Mikel Lienhart discusses his career as a skilled trades painter and UAW member at the Fisher Body plant in Lansing, MI Cheryl McQuaid: [recorder clicking] Uh, this is Cheryl McQuaid with the Lansing Fisher Body Historical Team. Today’s Friday, November 4th, 2005. We’re in the Labor Relations Conference Room. It’s about 10:00 a.m. and we’re preparing to interview Mike Lienhart. Uh, first we’re going to go around and introduce everybody else that’s in the room. Doreen Howard: Doreen Howard. Marilyn Coulter: Marilyn Coulter. Linda Johnson: Linda Johnson. Doug Rademacher: Doug Rademacher. [clicking] Cheryl McQuaid: And Mike Lienhart. Mikel Lienhart: And like you said, my name’s Mikel Lienhart; that’s spelled L-I-E-N-H-A-R-T and... Cheryl McQuaid: [0:38] Your address? Mikel Lienhart: ...my address is 540 Frost Road, Williamston, Michigan. Cheryl McQuaid: [0:45] Mike, when did you hire into this plant? Mikel Lienhart: I hired into this plant in October, uh, 21st, in 1985. Cheryl McQuaid: [0:59] And was this plant Fisher Body at that time or? Mikel Lienhart: Uh, I believe it was called BOC at that time. Cheryl McQuaid: BOC. [1:09] And I think you said to me earlier that you worked here when it was Fisher Body? Mikel Lienhart: Yes, I did. I spent, um, I’d say, oh, it’d be 13 years before I came here, about 60% of my time, working in GM plants throughout the state as an off-site contractor. Cheryl McQuaid: [1:28] And what were some a the things ya did? Mikel Lienhart: Uh. Cheryl McQuaid: Well, here at this plant. Mikel Lienhart: At this plant? A lotta times what we did as contractors w-, was naturally the new construction was our work and, uh, other than that, other times, it was jobs that they didn’t want their people doing, uh, such as climbing, walking the steel, uh, going into tanks, sandblasting, putting in epoxy coatings, uh, also [coughing] color-coding the pipes and, and other than that, it was often jobs that were too large for their own maintenance crews to handle. Cheryl McQuaid: And then, you hired in. [2:14] What [clicking] – why did you hire in? Mikel Lienhart: Well, that’s kind of a long story. Um, back in the ’70s, union commercial and industrial work was a much better pay-, paying job than in here. Uh, they advanced, generally, about a dollar an hour per year on the contracts for many years. In fact, when I – in the early ’70s when I hired in as an apprentice, at 55% of a journeyman’s wage, it was higher than what they were paying on the line here; uh, almost a dollar an hour higher. The downside was we didn’t have any paid days off; if you didn’t work, you didn’t eat. Uh, we had pretty good benefit plan being union and, uh, [tapping] a pretty good, uh, seniority base. Um, but ya had to move around a lot too. Ya had to drive to work a lotta the times, and at that time, outside contractors worked for a small local and the whole state was broken up into little locals, and whenever you drove outside your local limits, you were paid 30 cents an hour to travel past that line, plus by the hour [door squeaking] or they paid your expenses for where you were at [door squeaking] and you got that in addition to your own pay. And they had another clause in there called the “highest prevailing wage,” which was whichever contract was higher, yours or the local you went to, you got the highest a the two, and they had some pretty neat packages in there, like Saturdays and Sundays in industrial work were double pay straight through. Uh, night shift premium was time and a fifth, from 6:00 until 6:00. Um, you got paid extra for climbing, working up in the steel; you got paid extra for spraying; got paid extra for doing the epoxy or sandblasting. By the time you totaled it all up, uh, sometimes as much as a third of your pay would be travel pays, bonus pays, overtime, things a that nature in the GM plants. So it was pretty lucrative when you were working. Um, very often the, uh, jobs we did were when plants were shut down or on the weekends, so a lot of our pay was a lot higher than what you could get anywhere else. Cheryl McQuaid: So you went ahead and got hired into Fisher Body – well, at that time, BOC. Mikel Lienhart: Yeah. Cheryl McQuaid: Um... Mikel Lienhart: Well, there’s a reason I did too. Uh, back in the early ’80s, General Motors made an arrangement with the UAW and AFLCIO, which I was then, and they came up with an international maintenance agreement, which threw out a lotta those extra pays and, uh, you didn’t get any travel pay anymore and the nightshift premiums went away, down to they gave ya a extra half-hour off or an hour off, depending on what shift you were at, instead of paying you. Uh, the overtime went back to time and a half on Saturdays and double time on Sundays. So a lotta those extras were thrown out, and even though in 1985 when I came here I took a 55-cent-an-hour pay cut to work here, I made $20,000 more that year because I worked all the overtime here and, uh, I worked Sundays late... Doug Rademacher: Doug Rademacher. Mikel Lienhart: ...so. Doug Rademacher: [6:07] Mike, you said that, um, in the ’80s then skilled trades saw a change in the way they did business on the union side and so you came to Fisher Body – or, to the BOC plant. Has skilled trades taken a change since then? Mikel Lienhart: Tremendously. Doug Rademacher: [6:27] Could you tell us a little bit about that? Mikel Lienhart: Uh-huh. Well, we’ve all gotten older in the plant here, for one thing. A lotta the jobs we do now, uh, are not near as large in scope as we did back then. We don’t climb in here anymore; everything is out of a machine. Um, the most climbing you would do would be on a step ladder. Uh, there – we don’t even have the equipment to do large jobs like we used to have; we just do the small little odds and ends that would be prohibit-, prohibitively expensive to contract out every little item. Other things we do in here, too, are little jobs like making stencils and putting names on lockers and painting a doorsill to keep people from tripping on it and things a that nature. That and a lotta the materials we use now come prefinished; uh, they’re already painted when they get here, they, and they have better coatings available. They don’t do the maintenance coatings like they used to. They used to every 7, 8 years they would go through and, and paint an entire area white if for nothing more than to clean it out and give light refraction, but the plants have cleaned up so much in the air and the dirt and the cre-, the operations they do, they just don’t need that anymore. Doug Rademacher: [8:05] Mike, you saw a change in, uh, the, of the amount of trades, they’ve combined’m. Did that aff-... Mikel Lienhart: Yeah. Doug Rademacher: ...did that impact you? Mikel Lienhart: That affected me in that they were doing away with the Painters’ trade. There were 12 of us when I hired in; turned out I was the last one that was ever hired as a painter from the outside in this plant [throat clearing] and, uh, they weren’t going to hire anymore and they needed, from time-to-time, more people, so what they did is they combined us with the carpenter’s group, made everybody a Painter/Carpenter, uh, but a lot of us crossed trade lines and, uh, give a little help on the work when ya had a larger job. Cheryl McQuaid: Doreen Howard. Doreen Howard: [8:55] Um, now, you said they, they combined the carpenter... Mikel Lienhart: Carpenters... Doreen Howard: ...and the painters. Mikel Lienhart: ...mm-hm. Doreen Howard: Did you, um, have to go and get any additional training since you were considered... Mikel Lienhart: It was available. Doreen Howard: ...both or? Mikel Lienhart: It was available, but they combined it as an EIT program, an employee-in-training... Doreen Howard: Mm. Mikel Lienhart: ...where if you spent 8 years on the job, you can get a UAW journeyman’s card. Um, they did, as far as General Motors goes, give me credit for the time that I had in the other trade and in the EITS status, which is a seniority status, which shortened that down. As far as GM’s concerned, I am a journeyman carpenter, but as far as UAW is concerned, not yet. Doreen Howard: Mm. [9:49] Have you ever used any of the skills that you’ve learned through General Motors, um, outside of the Plant? Mikel Lienhart: Not a lot. Doreen Howard: Not a lot? Mikel Lienhart: Not a lot. Most of’m are pretty specific to the Plant. Um, since I don’t work in, an industrial job on the outside at all, most a those aren’t used. Um, a lotta the little things that we used to do on the outside sometimes come in handy here because we’re also the glass glazers, uh, the carpet layers, the furniture movers; ya know, there’s a dozen little jobs that all fall under one heading that, you know, you could say, say you’re a carpenter, but you may not see a piece a wood for a month. Cheryl McQuaid: Michael Fleming. Michael Fleming: Um, Mike, you said ya took a 53-cent-an-hour cut when you came here [thumping] through [thumping] the, um, what, the AF-, AFL and the UAW [inaudible 10:54]... Mikel Lienhart: Mm-hm. Michael Fleming: ...and you made more money that year than you would have if you had a stayed out of here. Mikel Lienhart: Mm-hm. Michael Fleming: [11:00] Did your wage, your actual wage, ever catch up to what you lost in the 53 cents? Mikel Lienhart: Oh, that year. That year. The, uh, AFLCIO didn’t have the bargaining power that they had back in the ’70s anymore and their work was going way downhill. Uh, [sighing] and the UAW started negotiating higher wages and increases every year where [sniffing] on the outside they were forced to put a lotta their – they negotiated a lot differently in that you negotiated for a dollar amount and then you went back to the Union Hall and ya sat down with the rest a the guys and you figured out where you had to put that money, whether it was into benefits or actually on the check, uh, had – that part had very little to do with your contractor, and ‘cause, ya know, benefits and expenses started going way up at that time, and a large part a their, uh, wage increases that they did get, which were never as large again as they were back in the ’70s were eaten at by benefits. Michael Fleming: [12:13] I’m assuming that you are going to transition into the new Delta plant. Mikel Lienhart: That is unsure at this time. Uh. Michael Fleming: If in fact you did do that, you were already an EIT for, uh, the Carpenters’ group. Uh, what is your next EIT assignment if you decided you were going to take one? Mikel Lienhart: It – they’re negotiating that at this time, but at this time, nothing’s offered; we don’t have a job. There’s about 40 of us in