Dave Dickhaut discusses his career as a production worker and UAW industrial hygiene technician for Local 602 at the Fisher Body plant in Lansing, MI Female #1: Today is Wednesday, August 24. It's 8:45 in the morning and we are interviewing David Dickhaut and he is currently the safety… David Dickhaut: I'm currently the Industrial Hygiene Technician for UAW Local 602. Female #1: Thank you, David. And present at this interview are Cheryl McQuaid, Doreen Howard, Mike Fleming, Jerri Smith, and Marilyn Coulter. [00:37] Dave, tell me more about your job and how you got it here and your current and past history as when you hired in. David Dickhaut: Phew, that's a lot. Female #1: I know. But I just wanna to give you a framework to work from. David Dickhaut: Okay. Um, my job involves, um, handling all of the industrial hygiene kinds of things that relate to Local 602 and any place where our people might be involved in and working. And industrial hygiene is the anticipation, recognition, evaluation of workplace hazards. So my job is to make sure that everybody that belongs to us, uh, has no exposure to chemicals at harmful levels, uh, is no physical hazards, exposures, such as noise and those kinds of issues, and that they go out the door the same way that they came in every day. Um, I've been trained in this. I was selected to do this job as a result of the 1990 agreement, I believe, and I was selected by, uh, the, the, the local leadership at that time, um, through an interview process, uh, and that, that had to be blessed by the international and then I was put on and, and trained, um, – several weeks of training, which I have since expanded upon to the point of acquiring a master's degree in the field. Female #1: [02:11] I understand you went to University of Michigan to get this training? David Dickhaut: Yes, I did. Mm-hm. It was 2-year program at U of M, which involved, um, long, major weekends once a month, 30 class hours in 4 days... Female #1: Hm. David Dickhaut: ...once a month. Uh, so I did a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday routine and I did it on my vacation time so that they couldn't manage to come in some day and say, oh, I'm sorry, we can't let you go today, which was way too important to have that, you know, couldn't let that happen, so I did it on vacation time, tuition assistance. Um, I really enjoy what I do. Female #1: Hm. David Dickhaut: Um, I think I've expanded the, um, precaut-, safety precautions that are present for, uh, for all of our people and I can be very comfortable that none of them will have lingering occupational diseases that'll come back and haunt them 20 years after they retire because of what I've done. Female #1: That's excellent. [03:12] Now that includes air quality and… David Dickhaut: It includes air monitoring, air sampling, all of those kinds of things that, uh, that involve any chemical exposures or operations that are using chemicals in the plant. It involves, um, noise monitoring and tracking and, and administering the hearing conservation program from UAW site. It involves ventilation issues and monitoring and keeping track of, um, the ventilation systems we have in place and making sure that they're up to speed. Um, and my job is monitored by the, um, Center for Health and Safety and their audit teams, um, and I'm responsible on an annual basis to produce a report for them as well as answering to the joint local health and safety committee. Female #1: Hm. David Dickhaut: So I work for both sides of the house. But in my heart, I work for the members of Local 602. Female #1: Great. [04:16] You said that thanks to the tuition assistance program, they helped you out with your… David Dickhaut: They paid, they paid… Female #1: ...education? David Dickhaut: They paid a big chunk of it. They didn't pay all of it... Female #1: Mm-hm. David Dickhaut: ...because at that time, it wasn't going to spread as far as the $7200 a year, which is what, um, tuition was. Female #1: Mm-hm. David Dickhaut: But I managed to get, uh, a big piece of my, uh, bachelor's degree with, uh, tuition assistance. So… Female #1: [04:44] So you started out at Michigan State University as a younger man? David Dickhaut: Much younger, yes. Female #1: [laughter] Dick Dickhaut: Previous lifetime, yeah. I started out, uh, workin' here in 1966, uh, and at that time, I worked for 8 months and left and went back to school and discovered that I really couldn't afford to manage to keep both ends together at that time. So I hired back in in '67 and have had a rather halting progress toward a degree at Michigan State. Well, I started 2 years at Lansing Community College and then went to, uh, Michigan State [inaudible 05:32]. My 2-year degree at LCC probably took me 4 years and my last 2 years at Michigan State took me 6 or 7. So I was