQuaid.  Today, we're interviewing David Brown.  [00:22] David, will you state your name and spell it for us please?

David Brown:		David Brown. D-A-V-I-D B-R-O-W-N.

Cheryl McQuaid: 	[00:30] And your address?

David Brown:		524 North Deerfield, Lansing, Michigan 48917.

Cheryl McQuaid: 	[00:35] Are you married? Do you have children?

David Brown:	I'm married.  I have a blended family.  My wife has 2 sons and I have a daughter, but they're all our kids.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[00:44] Uh, where were you born and raised?

David Brown:	I was actually born in Battle Creek because, at the time, there was no Protestant hospitals in Kalamazoo.  Kalamazoo's where I lived, and I was raised in Kalamazoo, but had to go to Battle Creek to go to a Protestant hospital to be born.  So kind of an unusual story for the time, so.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[1:05] What did your parents do?

David Brown:	My dad worked for the paper company in, in, uh, Kalamazoo, and my mother was a housewife. 

Cheryl McQuaid:	[1:14] Uh, could you tell us what your educational level is?

David Brown:	I am currently working on my second master's degree in public administration, and I, uh, previously had a bachelor's degree in, in education and a master's degree in education. 

Cheryl McQuaid:	[1:28] Were you in the military?

David Brown:	No, I was not.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[01:32] Did GM help you with any of your educational achievements?

David Brown:	Oh yes.  I, I had my bachelor's degree, and I was probably about halfway through my master's degree when I hired into, to General Motors, but I finished up my, my, uh, master's degree through the tuition assistance program and, in fact, I took an educational leave in order to do that because I was starting to lose more credits than what I had on my record.  So, I took off 1 term for – to finish my master's degree and used tuition assistance to do that.  And I'm currently using tuition assistance to work on my, my master's degree in public administration.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[2:08] When did you hire into Fisher Body?  Do you know what your seniority date is?

David Brown:	March 21, 1997, 1977.

Cheryl McQuaid:	And…

David Brown:	[inaudible 2:17] date there.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[2:18] …why did you hire into Fisher Body?

David Brown:	Well I was married.  I had a, uh, I had a little baby and, uh, I was tryin' to get into the field of education.  That's where I had gotten my degree, and at the time there was [coughing] [inaudible 2:29] hiring for, for teachers.  In fact, I had actually worked for the school district, for the superintendent, on a couple of different projects, worked for the re-entry program and I worked for the Model Cities Program and developed those educational programs for the city, but it was principals that hired, not the superintendents, and, uh, I did not have the connections to get into the schools and they were hiring very few, if any, people at all.  

So it was almost impossible for me to get a job teaching.  I was working in the re-entry program in, uh, in Lansing as a teacher's aid but wasn't making the kind of money that I needed to support a family, and my next door neighbor, uh, worked, uh, both – he and she both worked for, for Fisher Body at the time and said, "Well Dave, why don't you go down and apply?"  And so, I did that.  In fact, when I applied, I went down and found out that I had a hernia, which I did not know I had, and when I went through medical, and they told me, "Go and get your hernia fixed and then come back and we'll hire you," and that's what I did.  So I actually came in in '76 when the huge group of people came in but, at that time, I had that injury, so they wouldn't hire me.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[3:39] Do you remember – what was the, uh, application process like with long lines?

David Brown:	When I came in, no there was not.  Uh, like I said, I came in sort of an off time in '77.  There was a huge hiring group in '76 and another one in '78 but when I came in, there was probably only about 30 people a month that were coming through.  So I didn't have to stand in line and wait like a lot of , uh, people did who hired into this place.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[4:04] Do you remember your first day?

David Brown:	I remember my first night probably more than my first day.  I went home at night and went to sleep and I dreamed about cars coming down the assembly line so that was really a weird experience for me.  But, uh, I was painting cars and that's what I dreamed all night long was the cars coming at me so.

Cheryl McQuaid:	So you were hired into the paint department.

David Brown:	Yes I did.  I was spraying [inaudible 04:27].

Cheryl McQuaid:	[4:29] How did you find the paint department?

David Brown:	How did I find it?  Do you mean…

Cheryl McQuaid:	[4:34] Were you escorted to paint?

David Brown: 	…oh yes, yes.  I had somebody pick me up at personnel and walk me out to paint and tar – which wasn't very far 'cause paint department, at that time, was right next to the personnel area.  It was downstairs currently where the trim department has been located for the last few years.  

Cheryl McQuaid:	[4:55] Do any of your other family members work at Fisher Body?

David Brown:	No I'm the, I'm the first generation.  My, uh, my wife used to work here that's how I met my, my current wife, Joyce, is she was working in the shop and – but, uh, I didn't have – I'm not like a second or third generation employee so.

Cheryl McQuaid:	So you were spray painting cars, um, [coughing] what kind of training was involved [coughing] [inaudible 5:20].

David Brown:	I broke in with somebody on the day shift and they put me on day shift for 30 days to train me and, uh, basically it was the ol' 3 day kind of rule that they believed in at that time.  You - somebody worked with you, sort of the mentor and helped you and showed you how to spray an' after 3 days they put the gun in your hand and says, "you do the job," and [laughter], uh, the expectation was that you could perform the job at that time.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[5:44] And could you?

David Brown:	Uh, I think so.  I did fairly well, so.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[5:50] What did you think… ­­­­­

David Brown:	And occasionally somebody would come back and tell me there was a sag in a wheel well or something but, uh, y'know I think I did a fairly good job.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[5:58] What did you think of the paint department?

David Brown:	Uh, it was kinda scary.  Probably why I had nightmares, I mean it was, it was old and dirty and it was probably one of the older buildings in the plant at that time 'cause that was before they had the new paint department.  Um, the booths were all enclosed.  Um, the offices were, uh, the old traditional green rooms where everything was painted green, sort of the military type green and, uh, it was not clean.  There was, uh, – they had the cinder block-type floors and asphalt over top of it and had holes every once in a while, in the, in the floor.  So it wasn't what, uh, you would consider a pristine environment but, um, I didn’t expect to have a clean spot where I came to work.