the Plant in that situation; the Carpenters, the Tinners, Small Tools. Michael Fleming: It was my understandin’ that you have an EIT opportunity, though. Mikel Lienhart: Not as yet. Michael Fleming: Not yet. [Inaudible 13:00]. Mikel Lienhart: They’re working on it. Michael Fleming: Okay, there we go. Mikel Lienhart: They’re working on it, but, uh, I don’t know that there’s going to be any other opportunities. They’re talking also about a, uh, Central Facilities group that will be manned by both Local Union 602 and 652 jointly and there may be some opportunities there, but we don’t know how many and it has not been finalized yet either. Michael Fleming: Sure. Mikel Lienhart: And all... Cheryl McQuaid: Doug... Michael Lienhart: ...all these things have to [papers rustling] go through the, uh, international [papers rustling] and management and everybody’s gotta get their two cents’ worth in before they finalize what they’re gonna do with us. Cheryl McQuaid: ...Doug Rademacher. Doug Rademacher: [13:42] Mike, I’d like to go back and find out a little more about you. Are you married? Mikel Lienhart: Yeah, I am. Uh, that, that was another reason I came here is living on the road is not very conducive to raising a family... Doug Rademacher: I was gonna ask you that. Mikel Lienhart: ...and, uh, I started having children in the early ’80s, ended up with three, and, uh, I ended up being single with three kids. Uh, two were still in diapers when that happened, so they were all very young and, uh, I’d just been, be away from my family... Marilyn Coulter: Mm. Mikel Lienhart: ...for a week at a time without knowing that they were going to be taken care of, and this was, for the first time in a long time, a job where I could stay in one place and have a [papers rustling] stable work environment [coughing] where I was gonna be there every day and at the same place. Uh, one a the things about working [clicking] in the outside as a contractor is you never knew from one day to the next where you were gonna be; you might be in Grand Rapids one day and Detroit the next, and, uh, in the middle a the day you may move from a job to another and you didn’t have a regular schedule, and that’s kinda tough when you’re tryin’ to raise kids. Cheryl McQuaid: Cheryl McQuaid. [15:01] What shift did you hire in on? Mikel Lienhart: Well, naturally, I was in here on days for the first day. Uh, I remember the lady that brought me through the Plant and was gonna take me around and show me where everything was, I ended up showing her places that she had never seen [laughter] because I’d spent about 2 and a half years in this plant over the course a 13 years, off and on, doing a lotta little oddball jobs and in between floors and crawl spaces and things a that nature, and after about 10 minutes, she just gave up; she said, “Well, drive me around,” and so I did. [coughing] [laughter] Doug Rademacher: [15:41] [clicking] Do you have, uh – you went into trades as your profession, so what is your education [papers rustling] background? Mikel Lienhart: Well, I... Doug Rademacher: Doug.. Mikel Lienhart: ...I... Doug Rademacher: ...Doug Rademacher. Mikel Lienhart: ...I graduated from high school and then, uh, worked on my own starting out as a car wiper in a car wash at, uh, 17 and I worked my up to the manager and, uh, he put me on salary, and I was starving to death. Even though I was the manager a the place and we had about 10 or 12 employees, it just did not pay, and I had an opportunity to get an apprenticeship, um, through Johnson Paint Company here in town when they were, uh, at that time the largest commercial industrial paint contractor in this area a the state. They had a lotta can-, contracts around the state and they needed an apprentice to travel. Um, for my first few years I only got back to Lansing a few weeks, and that was here, [coughing] uh, at this plant. But, uh – I, I’m sorry, where were we? Doug Rademacher: We were at education still. Mikel Lienhart: Education. Uh, along with the apprenticeship, we had to go through a 3-year apprenticeship program, and ya had to go to – [sniffing] at that time, LCC was the, uh, contract for our program, which was pain-, paid for jointly by, uh, AFLCIO money contributed by the hourly workers and the contractors, and it was a 3-year program, 4 terms a year, and it had a graduated [tapping] raise program; every six months, you got a raise until you completed I think the 3 years and ya also had to put in 1,000 hours every 6 months to get that raise. Um, and I graduated from that and actually ended up teaching the class where they used to send their UAW members to down at LCC for a while. Um, a lot happened. Other... Doug Rademacher: Okay. Mikel Lienhart: ...other than the education classes that they’ve given in here, which are pretty much standard. [thumping] Doug Rademacher: [18:01] And Mike, do you have any military background? Mikel Lienhart: No. Doug Rademacher: Okay. [18:06] I wanted to ask you about – you worked outside, you came in and, and you said you already were familiar with the Plant, but could you share [papers rustling] your first job and... Mikel Lienhart: Well, that’s real easy. Doug Rademacher: ...was it a pleasurable day for ya, Mike? Mikel Lienhart: It was a terrible [coughing] week. I set the, I set Building 15 on fire. Doreen