over 30 when I got my bachelor's. Female #1: [05:45] And, uh, you were married when? Dick Dickhaut: 1969. Female #1: 1969? David Dickhaut: Yep. All I can say is that this has been the longest, temporary job that I have ever had. Female #1: [laughter] Female #2: [laughter] David Dickhaut: I did not have any intention of staying. At that time people came and went with great frequency. Jobs were readily available and it was not, uh, it was not anything that I aspired to stay, again. Over the years, a number of things had changed Challenges are greater for autoworkers than they ever were. Opportunities are a whole lot better than they ever were. Somewhere about the middle of my career, it became apparent that um my chosen field that I was actually a PhD student in cultural anthropology of Michigan State, that that field had very little opportunity for employment because the number of people that were PhD graduates, um were still hanging around East Lansing and you kinda figure out after a while the reason they are still hanging around East Lansing is because, it's not because it is the greatest place in the world but it's because there are no jobs in the, in that field. So at that time which would have been, phew, I couldn't even tell you a date when that was, but, um, things started to open up in terms of nontraditional job situations for people in the plant and I was able to take advantage of some of those. I was um on the GM 20 pilot team. I was the trainer for the pilot team developing head programs and so on and so forth. From there, we went to Main Street School and had all the fun that we did there and I was, uh, uh, one of the instructors in that whole endeavor and that was a lot of fun. Female #1: [07:52] Can you tell us what Main Street School was for the people that may be listening to this tape. David Dickhaut: Main Street School was a, a training effort for new product for Lansing. Specifically, our Main Street School was for the Fisher Body employees and it, it involved social training. It involved, uh, problem solving. It involved a number, a number of things all rolled into one week of classes for people and um it was, it was quite a challenge because everyone was mandated to go through it. Um, probably at least half of the people that were going through it, didn't want to go through it, didn't want to be there. Um, and a few of them came out of it still feeling the same way but most of them were, you know, our job was to motivate, excite, develop, and train, how many thousand people at that time? Female #2: Four. David Dickhaut: 4000? Yeah, it was a pretty, pretty major effort. So after that, we came along a whole training effort involving the hazard communication program because that, after OSHA came in and then, then HAZCOM came in, that required all of our employees to be trained in all of the chemical hazards of things that they would be working with so everyone had the same background information on chemicals in general, and more specifically, about the ones that they were going to be working with. And, I was a trainer for that activity, um, after we finally got through with that, um, they were looking for someone to be a hazardous materials coordinator for this facility and I did that for several years and from that involved managing material safety data sheet, databases, paper, making sure that every chemical that we had was being tracked and that we had all the information that was available on it, in-house, so that any employee that had a question about something they were working with, was able to acquire that information in a timely fashion. Also, it meant that our medical department should there have ever be an issue, had some place that they could reach out and instantly garner the same information. Um, from that grew the, uh, uh, the industrial hygiene technician position and, uh, the rest is history. Female #1: [10:48] Does every plant have an industrial hygiene technician? David Dickhaut: Every General Motors facility has an industrial hygiene technician from power trains, stamping facilities, um, assembly plants, foundries, they all have, uh, industrial hygiene technicians. Female #1: [11:09] Are they all UAW members? David Dickhaut: Yes. At one time I think the number was 105 or 110, however, many General Motors plants we have, a number of SPOs also have industrial hygiene technicians. Female #1: [11:28] Your years at Fisher Body, have you got any mem-, memorable day or event that you always recall when you talk to friends, neighbors? David Dickhaut: Well obviously one of the most memorable days was the last, the last car that we built here and you know, it didn't really, hadn't really hit home to me until the point at which, um, we had a whole bunch of vehicles in the yard out here that had, that the um car club had