Cheryl McQuaid: 	[6:41] What did you think of the people around you?

David Brown:	Oh, I loved the people I worked with.  Um, lot of different variations in people and a lot of different characteristics, uh, but, you know, people welcomed you and they tried to accommodate you and work with you and help you.  There was sometimes a few pranksters or a few jokers that you had to deal with but outside of that, I loved the folks.  

Cheryl McQuaid:	[7:05] What kind of jokes and pranks?

David Brown:	Well, I hired in March and I got the typical, you know, go to the gate for your Christmas turkey thing but I wasn't foolish enough to believe that. But there was a few folks that I worked with, that came in about the same time that actually went down to get their Chris – their Thanksgiving turkey so.  But I, I, uh, figured it was a prank, so I sort of stood back and watched other people to see what they did [laughter].

Cheryl McQuaid:	So, you were on the day shift for 30 days and then you went to second shift.  [7:34] Did you go to that shift to same job, different job?

David Brown:	I, I did, uh, actually broke in on the, the, the third door jambs is what I did and actually, when I came to nights, I did the first door jambs.  Third door jamb was, was considered to be a premium job.  It was more the touch up and that type of thing.  And first door jamb was where they got the initial coats of paint on and that's what I did.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[8:01] What did, uh, what did you think the difference was going to the second shift?  Was there a big difference?

David Brown:	Actually, I liked second shift better 'cause I didn’t like getting up at 5:00 in the morning and coming to work so.  Probably there was a little bit more laid-back atmosphere too.  Uh, there wasn't as many salary personnel on the second shift as there were on first.  So there wasn't much pressure on supervisors to, to get things done as there was on day shift.

Cheryl McQuaid: 	[8:31] What did you think of the supervisors?

David Brown:	Um, I had mixed reactions. I had some supervisors that I really liked, uh, and some of them that I thought were absolutely worthless. But probably the, the person that I disliked the most is the one who did me the best favor and that was Keith [Ward 8:49] because I was scheduled to come in to spray, uh, spray the undercoats of the cars which was really a dirty, messy job.  And when Keith found out that I'd had a degree, he said that was no job for me and he, uh, he ended up putting me in the spray booth, but Keith was a very sneaky guy.  He would, uh, stand behind posts and watch people to see whether or not they were gonna mess up and, you know, "ha ha I caught you" type of thing and [laughter] I didn't like that. 

I thought that lacked total integrity, you know, if anybody had a concern with my work or, or the quality of my work or the amount of work I did, all they had to do was talk to me.  They didn't have to sneak up and try to catch me doing something wrong.  So I didn’t like that kind of mentality, but I also had supervisors that, that, uh, that would nurture you and talk to you and try to encourage you and, you know, if they didn’t do something right have somebody come show you how to do it or tell you how to do it themselves.  So, there was, um, – it was a mixed bag of, uh, people, um, that were in supervision. 

Cheryl McQuaid:	[9:50] Did you view your co-workers as brothers and sisters?

David Brown:	Well, I kinda viewed'm as family.  I mean, I depended on them and they depended on me so.  You developed a strong relationship with the people you worked with.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[10:05] Can you tell us what a typical day was like in the plant?

David Brown:	Well, every, eh, – you did the same job over and over and over and over and over again, all day long so, I mean that, uh, was difficult at the time.  Um, it was enjoyable having breaks with certain people 'cause we had rotating, rotating breaks at the time and you'd be off at various times with people from different departments and you'd have an opportunity to meet new people.  So that became enjoyable was finding people that you didn't really work with everyday but were scattered around the, the area where you worked and had an opportunity to meet them and get to know more about them.  But, uh, the work was fairly repetitive and probably the thing I disliked the most is if you saw something wrong or wanted to give suggestions, you had no ability to do that.  

I remember when I first hired in, in fact I was loaned out that day and I was on the wet deck and this was probably one of the [horn honks] – so I was still on day  shift, uh, and I saw that there was a problem and the line went down and I knew what the problem was and I approached one of the supervisors 'cause, at that time, when the like broke down all of a sudden it was like dozens of people in white shirts would come and, [chuckle] and approach the, the, the problem area.  And I stopped one of those people and [coughing] [inaudible 11:23] it was and said, "I, I think I know what the problem is," and the guy told me to sit down and shut up if he wanted [inaudible 11:29] from me he'd ask me.  And so, I sat there and watched while they spent the next 15 minutes figuring out what I knew was wrong and just kinda laughed to myself.  

And, you know it, it created a bad attitude in me and I think there were a lot of other employees who had the same kind of attitudes because, you know, they had input and ways that they knew they could make the process better and yet had no opportunity to do that.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[11:54] Being, uh – spray painting cars, you were in a booth?

David Brown:	Yes, I was.

Cheryl McQuaid:	 [11:59] Could you try to explain the environment of working in a booth?

David Brown:	It's, uh, metal walls on both sides of you and above you and there were hoses that were, uh, on, that were hanging up on the walls and, at that time, probably had about 13 or 14 colors.  Uh, at one point in time we actually had to have 2 guns, so you had to exchange guns on hoses.  And so, you would have to pull a gun off one hose and put it on another, clear the paint out and then apply the paint on the job and then end up doing the same thing over and over and over again.  Every time a different color came down the line, you'd have to switch hoses and hang up the old hose, get down a new hose and attach to the gun and spray the car and do that repetition.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[12:43] So if there were 13 colors, were there 13 hoses?

David Brown:	Yes.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[12:49] And did you have any protective equipment to wear?

David Brown:	Oh yeah.  We had to wear, we had to wear, uh, well…

Cheryl McQuaid:	[12:57] Had to or chose to?

David Brown:	I'm trying to think of what we had to wear.  Um, safety glasses were probably the only requirement that I can think of right now that you had to wear.  I mean they gave you hearing protection but, you know, a lot of folks did not wear hearing protection.  They chose not to do that, and I think safety glasses were probably the only thing we had to wear.