Howard: Ah. [laughter] Doug Rademacher: Do tell. [laughter] Mikel Lienhart: They were in a rush. They had pulled me back from a job at, uh, Ann Arbor School of Architecture and Art to the Lansing area because they needed more bodies; they had to get Building 15 painted so that they could start getting the equipment in. And I had parked a large airless compressor with insta-dry paint on one a the landings out there for the stairways upstairs where the bathroom were at. At that time, the bathrooms weren’t even in yet; it was just all an open area. And, uh, break times were always very tightly regulated; at, you didn’t stop until 10:00 and you sat down for 10 minutes in your designated area and then you got back up and went at it. So when 10:00 rolled around, everybody just dropped whatever they, they were doing and rushed to get to their break area so that they could have a cup a coffee, and one a the guys threw a hot torch across the machine and left it laying there because it wasn’t supposed to be there, and the machine went up while we were on break. Um, it was so hot it actually melted the, the aluminum cooling fence on the airless machine. Um, so it wasn’t a real pleasurable experience here. I got shipped out back to Ann Arbor the next day. [laughter] Uh, I understand that there were a lotta guys that were really happy about it because they made a lotta overtime that weekend repainting all a the smoke damage in the area. [laughter] So that was my first experience in this plant. Linda Johnson: [20:08] About when was that? Mikel Lienhart: Oh geez, that woulda been in the early ’70s; ’73 or four. ’72, three, or four, right around in there. Cheryl McQuaid: [20:17] Oh so that happened while you were a contract here. Mikel Lienhart: Mm-hm. Cheryl McQuaid: And when you hired in – I’m sorry, Cheryl McQuaid. [20:26] When you hired in – in ’85, was it? Mikel Lienhart: Yes. Cheryl McQuaid: What job did they give you at that point? Mikel Lienhart: A Maintenance Painter. Uh, mostly it was just small jobs, small projects; painting ramps, platforms, the stripes on the floors, occasionally an office. Um, I’d never been real big on glass glazing and that was something I had to learn because somebody was always puttin’ their foot through a window or a door [thumping] or things here. Um, even that’s changed a lot; there isn’t much in the way a glass left around the Plant. Back then, they were still changing all of it over and, uh, a lotta the windows were puttied into place. Um, those have been replaced by unbreakable fiberglass and things like that wherever they had a problem, so that’s pretty much died away too. Cheryl McQuaid: Doreen Howard. Doreen Howard: [21:21] Um, when you first hired in, being that you were a contractor at one point and then hired in here, um, how did the other Painters that were already GM, how d-, wha-, how did they recept you, wha-, in, eh... Mikel Lienhart: Half the crew was from the same place I was. Doreen Howard: Oh, okay. Mikel Lienhart: Um, back in ’84 and ’85, they cleaned out half the executive board for our local union; I used to be a trustee there. Uh, all of us saw the handwriting on the wall and figured out real fast that the money was going the other way and with the international agreements there wasn’t a real big incentive to stay out there. So a lot of us put in our, in our applications. But I came in here and I wor-, ended up working with a lotta the guys – electricians, plumbers, iron workers, painters, carpenters – that I had worked with on the outside. Uh, there was a little bit a resentment from some a the guys that were in here because they had never been through an apprenticeship, uh, had always figured that, “If I have enough seniority, I can apply for this job and I can get it because I was a line worker here long enough.” Uh, that caused a little bit a grief too when you would be doing something that they didn’t know how to do or it was a new way of doing things to them. It was the same way we’d always done things, and they were simple things like when you went into a covering area to spray it. They would spend a day or two taping the area off and covering it all up very carefully, and we came in and we were just flabbergasted. It’s like, “You don’t do that. Ya walk in, ya grab a staple gun or a stapler out from some-, borrow a stapler from someone’s office, ya throw a sheet a plastic over it, and ya pop a couple staples on it.” Um, they were not accustomed to working like that and doing things on a large scale [sniffing] ‘cause they had always been given small maintenance jobs, go here and there, these little items and p-, and that was a big adjustment for me to have a dozen little tiny jobs to do, and very often ya had to wait until people were, were outta your way. Uh, another big adjustment was having to work around production workers. It wasn’t allowed. You weren’t allowed to get in their way in any way, shape, or form, whereas before when I had been in the plants as a GM, as a GM contractor, everything was cleared outta your way and, and it was 100% production. You came in and you got it done on the weekend and you didn’t have a choice about it. Uh, it wasn’t unusual when you were on the outside to be hooked up to a 55-gallon barrel and ya had one guy runnin’ around just changin’ barrels all day long