brought in. And I'm standing out there looking at everything from 1938 Oldsmobile's to, ah, you know, to, uh, the, some of the more recent vehicles that we built and it um it suddenly occurred to me except for the '53 Chevy convertible and the, um, and the '38 and the '56 that was sitting out there, or the '58, except with the exception of those, every single other one of those vehicles out there had my blood and sweat in them, you know, and you could look at that and you could say, oh yeah, I remember that 4, I remember that 442, you know, and I remember that car, and, oh yeah, I know when we did, when we built those convertibles, I put in quarter panels and trim-sticks. You know. I can tell you what I did on that car and I put armrests in, in that year, and I did this in this year and I have always worked in the trims shops, but I can, you know, you can look at all those vehicles and you go, damn, I had a hand in all those, you know, and then you go, and there won't be anymore. I didn't expect that. [laughter] Female #1: [laughter] Yeah. Female #2: This. Mm. David Dickhaut: [drinking] Female #1: [13:34] Dave, what was your first day of work like for you? And um tell me about it. David Dickhaut: [laughter] I can't answer that question. I don't remember my first day at work. I really don't. You know, we can go that far back, you know, all I know is that [throat clearing] I remember being hired in. I remember going up the, the, the terrazzo steps and going in and being interviewed by, uh, um, the, uh, who, the guy who became the safety, safety man later. Um, and going to work the same night. That much I remember. The rest of it is, pshh, you know, I don't even, I don't even remember what my first job was. It was all kind of, it's all kind of a blur because there were, uh, so many unusual different things going on at that time. See, I am, uh, a second-generation autoworker. My dad also works in this same plant. He hired in here in 1950. Um and so I had some already preconceived notions of what working here would be like, although, they turned out to be all wrong, but nevertheless, it was, you know, um that they were what they were. I remember my major, major disappointment when I was a kid and finally got to do a tour of the plant because my dad had told me that he worked on the docks and he was on, you know, in retrospect, what he did, he was unloading real cars on the, on the rail docks. Well, you know, to a kid's mind, docks, water, boats, you know. I came in and did… Female #1: [laughter] David Dickhaut: I came in and did a [laughter] and did a plan-, did a plan-, finally got to do a plant tour and I'm looking around going, Dad, where's the boats… Female #1: What. David Dickhaut: …and he thought I was crazy. [laughter] There are no boats, where did you get that idea from? Stupid kid. So, uh, my dad worked here and retired out of here. Uh, he was, uh, he was 40 years old when he hired in, in 1950 and so he only had another 25 years in he-, here. Um, his work experience was considerably different than my work experience could, because of the nature of the jobs and the way things have changed in the business itself. He was, he used to work in an operation called, uh, cut-and-saw. They used to, uh, um, make, uh, all of the, uh, covers for seats and covers for all the interior trim. They used to, uh, to, to manufacture all those on site. When I came to work here, his job was in the quarter panel group, they called it and they used to stretch all of the um armrests, and backseat armrests, and all of those kinds of, uh, things that went into cars and, uh, it was one of those cushy off-line jobs, and, uh, I always thought it was kind of neat that he had one of those jobs because I sure didn't have one of those jobs and they were the jobs that everybody aspired to, I mean they were the ones that you had a lot more control of your time. You were able to work ahead and take an extra half-hour for lunch. You were able to go visit with some people that you knew somewhere else in the plant. Um, those kind of things were, were, you know, to be aspired to. They were important, you know. Because the rest of the jobs involved doing the same thing again and again and again and again and again whether it was 72 times an hour or whether it was 68 times an hour, whatever, and, uh, and your day was pretty much controlled by when was wagon, when's lunch, when's my relief. Um, all those things are important and, and at that point for a long time, it, you know, if you, if you needed to go to the restroom, if you had a problem with that, you might be just out of luck. You might just have to wait because although there was a utility man or a pickup man in the department, he might not be available for you to cover, you know, and he didn't necessarily want to do your