Cheryl McQuaid:	Jerri Smith.

Jerri Smith:	[13:22] Did you ever spray the wrong color on the car? [laughter]

David Brown:	Accidentally or deliberately? 

Jerri Smith:	Either or [laughter].

David Brown:	Probably more deliberately than accidentally, uh, in fact talking about pranks, uh, I was guilty of pranks.  We had a guy that worked down the line, I won't mention his name, uh, but he did not read the manifest.  You know, we used to – actually we had a number that we wrote on the car, 19 for black or whatever it might've been and, and instead of reading the number, he would look at the color that we applied.  So we'd deliberately apply the wrong color on the hinge and then he would put that color on the side machine.  I mean, I think about it now and that's a terrible thing to do for, for the quality to the customer but it was funny to see somebody do that and then all of a sudden panic and say, "Hey why you doing – that's a black car, not a white car."  But, uh, those were the kind of pranks that, uh, you played on each other, and I think the environment had a lot to do with that 'cause your, like I said, you're like in a little cell, you know, there's a iron booth that you had to spend all day in so.  You got wild and crazy in there so.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[14:32] Were there any repercussions from that? 

 David Brown:	If we got caught there would've been repercussions, but usually you didn’t get caught.  You got 2 more side machines that covered up the, the mistake so.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[14:45] And, what kind of protective equipment did you wear in the booth?  What did you feel you should – they should've had people wear?

David Brown:	Well, I mean now they wear, they wear, uh, coveralls and they wear hearing protection.  I, I mean I've got some hearing loss and I think a lot of that's due to the fact that, that, uh, I didn't wear any hearing protection.

Cheryl McQuaid:	So, it is loud in the booth.

David Brown:	Yeah very loud.  I mean outside the booths is like 85 decibels but inside the booth is probably over a hundred decibels so, far exceeding what it should be for wearing hearing protection.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[15:23] So was it easy to, to talk to – did you have a partner or ….?

David Brown:	Well we screamed across the line.  We had, you know, people constantly talk in the booth but you had to shout in order to get anybody to hear you, 'cause it was that noisy.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[15:40] What, uh – how did you pass the time?

David Brown:	In the booth or outside of the booth?

Cheryl McQuaid:	Both.

David Brown:	Well, we did, we did some pranks inside the booth to, to make things get a little more levity.  In fact there was a guy, uh, Ron that worked down the line from us that used to think it was funny to take his, his, uh, air off the hose and then it would squirt just pure paint, and he'd get our pant legs or our boots and put a little paint on'm.  Uh, some days he would do that with a guy across the line from me, do that guy that was across from him.  One day Ron wore in a pair of painter pants that – white painter pants.  Big mistake.  We all decided that was the day to get even with Ron. [laughter] And so we squirted him and – all day long, up and down, everytime he turned around, you know, more paint.  He looked like a rainbow when he went– left that place for those brand-new white painter pants.  So we got some retribution.  But you had to do things to keep you from going stir crazy because, you know, doing the same job all day long just kinda made people nuts.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[16:50] So being in a booth you weren't able to read, listen to the radio?

David Brown:	Oh no.  I mean there was no place to plug a radio in because you were dealing with, with Naphtha thinners and a spark would set the, the paint department on fire.  So you couldn't have any kind of device that would have a spark associated with it, even a battery radio you couldn't have so.  And you could probably read if you could find some place to, to put a book and if you wanted to have the book destroyed.  It wasn't that people told you you couldn't read, there was just no place in that environment for it.  

Cheryl McQuaid:	[17:24] What was – what did you do for lunch?

David Brown:	Well I brought my lunch in every day and, uh, probably the first year or so just sat around and talked.  Uh, after I'd been there for a year or two there was a group of us that played euchre every time at lunch and it was amazing how many hands of euchre you could play on lunch.  In fact, I would go outside and play with friends outside play, play euchre and I would be absolutely nuts playing with them because they'd want to play every trick in the hand.  You know when you got good at playing, you know when you had your point, didn't have your point, you'd throw your hand in.  "You can't throw your hand in."  "You know I – we don't know how many tricks you got."  

Well yeah [laughter] I got this and I got – because you got to the point where you knew exactly every card that was played and you, and, uh, you could play 5 or 6 different rounds of, of uh euchre in, in a 30 minute time frame.  It was amazing how quickly you could play, but that’s what we did for entertainment at lunch time, while we were eating our lunch.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[18:26] How 'bout breaks?  Did you have the wagon?

David Brown:	Uh, yeah that was a long time ago.  I wasn't much of a, a wagon fan so I usually brought in whatever I wanted in my lunch bucket and didn’t use the wagon.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[18:41] But did you enjoy the break?

David Brown:	Yeah I enjoyed, I enjoyed the breaks, but I did more, more conversation on breaks.  I didn't try to play cards or read or anything else during breaks.  It was, it was conversation at breaks, getting to know more about my fellow workers.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[18:57] What did, uh, what did you, uh, find out about your fellow workers?  What kind of people did you work around?

David Brown:	Oh, I worked around every kind of people.  I found there was a lot of people who were as educated or more educated than I was.  There were a lot of people who had hobbies on the outside, rebuilding cars.  A lot of people had interest in hunting and fishing.  A lot of people had interests in, in, uh, arts and crafts.  I mean, everybody had something that, that, uh, was – made them special and unique and it's one of the things that I, I really enjoyed about the people but then I didn't see the application at work because, at work there was – you'd see all this individuality of people.  You'd see all this creativity and they never go the opportunity to express that when they were in the work place, and I thought that was a shame 'cause there were people who were civic leaders and people who coached their kids' soccer teams and did all sorts of creative and innovative things but when they came to work, all they did was the same thing day in and day out.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[19:58] Did you – were you ever a part of any of the department dinners?