where as much as two barrels a day were put on by one man. You had a backup crew to keep things going, but [clicking] that was not the case when I came in here. It was a little hard to get used to walkin’ around with a little bucket and a little brush sometimes. Cheryl McQuaid: Mike Fleming. Michael Fleming: [24:44] Um, Mike, can you talk about some a the health and safety, uh, precautions that you had to [coughing] [tapping] follow within your particular job? Any real serious health, health or safety violations that y-, have you seen since you’ve been here that have occurred? Uh. Mikel Lienhart: Yeah. Yeah, I can. Uh, one in particular that changed the way they do business, uh, I had my lungs burned. Doreen Howard: Mm. Mikel Lienhart: Uh, [thumping] they had me working alone because [background noises] Painters crew had gotten down so low there were only a couple of us per shift, and I had to go in and spray a bathroom and somebody had used a different material, an outside contractor had used a different mir-, material that reacted with mine and burned the cartridges out of the mask before I could even smell it, and by the time I could, it, it numbed my nose. Ended up being shipped out in a, uh, ambulance, seein’ rainbows and laughin’ and gigglin’, and [laughter] I was pretty goofy for a while, but, uh, they’ve changed the way they do things for that, uh, especially with confined spaces. [sniffing] Uh, I know that we had a confined space accident in, in here that 3 people were killed in. Um, that one always hit me real hard because I was the guy that put the original [hood 26:06] in the tank, and we had safety rules in place that were put in place by General Motors, even though I was an outside contractor in here, and they were far less stringent than they are now, but they were still in place, and it, it kinda shocked me to find out that a year or so after we turned the place over to them that they threw the rules out and gave that job to a, to the Production Supervisors, and they ignored those safety rules and they ended up killing some people in there. Um, I’ve seen that evolve in this plant, because I’m also on the ERP team and do confined space standbys, uh, into a pretty safe program where we watch over the guys pretty close as to what safety features are in place. Michael Fleming: [26:57] Could you very briefly describe the area you’re talking about? We – I think I understand what you’re speaking, but some [inaudible 27:03]. Mikel Lienhart: Yeah, that was a, uh, paint sludge tank in the bottom of one a the spray booths on the north end of one a the tanks in the Paint Department. Um, when they originally built those, they had to be sandblasted down to bare metal and they had a chemical-resistant primer coat that went on, uh, a half-a-mil. thick and then it got a epoxy coal tar-type epoxy over that, um, and that was very caustic and very toxic, and we were required by General Motors to meter the tanks for good air, and then when we went in, because we were adding toxic materials to it, we had to wear a chemical [sniffing] cartridge mask underneath an air hood, uh, that fed us fresh air too [chair squeaking] to do that tank, and we had to keep tabs on it, uh, as to what was going on. Uh, at first, they want-, once it was all dry and they took it over and [sniffing] I don’t think they realized the toxicity a the materials that they were putting in there and they put three guys in there to paint it up; they died. Marilyn Coulter: [28:26] [papers rustling] Mike – Marilyn Coulter – you said that you were part of the ERT. Could you tell us what that is and how long you’ve been doin’ it and what you do? Mikel Lienhart: Uh, Emergency Response Team is what that is, and originally it was started pretty much as a fire, like, fire brigade where would answer the, uh, any fire calls or emergencies. Uh, I was on it since they first started it in this plant and I’ve been on it, with the exception of one year, uh, when I had some shoulder surgery during the, uh, last training class of the year, I wasn’t able to go so I was off of it for one year. Um, that’s even kind of evolved in the Plant too. Uh, originally we started out as firemen. We would even train by stacking cars up out in the parking lot over at, by the airport. We’d light fires and we’d go put the fires out, we’d go into, uh, enclosed areas and put out pans ignited with what they call heptane, and we’d work as teams to try to get that out, and back then we actually had more fires in the Plant and more problems with that. We had hydraulic robots, the place was greasy, it was dirty. It wasn’t unusual to drive by and see a couple a flames shootin’ up out by the robots and you stop by [coughing] and you put it out with a fire extinguisher and call’m and told’m you put it out and they’d come and fill the fire extinguisher. Uh, they’ve gotten a lot better at [sniffing] regulating those kinda things in the Plant. It’s cleaner. There isn’t oil and grease left around; if it is, it’s cleaned up right away. We don’t have the combustion sources anymore s-, and, uh, [tapping] the training that’s required to maintain that level as a fireman got to be prohibitive, so General Motors didn’t want the liability, so they took away our fire coats and fire boots and fire hats and said we are now incipient-stage firemen, which