job. So, um, those times of everybody had wagon emblazoned in their mind, you know. Female #1: [18:22] Tell us what a wagon is? David Dickhaut: A wagon was a 6-minute, a wonderful 6-minute period of time when the, uh, they would come around with a little cart with coffee and donuts and other goodies available for you to purchase and consume and go back to work and also go to the bathroom, anything else you needed to do in 6 minutes. Female #1: [18:49] How many times a day did you have that? David Dickhaut: Twice. We had that once in the morning and we had it once in the afternoon and it was a very big de-, um, a very big deal. Female #1: [18:58] and you had that in, in addition to other breaks? David Dickhaut: We also got relief time. Female #1: Okay. David Dickhaut: Yeah. We also got relief time but wagon was, uh, was sometimes even more important than relief. Female #1: [19:11] Did the line continue to run when you took a relief break? David Dickhaut: When you took, most of the time when you took a relief break, we had tag relief, which is your relief man would come around and he would, he'd go, tag your it, and you were gone, and you'd, you'd be out for your 12 minutes or 13 minutes, or however, the period of time was that, uh, your relief was and then you'd be back. A lot of times the quality of your life depended on how good your relief man was. And all relief men were not created equal, some of them would short-change you, they'd sting you, they'd dig you, they'd double up your job with somebody else's job and, inevitably, uh, it was for their benefit to do that but it wasn't for your benefit that they did that. Female #1: [20:05] Was that another preferred job? David Dickhaut: Oh, absolutely. That was one of the very preferred jobs, yeah. Because relief men didn't have to do anything to speak of the first half hour or hour of the day. Because you couldn't start to run relief for that first hour and then for a half hour after lunch, they couldn't run relief, so that time was if they didn't have other assignments, and they were successful at, uh, uh, laying low and not letting the foreman find them, um, they had that time to themselves. So those jobs that allowed you more time to yourself were always the preferred jobs and they were always the high-seniority jobs for the same reason. Female #1: [20:46] Was a utility man, was that a preferred job also? David Dickhaut: Not really. It paid more because you knew how to do more jobs and so obviously everybody gets, likes to be, maybe, become a utility man. Female #1: [21:03] What does, what does a utility man do? David Dickhaut: A utility man covers for other jobs. It covers for absenteeism, it covers for, uh, for people that are off the job for one reason or another. Somebody has to go to medical, um, the utility man covers. Usually there were 2 or 3, sometimes 4 utility people per department, or department was, I'm trying to remember back, I think it was probably about 35 to 40 people, and um, so your utility man, was, would, if, if you were a utility man, you would be covering, usually covering a job for all day and of course there were jobs that were better than other jobs and the utility man always seemed to gravitate to the better jobs, which means that, uh, if you were a utility man and your were low on the totem pole, you got the crap jobs and you did them all the time and that was not a fun thing to do. Female #1: [22:03] Um, did he answer that? Female #2: Mm-hm. Female #1: [22:09] When you came to work in the morning, did you, how did you let them know you were here on time? David Dickhaut: The supervisor, was, the foreman was lurking usually. You had to punch in when you came in through the gate, um, when I started, um, we still had time cards. So you'd come in the gate, flash your badge to get past this, you'd park, flash your badge to get past the security guard, walk through the gate, walk to the time clock near your work area, take your time card out of the out-slot, punch it in the clock, and put it in the in-slot and that way the foreman knew you were there and that controlled your pay. Also, the foreman would go around with his little check sheet making sure that everybody was there so they knew which jobs they had to cover for that day. And I didn't come to work in the morning because I worked night shift for 13½ years before I had enough seniority to be able to hold days because that was, dayshift was the preferred shift for most people who had a life or who wanted to have a life. But you could get bumped off from a dayshift job onto a night shift job if you did not have enough seniority to hold the job because the higher seniority person had the preferred shift. Um, that's why I worked night shift for over 13 years because I didn't have enough seniority to hang on to that dayshift