David Brown:	I can't remember that many dinners that we were a part of.  I don’t think they were as prevalent, uh, when I was working the line, as they are now.  Um, it had to be a significant event in order to have, have a, uh, departmental dinner, somebody passed away or something else where – or you'd have a dinner and some kind of fundraiser associated with that but…

Cheryl McQuaid:	[20:25] Did you ever have a co-worker impact your family life?

David Brown:	Well, besides my 2 wives?  [laughter] I actually, I actually married 2 of the women that I worked with in the shop so, so they definitely had an impact on my life. 

Cheryl McQuaid:	[20:39] So a romance in the shop, what was that like?

David Brown:	Oh, uh, it was a patent place in, in Fisher Body.  There were a lot of folks that I knew that were, you know, couples in the shop that were both married on the outside, that had their own spouses on the outside, but in the – they were sort of the, the shop husband and wife and had torrid affairs and all that kind of wonderful things that was going on in the, in the shop so.  I didn't do that but I saw a lot of that so.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[21:09] Was it hard being married to somebody that your co-workers knew or…?

David Brown:	Um, well it was interesting 'cause I, I told ya I'd married 2 of them and I was married to one woman and ended up divorcing her, and I was divorced for about 2 years before I started dating somebody else and everybody in the shop ran up to her and said, "Don’t hang out with, uh, Dave.  He's married.  Didn't you know he's married?" [laughter] And she said, "No he's divorced."  "Oh no, he's married, he's married."  Because I didn't try to make my life, you know, public knowledge in the shop so people didn't know that I had gotten a divorce because I kept that to myself and so everybody thought I was still married and thought I was cheating on, on my wife and, and thought that I was setting this young lady up so.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[21:55] What is one of your best memories at Fisher Body?

David Brown:	I don’t know that I have a best memory.  I mean, I enjoyed every day I came to work.  I tried to make the best of everything.  I mean that was sort of my mentality and I still, I – you're talking about Fisher Body, you're talking 'bout the old shop and I still have that, you know, concept today with where I [inaudible 22:21] what I'm doing today.  I mean to me every day was an opportunity to do something different and unique and special.  Um, obviously when I went on, uh, on as a district representative for the union that was a significant time in my life and, uh, I really enjoyed doing that.  

Uh, at the same time, you know, a lot of responsibility came with that.  I used to, used to party with folks after work and found it more and more difficult to, to go to a party and enjoy people's companies because all of a sudden, I was no longer the guy that they party with.  I was the district committee person and I had to answer all the, the union questions instead of, you know, sitting back, relaxing, enjoying my time off work.  So that was both – probably one of the best times there and one of the worst times 'cause, you know, I added a lot more responsibility to my life.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[23:11] So, how long did you work in the paint department?

David Brown:	I worked from '77 until '81, and '81 I became the district committee person. 

Cheryl McQuaid:	[23:23] For the paint department?

David Brown:	For the paint department.  On the second shift.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[23:262] What was that whole process like?

David Brown:	The process of being a district committee person or…?

Cheryl McQuaid:	The process of getting the position and then being that person.

David Brown:	Well, I'll give you a funny story that goes with that.  I had told people for a long time, since I played the check pool, if I ever won this check pool, I'm gonna throw a party.  Well, I won a check pool and it was a huge check pool, and so I invited the entire paint department over to my place for a party.  Well this happened to be about 2 weeks before the election for district committee.  I'd already signed up but everybody accused me of trying to buy the election by, [laughter] by getting everybody drunk so.  So, whether that worked or not I don't know but, uh, you know, that's what happened.  I actually ran for the position.  There was a couple other people running and, uh, you know, it – pretty much in every kind of election you see the, the votes were like half and half so.  And I won probably by about 10 or 15 votes or something for that first election.

Cheryl McQuaid:	You mentioned check pools.  [24:27] Could you explain what a check pool is?

David Brown:	Uh, at the time, and everybody played the check pool differently so – but in the paint department, uh, there were, uh, there was a series of numbers that were on everybody's check and watch you did is you, uh, you played those numbers.  So if your numbers was, was, uh, you know, 61238888 and you'd had four 8's you'd play it like a poker hand, so you'd play the best five numbers that ya had.  So, you could have 5 aces and you could have four 8's or a full house or something else by having 3 of one number and 2 of another number.  So you played it like you'd play a poker hand and  whoever had the best hand won the check pool.  

Cheryl McQuaid:	[25:11] And how was that done [inaudible 25:14]?

David Brown:	Somebody would come around with a – and ask you if you wanted to play the check pool and they would take down your name.  And then when you got your checks on Friday, supervisors – or actually Thursday night on the night shift they'd hand out your checks and, and the guy who was doing – running the check pool would come around and find out what numbers you had and he'd look at your check and verify the numbers.  And whoever had the best hand won the check pool.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[25:39] Um, when you became the district committee man, uh, was that your first introduction into the union or…?

David Brown:	Actually, I had tried to run for a union election before that.  I tried to run for a guide and, uh, I'd lost.  Uh, it was funny because I watched what other people did and people would put their name and their department and their seniority.  Well I did the same thing, but I put 2 years as seniority, and I got laughed right out of the work center because I'd put my seniority date down there.  'Cause nobody would've voted for anybody with 2 years of seniority.  That was their, their, um, their um, thought on that.  I ran against Baker in fact, who later became a district committee person on the day shift.  So, at one time we worked opposite of each other but that was the first election I ran for and lost that election and, uh, then learned how to more appropriately run for an election so. 

Cheryl McQuaid:	By buying the vote.

David Brown:	And I, and I [inaudible 26:35] [laughter] That may have worked, it may not have worked but, but I definitely didn't put my seniority on my, on my, uh, cards when I passed out my cards running for office so.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[26:48] And what was it like being the committee person?  Did you enjoy that job?