means [papers rustling] basically if it’s a trash can and you can put it out with the hand fire extinguisher, we’re allowed to do that; other than that, we call the fire department. And we have since switched over to about 90% of our runs are medical, um, and we’re not doctors, so, uh, [tapping] basically we package and ship; we go get the guy and get him to Medical. How – [sighing] ya know, with everybody being older in the Plant too, a lot of the issues are we had people with chest pains or they, their arm hurts, and we’re not doctors, so we don’t question it; we just take’m to Medical and they decided if they’re to be shipped out, which they normally do. Cheryl McQuaid: Michael Fleming. Michael Fleming: Uh, Mike, you talked about one a your worst days in here, and that would’ve [papers rustling] been when you realized that they had the fatality in the Paint Department. [31:30] Can you talk about and tell us about what would’ve b-, been one a the best days that you have had in this plant, some a the good things that you [inaudible 31:39]? Mikel Lienhart: [sighing] Yeah. I gotta believe the best day I ever had in this plant was – ya know, I was goin’ through a real low time in my life; I was going through a divorce, I had three kids I was tryin’ to take care of, little ones, and, uh, I’d been outta the home that I’d grown up in and had no place to, uh, live, with three kids. I had my pickup truck and myself, and three kids. [clicking] And, and one diaper bag. Um, some a the other guys found out what’s going on [clicking] and, uh – this is kinda tough, ‘cause it, it, it really, uh, was a happy time. They found out about it and asked me to meet’m out front, and I didn’t have any clothes for my kids, and they had gone out shopping and purchased seven boxes of new clothes for my kids. Doreen Howard: Oh. Mikel Lienhart: [Inaudible 32:52]. So, it, it kinda, it kinda chokes me up a little bit, ya know? Doug Rademacher: Oh, it’s chokin’ us up. Marilyn Coulter: Yeah. Michael Fleming: Oh, no question. Marilyn Coulter: It does. Michael Fleming: [Inaudible 33:01] [clicking] [33:03] But you know, that kind of points to the spirit of Fisher Body, we feel. I, I don’t know if you agree with that or not, but, uh, this, this building has those type of people in it. Wouldn’t you agree? Mikel Lienhart: Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, it was, it was a real tough time in my life. It was just a ecstatic day. Cheryl McQuaid: Oh, that’s okay. Doug Rademacher: We, we appreciate your [inaudible 33:23]... Cheryl McQuaid: Totally understand. Marilyn Coulter: Thank you for sharing. Doreen Howard: Mm-hm. Doug Rademacher: ...that, uh, memorable moment. So – Doug Rademacher. [33:32] Mike, so do you, do you consider your coworkers brothers and sisters? Mikel Lienhart: Yeah. Doug Rademacher: Can you talk about the comradery and the, and the fellowship you gained once you were able to stay in one place like Fisher Bo-, uh, the, the Fisher Plant and, uh, have you made some close friendships and has it carried over outside a the, the Plant? Mikel Lienhart: Yeah, I have. Um, before, I always moved around a lot. Um, in the type a work I was doing, there were only a few hundred of us, really, around the state that did that regularly, so you, uh – thank you – you, uh, always ran into the same guys again. You might not see’m again for 5, 6 years, ya know, ya might only see’m for a week or a day. Uh, here, it, it was a real adjustment to come here and see the same faces every day, and you got to know who, who was doing what, what was going on in their life. Uh, ya know, they actually [coughing] made plans for a weekend to go over to somebody’s house for dinner, where that r-, really wasn’t possible before I came here. So that was a, that was a big change for me, to see that. Doug Rademacher: [34:49] Mike, you shared that the people that you worked with stepped up and recognized a need for you. Mikel Lienhart: Uh-huh. Doug Rademacher: [34:56] Did, was there a time where you were able to reciprocate and see someone else in need that you were able to give back? Mikel Lienhart: Yes, but I’m not gonna go there. Marilyn Coulter: Mm. Mikel Lienhart: Um, one a the things that’s really neat about this place is, uh, ya know, they’ll have a board up for somebody’s that’s sick, but they don’t care if you sign it or not; you put your [inaudible 35:20]. Um, it is a belief of my that, ya know, if you give something to somebody and you step up to the bat, take, say, “Look what I did,” ya didn’t it for them; you did it for yourself, and, uh, they don’t make that necessary around here. You can do it for them. You don’t have to, uh, ya know, make a big production about what I did. And, and that was one a the cool parts about what they did for me is they kept it quiet; nobody ever told anybody what was goin’ on. That was a, I think, big change. Cheryl McQuaid: Cheryl McQuaid. Mike, you mentioned that when you would go out on the production floor and paint... Mikel Lienhart: Mm-hm. Cheryl McQuaid: ...that it was hard to work; you were not allowed to be in the way of the production employees. Mikel Lienhart: Oh, not at all. [laughter] Cheryl McQuaid: [36:20] What kind of relationship did you have with the Line Workers? Did you have any relationship with them? Mikel Lienhart: Sometimes