job. The, the way it worked is if you went onto your dayshift job and, and couldn't hold it, then you'd go back to night shift and it, it just didn't seem like a good way to try and live a life to me, or try to do anything on the outside to not know whether or not you were going to be, you know, you might be working for a month on days and 2 months on nights and 6 weeks on days and 2 months on nights, and the bouncing back and forth never really appealed to me and when I was trying to go to school which was most of my career here, um, you needed a little more stability than that. So it wasn't until I was actually able to have enough seniority to hold a dayshift job that, that I came today, so I came to work. I worked nights. Female #1: [24:30] When did they switch over? Can you recall from the time card system to the… David Dickhaut: Nah, I don't remember [laughter]. Female #1: [24:39] How did they measure an hour? David Dickhaut: Life in an assembly plant is divided into tenths of hours. Everything is done in terms of those 6-minute intervals. When you want to know how long you work in a day, it could be 8.3, it could be 8.4, it could be 8.6, it could be 8.8. You never knew how long you were going to work but everything was done by those tenths, so that 6-minute interval becomes your, your time ruler and you talk to anybody else in the real world, outside of the plants about tenths of hours and they look at you with this blank look, because of course, life isn't organized like that. What life in an assembly plant is organized around, is that tenth of an hour. Female #1: [25:30] When you worked night shift, what was, what constitutes night shift? What time does that start and end? David Dickhaut: It usually started somewhere around 5:00 and ended whenever they wanted it too. I mean it didn't end until 1:30 to 2:00 to 2:30 in the morning. See, one of the um the results of living on the night shift, the social results of living on the night shift is that most of the rest of the world doesn't operate in that same timeframe. So most of the people that you socialized with are people who are on the same schedule. So that's where you get all kinds of, of after-work parties and all kinds of things going on and, and pretty soon you realized that the only friends you have, that that you see regularly are the same people that your work with every day and um that's, it definitely creates a different environment. But dayshift was preferred. Female #1: [26:36] Is there any different comparisons you could make between your early days at Fisher Body and your days now at Lansing Car Assembly? David Dickhaut: Job organization is a lot different. The jobs are structured a lot differently now. Um, there is a lot less flexibility in how you do the job but on the other hand, the quality of the vehicle is a lot higher than it used to be too. Um, we used to generate a lot more scrap than we did. We used to have a hard time getting rid of the scrap, that whole, I think we have gotten a lot more efficient at how we do our jobs. On the other hand, I see a lot less um flexibility in the job once a person is on the job. There is a lot more, the worker has a lot more say in how the job is set up and the best way to do a particular job but once that has been determined, then that's the way, that it is and you don't have a whole lot of room to move in that whole thing. The jobs I gravitated to were the ones that involved a lot more open time. Um, gave me time to study on the job. I used to do garnish moldings. We used to do every third car in garnish moldings and that job entailed carrying a wooden seat from car, car to car. In that seat were all of the screws and bits and pieces and parts, small parts, that you needed to be able to put that piece of the car together. So you'd go up to the car with your seat in one hand and, and air motor because everything was done with air motors at that point in time and toss them in the car, grab the stock that was in there, swing, into the vehicle and then as quickly as you could, do all of the part of your job and, and you got so that you were real good about it and actually you got so that you were so good at it that it was better off if you didn't think about it because your body did the job and that gave you a lot of time to think about a whole lot of other things. So your body was doing the job and you were off somewhere else. To the point that, on a lot of occasions you'd have to go back and double check to make that you had done that job even though you had done that job, you didn't have any memory of having done that job. Female #1: Mm-hm. David Dickhaut: But those were the jobs that were better because, um when you are only doing every third car, you have a period of time before the next car comes up into your station after you are done