David Brown:	Well I enjoyed it very much, uh, the, the only problem was that, uh, you know, uh, the situation I talked about is that I probably took that way more serious than what I should've for my own personal mental health.  Uh, I would notice I – well other people would notice, that come to work with me, that as I got closer to work the veins in my neck would start popping out because I'd start thinking about all the things I needed to do that day as soon as I got in there.  And, uh, at lunch time and after work there was always somebody who wanted my time and attention so, it was, it was, uh, very, um, demanding on your time and your, your personal life and everything else, but the rewards were, were wonderful. 

 I mean there would've been people that I know who would've been discharged if it hadn't been for, for what I did in interviews.  There would've been people who would've lost money or who would've lost opportunities for advancement if I hadn't found, uh, the, the, uh salary organization would make mistakes so.  Knowing that I was righting some wrongs that were happening was very rewarding.  It had a very positive [inaudible 27:56] reward for me.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[28:05] Being a district committeeman in the paint department, what was a typical committee call?  Why did people call you?  

David Brown:	Well there's – really wasn't typical.  There was probably some different groups of, of calls that you had.  Uh, probably the first group of complaints would be categorized under missed opportunities for advancement.  There were a lot of people who put in transfers for positions and you would find out that the wrong person was placed on the job.  In fact, it was probably one of the first problems that I had actually with my union brothers and sisters.  Because the mentality of the committee at that time was: let management put somebody on and then write grievances against them for, for, uh, putting the wrong person on the, on the job.  

And I just thought that was absolutely ridiculous because you'd have somebody would be placed on the job and they would be upset because they, you know, they' d be removed from the job and the guy that would've been – should've been placed on the job, you know, a week or two weeks ago was upset because he should've had that job 2 weeks ago, instead of waiting for 2 weeks to get some kind of justice, if it was done in that short of period of time.  And, uh, one of my first confrontations with the union was over that issue and I said, basically, that I'm gonna start looking at all the, the transfers and make sure the right person's put on.  And, in fact, today we have a person who does that full time, that's their job is making sure that the right transfers are placed on.  But at the time, it was heresy [coughing] [ inaudible 29:28] to actually do the work of management and make sure the right person was placed on the job.  

Probably the second biggest group that I had was, was disciplinary issues, and when I went on committee it was not unusual for me to spend, um, probably an hour or 2 hours every night in an office with disciplinary interviews and 3, 4, 5 people would run through a night for disciplinary interviews.  And, uh, there were nights that I actually spent 8 solid hours doing nothing but holding interviews and couldn't even get a committee call, because there was interviews lined up one after the other.  And people were being disciplined for stupid things.  Uh, probably the worst case that I had was we had a guy that was up for discharge because he had, had a coffee pot in his area and it was an illegal coffee pot.  The supervisor, who took him down to the office to discharge him for that, was there the night before.  

I had witnessed him drinking coffee out of that same coffee pot.  So he knew it was there [chuckle] and that was when we had first started Quality Work Life and I actually, uh, went to day shift to Al [Vandervort 30:39], I think that's what his name was.  I ended up going to, uh, the QWL rep and myself and, and one of the, uh, the day shift committee member went to Al and talked to Al about this situation and, uh, I said – I tried to get this thing resolved the night before and everytime I brought up the fact that the managers knew this coffee pot was there, and the managers were drinking out of this coffee pot.  So they – you know, this should not have been an issue that they disciplined anybody for.  Their response was management's not on trial here.  

And I'm going, well this is absurd and we said that hourly workers are going to have an equal voice and the organization are going to be equal partners with Quality Work Life and then you turn around and you discipline somebody for doing the exact same thing that a manager is doing in the plant.  So it's – obviously there is no equity and there is no, you know, whatever else.  And, uh, that was probably my most unique, uh, grievance experience because he'd – I'd actually written a couple of grievances on that, as a consequence of that, 'cause they were trying to discharge and him and they were giving another guy 30 days for it.  And the supervisor, who had drank out of the coffee pot and had wrote this discipline up was determined he wasn't going to undo the discipline.  

And, um, Al had a, a lot more influence than he did, talked to the night shift superintendent and told him that he wanted those 2 grievances pulled.  We got into the office with, uh, Keith Ward and Keith said, "I'm not gonna pull those grievances.  You're gonna – they're gone.  They're outta here."  And it ended up being a situation where he said, "I'm gonna – you know, you need to do this.  I'm gonna have to give you a direct order if you don't."  He made the superintendent give him a direct order to pull those grievances.  And then, it was just as nasty as can be about doing it.  But, I'll tell ya, from that point on my grievance load and discipline started going down and down and down [laughter] because they didn't want to have this experience of having direct orders to pull grievances that they should've never written in the first place.  

But that was kind of the mentality.  I mean the whole purpose behind the, the grievance procedure –this one procedure is to – and it's not even a discipline procedure, it's a corrective action procedure, is to correct people's behavior.  And the managers were not approaching this as corrective action.  They were approaching this as discipline.  They wanted to punish somebody that they thought was doing something wrong, and that kind of mentality had to stop.  So we, we, uh, put a lot of pressure on, uh, to you know to undo the behavior of management and to reduce that kind of workload.  By the time I ended up going off of committee on to my next position, we were probably down to 1 discipline a month, or 2 disciplines a month, as opposed to having 3 or 4 a day.  

But that was a huge part of my daily work was doing disciplines.  That's probably, actually, more time commitment than it was for, for the other.  Uh, the third group was, uh, uh, uh, issues that I had as a committee person, were probably just general things that people were unhappy about.  Uh, you know the water fountain didn't work or a floor was slippery or some of them might've been safety issues, but there weren't a lot of little things that, that [coughing] people got upset about.  Uh, you know people being told they couldn't go out of  their department and all those kinds of things.  So, it was just sort of a general miscellaneous category.

Cheryl McQuaid:	We interviewed a gentleman that was a district committee man in the '50s I'd say, and he was like a part time committee man.  [34:00] Did you do this full time or…?

David Brown:	Yes.  I was a full-time committee person, that was my job under the, the contract was to be the representative for the paint department.  And I was district for 1 term, which was 3 years, and started, uh, my second term before I went to a different position.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[34:20] And what position did you go to next?