it was pretty rocky, because you had a job to get done, you had to, you had to have it done, and, uh, they didn’t wanna smell your paint, they didn’t wanna see you in the area, they didn’t want you in their area. Uh, that was – there was a pretty big division there a lotta the times between Trades and the Production Workers. Uh, I don’t think it’s as strong [papers rustling] as it used to be, but I think their used to even be animosity, ‘cause they would see us all the time sittin’ down, havin’ a cup a coffee while they were working. Well, most a the time we worked graveyard shift. When they went home, that’s when we started and everything had to be back in place by the time they were back again, and they would come in the door and they would see us sittin’ down again. Uh, I think that caused a little bit a friction. I don’t think they completely understood what the other person’s job was and what they had to do while they were gone. Cheryl McQuaid: [37:27] Do you – can you share any funny moments in this Plant, like pranks that you’ve seen played on people or that you’ve played... Mikel Lienhart: [Inaudible 37:37]. Cheryl McQuaid: ...on people? Yeah? [laughter] Mikel Lienhart: I had one, the one that sticks out the most is we had this one supervisor that I won’t name... Cheryl McQuaid: [laughter] Okay. Mikel Lienhart: ...he used to love to birddog his people by radio, and the first thing he would always ask is, “Where are ya?” ‘Cause everything he wanted done was always an emergency whether it was or not, but he always made it that way and he always said, “Well, where are ya?” And, uh, I remember the answer coming back on the radio, said, “Well, I’m in the bathroom right now but it’s okay because I’m thinking about you.” [laughter] The radio went, for the first time, all night long the radio went silent for 5 minutes. Nobody was on that radio. [laughter] You know everybody was in the background laughing and chuckling because [laughter] this guy’d finally [been stung 38:27] and maybe got a lesson not to be askin’ where everybody’s at all the time. [laughter] Doreen Howard: That’s good. Marilyn Coulter: So – Marilyn Coulter – Mike, you said that, um, when you were in your other, on your outside job, that you were active in your union there and, um, that you were a trustee. [38:46] Did you become active or – when you came here? Mikel Lienhart: Nope. Not all. Um, a difference in the way they do things. Um, on the outside, hourly construction workers worked very closely with their contractors. Marilyn Coulter: Mm. Mikel Lienhart: Most a your con-, contractors and your small contractors actually worked hourly at one time out there, which is a big difference here. Um, usually you end up working for a guy that knows nothing about your job or your history. Um, and out there, you did things for your trade, like the schooling was half paid for by an hourly deduction from your check. Marilyn Coulter: Mm-hm. Mikel Lienhart: You paid for the next guy’s training. You constantly adjusted your work to make it faster, more efficient, changed the equipment ya used. Marilyn Coulter: Mm-hm. Mikel Lienhart: In there, that was – stagnated quite a bit. Marilyn Coulter: Mm. Mikel Lienhart: And I didn’t exactly agree with the way management and labor got along. It was always seemed to me to be very adversarial in here. Um, I can remember working for a contractor on the outside, one in particular was a millionaire. If there was a problem out on a job, he came out and he stripped down to his t-shirt right along with the rest a the guys to solve the problem, on the job. Uh... Marilyn Coulter: Mm-hm. Mikel Lienhart: ...here’s another fun one. We were working in, uh, in the plant next door, and we had, uh, a 60-foot-high bay to paint, and we had to climb up another 20 feet up above the crane to spray, and we walked picks through the steel to spray it, and it was hot; it was 95 degrees outside, so you can imagine what it was inside that building, up on that ceiling. The boss didn’t want us to come down ‘cause he knew if he got us down there it’d take us forever to get back up there and, and we had to get this place done. One a the apprentices had, uh, tangled up 6 400-foot sections of 3,000 PSI line into a big ball of spaghetti underneath the crane when it was moving back and forth, and he was there, this was the owner of the company; like I say, a millionaire. He came up and he’s working right along with us to get this ball a spaghetti high-pressure lines untangled while we were up there working so we didn’t have to quit, and, uh, one a the guys took a bucket a ice water while he was bent over and his plumber’s butt hanging out, poured the ice water on him from 40 foot up on the crane [laughter] and handed the bucket to me [laughter] just as he turned around to look. Uh, yeah, that – like I s-, those were some a the differences between we, the way we did businesses now side contractor and the way we did it in here, but those, those are some a the moments that came about in here. Cheryl McQuaid: Doreen Howard. Doreen Howard: [42:07] Um, has there been changes since you’ve been here in the way – and you talked about it started out you felt that it was very adversarial between, uh, Management and employee. Um, has that changed over time since the beginning? Mikel Lienhart: I