with yours and that gives you time to read a newspaper, study, uh, do other kinds of things, get into mischief, not that I ever did that, um but those were, those were the kind of jobs that I, that I liked to do. Female #1: [29:47] When you were building cars, how many did we build a day back then? Or, yeah, in a shift? David Dickhaut: I don't know, I worked on the Cutlass line and the, the A-line, I worked on the B and C line, I worked on, yeah, I worked on so many different, I don't really remember what lines speed was. Female #1: Mm-hm. David Dickhaut: Line speed was, you know, how long it took from one car to the next car and the number of cars you built in a day, you had no idea how many cars you built in a day. You know, I don't know what it was [laughter]. In retrospect, I could say it was probably less than what we build now. But I don't know that. Female #1: Hm. David Dickhaut: You know. Female #1: [30:27] As a union member, what is your favorite benefit that was bargained for you? Or most appreciated? David Dickhaut: Well, tuition assistance has to be pretty high on the list. Um, I'm, I'd really have to, I'd really have to give that a lot more thought. Uh, I don't have an answer off the top of my head on that one because the benefits that we have had negotiated for us, um, as you get older you obviously you appreciate the health insurance a lot more [laughter] but um I don't know, that's a tough one. Female #1: Okay. [31:18] Is there anything else you'd like share before we end this interview for today? David Dickhaut: Well, gosh, you know, this, you remember a lot more things as you're going through doing one of these um, I remember what it was like to be, to have long hair in a redneck plant. Female #1: [laughter] David Dickhaut: Um, [throat clearing] I remember being harassed on a daily basis. Um, I remember that, you know, that drug and alcohol abuse was I'd have to say rampant. Um, and that was, it was almost a daily part of how, how do you survive being here every single day and that's one of the ways that you survive being here every single day. Um, so consequently, a lot of the specifics of who did you work with and what did you do and exactly the sequence of operations that you did, it gets pretty fuzzy in your memory, you know. That's all I'll say about that [laughter]. Female #1: [laughter] Female #2: Thanks, Dave. Female 3: Thanks. Female 4: Thanks. Female #1: [32:42] Dave, Fisher Body has always been famous for the coach, the Napoleonic coach, we used to put in all the sill plates of all our cars and our plant used to have one, did, you know, anything about that coach? Can you tell us about it? David Dickhaut: I remember when that coach was built. Um, it was part of somebody's grand-plan to have a, a presence in local parades and so they wanted it to be, and everybody recognize that coach, and so they followed the classic design from all of the ones that modelers had been using for years and that, and that became the symbol of, of Fisher Body and it was a group of managers, so-, some of whom are still here and it was about 19, I'm going to say about 1985 that it was constructed and they started with, they went to a Shipshewana and bought an Amish carriage and brought it back and completely reconstructed it and built it from fabricating all of the parts and the colors were exactly right and everything was done as by the book, by the Napoleonic coach design that became the standard for model builders for years. So that coach is now residing at the R. E. Olds Museum. Um, when it was taken from here it was, uh, uh, it was given a place of honor there and, uh, it was a sad day when we finally, when we lost the coach. First it came down out of the building and, and off the wall in the building and then the coach itself left the building but, um, anybody that has been with the body plant, Fisher Body, General Motors for very long at all, the coach still rolls. You know. You could take it out of the building, but you can never take it out of our hearts. Female #2: [34:58] When was that, what timeframe was that? David Dickhaut: That it was, uh, taken? Female #2: Mm-hm. David Dickhaut: Oh, okay it was when we went to, when Fisher Body disappeared, when we became BOC and I couldn't give you an exact date and time when the coach went, I'm sure that's in the records somewhere but, uh, I remember we used to have it in a, in a place of honor on display in the facility and we had a whole display arrangement around it with, uh, memorabilia from the plant and things that were, that were here scrapbook-wise and photos and, and all kinds of other neat stuff that went with that. It's good heritage. Female #2: Mm-hm. Female #1: I was here in '84, I came into Fisher Body in '84. Female #2: Oh okay. Female #1: Thank you, Dave. David Dickhaut: Yep. /ds