David Brown:	I became the training coordinator for, um, Fisher Body Local 602.  It was, uh, before actually training coordinators were a part of the contract. Uh, both our plant and Local 652 had put on full-time training coordinators.  And that stemmed out of the experience we had where we were retraining our work force to build a new Grand Am in 1984.  And they had a massive training program which had been labeled Main Street School by our employees because it was in a building on main street and, uh, we had some discipline problems over there and I was the committee man.  I was also the education chair for the local union, and that's why they called me over to, to be the principal at main street school to handle any kind of discipline problems or academic problems whatever that we might have at the school.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[35:11] And is that about the time that, um, Fisher Body was no longer Fisher Body it became BOP, BOC…?

David Brown:	BOC. You know, I can't remember when all those changes were.  We, we changed, uh, titles many times in, in my career over at Fisher Body so.  I can't remember exactly when those changes were.  But I, I would say that was probably when it was 'cause we were building the Grand Am and that was Buick, so it would've been – we were the Buick Oldsmobile Cadillac group at that time so.  

Cheryl McQuaid:	[35:44] So could you tell us a little bit about Main Street School?

David Brown:	[coughing] Well Main Street School was basically, uh, just a collection of different, uh, people who had disciplines they wanted to share with people, suggestions, uh, uh, Quality Work Life.  We had our employee assistance program.  And, and they also talked a little bit about the manufacturing processes and new things that they were expecting to, to do with this new vehicle that we – they were producing.  Did some little bit of problem solving, those type of things.  It was just a series of classes.  I think it was  a 40-hour program that they had actually put on and all of the employees had to go through this 40 hours of training.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[36:22] And how many employees at that time?

David Brown:	There were probably 3,000 employees at that time.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[36:28] And where did you go from there?

David Brown:	Position-wise?

Cheryl McQuaid:	Yes.

David Brown:	I became the first Joint Activities Representative for the, the plant.  And that's kind of interesting because we'd had a problem with, with training and many of the other disciplines.  Uh, the UAW started becoming more joint with the corporation.  Um, we had, like I said, Quality Work Life.  We had health and safety.  We had apprentice programs.  We had, um, some quality initiatives we were working on.  There was a number of programs that we were working on and all these programs sort of developed independently.  They were like silos in the organization and there was no coordination between them. So, if a trainee wanted to do a training program and Quality Work Life wanted to do a training program and somebody else wanted to do a training program, they were all fighting for the same manpower.  

That was the same time that [Louie 37:15] Schultz was the bargaining, uh, bargaining chair at, uh, or in Detroit for, for General Motors and UAW.  And, uh, [Louie 37:25] and I had talked about the fact that we could really use some coordination, uh, among our, uh, different joint activities so that we can manage them better, and [Louie 37:35] asked me to write a proposal.  So, I wrote a proposal on how we can manage this process through a person that we'd call a joint activities coordinator.  And I submitted that to [Louie 37:45] and [Louie 37:46] took that to the bargaining table and actually got a position in the contract called Document 46, and that's where the joint activities reps came from. 

So, I was actually the first Document 46 in, in General Motors.  At the time, I think we only had 13 full-time people who were doing those positions and normally at the largest GM plants.  During the next contract they actually expanded Document 46 to include all programs and they allowed plant to have a Document 46 person for every 250 people.  The same way they did for the district committee.  So there were as many full time international pointees within the plant as there were district committee persons in the plant.  So my first full time position was the Joint Activities Representative, which I held up until just recently when I switched over to Quality Network Representative.  

Cheryl McQuaid:	[38:39] So did you enjoy that job?

David Brown:	Oh, I loved it.  Um, it was, uh, kind of interesting though 'cause I did not like mornings and we were on day shift at the time.  I was on day shift at the time and we were doing these things and I had a hard time getting in here at 6:30 in the morning. [laughter] And I started forcing these coordination meetings and telling everybody that we're going to coordinate these activities and these things are gonna – everybody's gonna know what everybody else is doing.  And so, I forced all the, the different heads of these different groups to, to, uh, actually meet with me on a daily basis so they said, "Well do we get to pick the time?' And I said, "Yeah." They said, "Okay 6:30 in the morning."  And they knew they had me there.  So, I had to come in at 6:30 in the morning to hold these meetings so.  Eventually, I started having less and less of these meetings, 'cause I did not like 6:30 in the morning.  But, uh, you know, eventually we needed less and less meetings because we actually did a good job of starting to coordinate the activities.  Everybody knew what everybody else's responsibilities were.  They knew what they needed to do.  They knew where we needed to, to allocate resources, where we needed to allocate monies.  And we did have monies at that time because they had, uh started what they called the nickel fund where, uh, 10 cents of every, uh, hour – 10 cents for every worked in the corporation went to the National Center for Human Resources.  

And the National Center for Human Resources would send back 5 cents of that amount of money to local plants to all these different various, uh, joint programs like Health and Safety and Employee Systems and training and everything else.  So, we had a pool of money and we had all – some people and a whole bunch of things we had to manage.  And one of my first activities with, uh, with the joint activities position was actually develop a process called Attachment C, which also came out in that, in that contract and that was joint goal setting by the corporation in the UAW.  

Which I thought was a fantastic concept because it really got the, the 2 parties to sit down and instead of talking about their differences to start talking about what it was that they had in common, and what they wanted to achieve as an organization.  And I think great things to happen as a consequence of that Attachment C.  Even though that process sort of died with the next contract, the , the concept of management in unions setting mutual goals and trying to achieve those goals did not stop.  In fact, that has actually improved year by year and contract by contract.  

Cheryl McQuaid:	[41:11] Did you attend your union meetings?

David Brown:	For 21 years I had a perfect attendance record.  Prior to me becoming a district committee person, I did not ever attend a union meeting.  But, uh, when I was elected, I thought that was one of my responsibilities and I did that.  Like I said, for 21 years I never [sniffs] missed a meeting.  I would schedule vacations at a different time.  If some event came up that would've meant I missed a union meeting, I would not go.  I mean, I almost became, um, vain about my record of attendance at union meetings.  But I had – I spread that word among other people to 'cause I would tell people, you know, when I was bragging about my attendance record that, you know, at one time I let other people make decisions about my life in that shop.  And that's what happens at a union meeting, at a union meeting, you set the priorities and policies for the UAW. 
 And why would I let somebody else do that for me?  You know, I think I want to set my own direction for where I want to go and what I want to do and that's my opportunity to do it, and I'm not gonna ever miss that opportunity.  So I have made a point to, to try to make every single union meeting.  And, and like I said, I've become a little more lax in the last few years, uh, but I have probably missed about 6 or 7 meetings in the last, last 25 years that I have attended union meetings.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[42:30] When you became the JAR, or the Joint Activities Representative, did – were you [afforded 42:25] an office or …?

David Brown:	Was I – did I have an office?

Cheryl McQuaid:	Yes.

David Brown:	Well yes, I did.  And, in fact at one point, I had a wonderful administrative assistant named Cheryl McQuaid so.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[chuckle]

David Brown:	Um, actually, um, yeah we – uh, most appointed positions had offices and, uh, the offices were usually in conjunction with their salary counterparts so.  You'd – if you saw Quality Work Life there, all the quality life, work life people would be in the same location and they'd all have their own separate offices.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[43:14] What kind of atmosphere was in the offices?

David Brown:	I guess I'm not understanding what kind of question you're asking.  What are you trying to [cough] [ inaudible 43:22]?

Cheryl McQuaid:	[43:23] Did, did the management and the hourly, did they get along well?  Was – were there a lot of struggles throughout this whole process?

David Brown:	Well there was, there was a, uh, a lot of change in the concept of what jointness meant.  When I first went on joint programs, if you had a position you had to have a salary counterpart or if a salary person was there, they had to have a union counterpart.  And jointness was measured in numbers, you know, every position had to have, uh, a counterpart for that position because, you know, there was equality with the numbers.  As time went on, the management work force – we had a big push to try to drive out numbers of managers and what you started seeing was more and more of the managers in these positions going away.  

Currently I think the only department that has equality in numbers is probably Health and Safety.  Uh, in fact at one point in time, John [Rosendahl 44:18] was, was the, the salary counterpart for training, for quality network, for the newsletter, for joint activities and probably a couple of other things.  I mean they had 1 salary person and they had a half a dozen hourly people doing those positions.  Maybe even 10 or 12 hourly positions for one manager.  The concept of jointness no longer meant numbers, it meant mutual goals, mutual, uh, ideas that we were trying to, to reach.  And, in fact, there are probably some activities that are totally union driven today that were, at one time, had to have half and half.  But the equality or the jointness is no longer in the numbers or the resources.  The equality or the, or, excuse me, the jointness is, is in, uh, is in, you know, the fact that everybody has mutual goals that they're trying to reach.

Cheryl McQuaid:	[45:16] So how long were you in that position?

David Brown:	Of Joint Activities Rep?

Cheryl McQuaid:	Yes.

David brown:	I was in that position until this year.

Cheryl McQuaid: 	This year.

David Brown: 	So, uh, from 1984 until 2006, that's 22 years, I guess.

Cheryl McQuaid: 	You've been really involved in a lot of things going on in the plant.  [45:34] Could you, maybe, tell us if you've seen any kind of discrimination against women, um, different races?  Touch on the atmosphere in the plant like that.

David Brown:	Yeah, I'll tell you a specific example of somebody that I know, uh, Nadine Reynolds, uh, who is currently one of our employee's assistance representatives.  When I was working in the, in the paint booth they brought Nadine in to do a job and, uh, Nadine is probably about 5 foot even and that job was hanging up hoses on hooks and I could barely reach the hooks, where you had to hang the hoses up on, and I'm 5 foot 10.  And there was just no way that she could do that job and I kinda saw that – in fact Nadine is a black woman and I think that a lot of times, especially with shorter women 'cause there was some kind of a, a mentality in the shop that short women couldn't adapt to the job in the shop.  

And I saw a lot of that where they tried to drive these women – or put these women in positions where they actually tried to drive them out of the organization.  And, uh, they tried to do that with Nadine, I think.  They talked about well they're gonna disqualify her, and she wasn't fit for industrial work and Nadine was such a likeable person that she made friends real quick and when that kinda talk started happening, the workers sort of rose up and said, you know, "This is ridiculous.  You've deliberately put her in a job she couldn't do.  You need to give her another job, give her another chance."  And they ended up doing that.  They ended up putting her on a job in the sealant line, which was just ideal for somebody of her, of her stature, of her height so.  

But you'd, you'd see a lot of that kind of discrimination.  I think there was discrimination against women because the shop, at one time, was a male, uh, dominated environment.  Um, you didn't, uh – you saw a lot of resistance to the changes that women demanded.  Uh, as an example, uh, when I was the district committee person there was a young lady that was, was offended by some of the posters of half-naked women that were, you know, aligned on the desk and in the – on the wet deck and, and brought it to my attention and, uh, I talked to the supervisor and said, "You need to take all those down."  And he – "Why should we do that for one woman, you know, why, why is she running our business, you know, tell her to keep her nose out of our area."  

And you know, basically had to explain the law to him and explain to him that they were going to come down one way or another and either through his cooperation or, you know, with him kicking and dragging 'cause it was gonna change.  But, you know, a lot of the mentality that we had in the shop had to change because you know we were adapting to an environment where all employees were considered to be equal employees.  

Cheryl McQuaid:	You've seen a lot of changes.  [48:11] What do you think was one of the biggest changes within the organization?

David Brown:	Well, um, I think as employees started having more of – like I – I initially talked about that, you know, that employees were told to sit down and shut up and and weren't allowed to contribute.  I think the ability to contribute, uh, to the organization has been the most significant change.  Um, it took a long time to get people to realize that your greatest asset in your work force was your workers who did their job every day.  I mean there was a mentality that, that supervisors knew what was best for the corporation or that skilled tradesman knew best how to fix something because they were skilled and had technical knowledge.  

And the fact is that we were underutilizing people that we had in our organization and through activities like Quality Work Life and some problem solving activities and quality network initiatives and a lot of the other initiatives that we instituted recently, people are having more and more say in the business.  And I think that's absolutely essential.  In fact, the new facility is, is pushing for total employee empowerment where, where employees will actually run their work groups and set goals and, and business plans for their, their work group activities.  And I think that's where we need to go if we want to be successful and compete with people in foreign countries.

Jerri Smith:	[49:31] What about the Suggestion Plan?  This is Jerri Smith.  Is that going to be outdated then, once we get into the new plant, that the Suggestion Plan's no longer gonna exist?

David Brown:	Well they still have the Suggestion Plan.  In fact, they're populating it right now with, with people in the new facility and, uh, they're going to have the same Suggestion Program they had over at Lansing Car Assembly and Fisher Body.  Uh, it’ll just probably be more team driven than it was in the past.  The past was more of what could individuals come up with to help improve  the organization, but as they're driving changes, they'll be able to submit those in suggestions and give suggestions for it. They've also instituted, in addition to suggestions, a reward recognition program and they've had that in various forms also, in the different facilities that we've had, or the different name changes that we've had.  But, uh, there's, uh, spot rewards that they're allowing people to have.  Both as individuals and teams for significant contributions and all of those that have been done so far have been given to hourly people for their initiatives in managing the business so.  I think it shows that, that change that we're actually working towards as an organization.

Cheryl McQuaid:	Lansing is known as the Capital of Quality. [50:48] Why do you think it's called that?

David Brown:	Well, at one time, it was called that for a very specific reason because they used to use a Q index, uh, and it was a quality index and they had a numbers rating from 0 to 150 and, and Lansing consistently had 145s in the quality index.  Uh, if you look at that quality index to the day, it’s kind of a joke because there are a hundred more things that are looked at in terms of quality statistics today than what they were when that initially happened.  And for quite a period of time, uh, actually our quality slipped in terms of our [foreign 51:27] competition.  We were still probably in the top 10 or so within General Motors but, you know, we worked in – on a par where our foreign competition was.  And I think that's been, with our history and the fact that we were called the Capital of Quality, that we really want to be the quality, it probably helped drive people to, to build a better quality product than the would've otherwise.  Because once you have a reputation, you want to maintain the reputation and our employees worked hard to ensure that we could keep that reputation up.

Cheryl McQuaid:	As we're sitting here today, they're tearing down Fisher Body.  [52:03] Could you tell us how you feel about that?  What your thoughts are?

David Brown:	Well, I live really close to here, so I have an opportunity to probably drive by here every day and it, uh, it's kind of disheartening. And I said, I was a first generation, but my wife's father worked in this, in this factory also so.  I kind of – we sit and talk about this every once in a while, and the fact that it, uh, gives you a little pain in your heart to, to see them tear down a place that you spent most of your life in.  I spent most of my adult life in this, in this facility and, and, uh, you hate to see it go.  But at the same time, we're really making way for change.  I mean, we're – we've got a new facility.  If we didn't have that I'd really be heartbroken but, you know, we're trying to move onto something that's newer and better.  

And I think we have an opportunity to, even though we're tearing down the building, we're not tearing down the heritage.  I mean, our mission statement at Lansing Delta Township is "Building on Our History" and we carry our history with us to our new facility.  Our history is not in a, in a building, a building is just metal and block and bricks and steel and all those types of things.  You know, the history of that organization really goes with its people and I think our people are carrying a lot of that positive history with them into the new facility. 

Cheryl McQuaid:	David, I really appreciate you spending your morning with us and want to thank you for this opportunity, and I also would like to ask you if there's anything that you'd like to share with us that we've not asked you about.

David Brown:	Well I could share tons of things with you so. [coughing] [laughing] I know, I, I guess from a personal standpoint a lot of what I have learned in the organization, a lot of what, um – the knowledge that I've gained, the interactions that I've had, I've been able to carry outside of the organization as well as inside of the organization.  And I think there are a lot of other people in our organization that are the same way.  Um, Fisher Body and, now over at Lansing Delta Township, has caused us to become leaders in our facilities and, and as a consequence of that I think leaders in our, our communities.  I see a lot of folks that do things now that they would've never done 20 years ago.  Schoolboard members, uh, you know elected officials, um, people who are the coaches of teams, people who are head of their Boy Scouts organizations and they're taking in a lot more leadership positions probably than [cough] they would before.  

Because, you know, when we're teaching classes [coughing] about LTD and one of the first things we hear from people is I don’t like standing up in front and talking in front of people.  Well when people get used to standing up and talking in front of groups of people, they start assimilating new, uh, relationships in their communities.  They're doing things that they never did before.  They start taking new steps, so I think we're building leadership in our organization.  [beeping] I think that's probably the most significant thing that we can do. [whispering]

Cheryl McQuaid:	Well thank you David, very much.

John Fedewa:	Thanks Dave.

Jerri Smith:	We've enjoyed your interview very much and I do have one question for the end of this.  [55:12] Now that you're going to retire, what will you be doing then?

David Smith:	I actually am working on my master's degree in public administration and I'd like to, um, get a job as a city administrator or county administrator, a local government somewhere in a small community and do that for a few years until I really retire.

Jerri Smith:	[55:30] Are you planning on it in like Lansing Township or…?

David Smith:	I'm gonna go wherever the job is so I'm gonna start applying for jobs, uh, elsewhere –around the, around the state and maybe even outside the state.

Jerri Smith:	Okay.

David Brown:	Really not, uh – don't need to be in one place.  I kind of moved around so I'm used to going wherever I need to go to get the job done.

Jerri Smith:	Alright.  Thank you, Dave.

David Brown:	Thank you.

Cheryl McQuaid:	Thank you David. [beeping]

/fp