think it has. Uh, you don’t see the guys being birddogged by their supervisor anymore. They’re given more responsibility and say, “Hey, look, here’s the job.” I’ve had supervisors in recent years where [sniffing] I didn’t even have to see them. I went in and pulled the paperwork off his desk and was allowed to combine the work in a fashion that was more efficient. If I had, uh, 10 yellow things to paint, for instance, on 10 different work orders, rather than give me a work order for this and the work order for that, I was allowed to go through the stack, pick out th-, all the ones that were alike so that I combined’m together and go do the job more efficiently. I think that a lotta the better supervisors caught onto that within the last few years and they’ve started letting us handle it. That coupled with the fact that a lot of our supervisors now have no experience in the Trades that they’re handling, so they turned us loose and asked us what we want and what we need and, and they are more like a facilitator... Cheryl McQuaid: Doreen... Mikel Lienhart: ...rather than a, uh, boss that orders you to do something a specific way. Doreen Howard: [43:49] Since you have [papers rustling] spent a lot of time in this facility, um, both as outside contractor and as a GM employee and working on painting the building and stuff, um, what’s your reaction to this building being demolished? How do you, how do you feel about that? Mikel Lienhart: Well, I agree. It needs to come down. It’s very inefficient. [coughing] Uh, so many things in here are a one-off; there’s nothing like it around. You can’t go out and buy a replacement part for some things just because nobody’s used’m in 50 years, and every time you go into an area, it’s done pretty much on a custom level because it isn’t done anymore, you can’t buy that item anymore, or ya can’t go out and say, “I need 50 pieces a glass” and go out and put’m in any place you want in the building; you have to go out and measure each and every one. Uh, a doorknob, if we have to change a doorknob, each and every one is different than the one before. Um, there’s too many things that aren’t, aren’t standard here. Marilyn Coulter: Mm. Mikel Lienhart: It makes it a real maintenance nightmare to try to keep it up. And I can understand their wanting to combine trades and get to a smaller number in the new plant because they just aren’t gonna need that many people to maintain that building like they would this one. Cheryl McQuaid: Doug Rademacher. Doug Rademacher: [45:37] Mike, you just shared some things about how we do – have done business in this building. Lansing was known, or is known as the Capital of Quality, and you just said there’s many variations, and you’ve seen other facilities. How did Lansing, [laughter] how did Lansing become the Capital of Quality [inaudible 46:01]? Mikel Lienhart: We had a, we had a name for it. This building right here was called Fort Lansing. They did things differently in this building than they did most of the other GM plants. Uh, right, uh, down to the, uh, Material Handlers in this building. Man, those guys go like hotdogs. You go to other plants and they’re real laid back, and they sit on the truck and they’ll move it in here very careful and they’ll never scratch anything. You go into some a the other plants, there would be one yellow post for a guard post in front of an electrical box and that would be it for the whole building. In here, they’ve got iron and steel everywhere because those guys come crashin’ through there and they’re gonna get the job done and they’re gonna get it done in a big hurry. It’s, uh, it was just a different way of doing business here. Doug Rademacher: [46:55] Can ya go any further on that? Is there, uh, a s-, is there a work ethic here? Is there something different... Mikel Lienhart: I, I think there was a work ethic here that I didn’t see at other plants. Uh, give you like Orion for instance. It seemed like the guys there always planned ways to pad their job. Uh, featherbedding? Is that a good word? Marilyn Coulter: [Inaudible 47:24]. Mikel Lienhart: Um, I think we all know what featherbedding is. And sure, they were a little more adaptable. I think they had to be because the building was so mismatched everywhere, everything was different. Um, you also had a lotta people around here that had been here for a long time and they would stay in one area for a long time [clicking] and if you had something that would only break down once a year in that area, well the only guy that’s gonna know how to fix that is the guy that’s been there for a long time. Everybody else would stand around scratchin’ their head tryin’ to figure what to do and how [throat clearing] to do it and never seen it before. That didn’t happen here. Um, most a the other plants you saw people checking around, moving around job to job, all over, all the time. Not here. Uh, you’d see a guy that all he ever did is maybe run an oven, but he ran that oven for 10 years. [tapping] That, that was quite different. Doug Rademacher: [48:28] Another thing about Lansing is they say they have a working relationship with the union. Do you see anything – uh, you were a union man all these years. What’s your – what do you see of the connection between management and union in this facility? Mikel Lienhart: Something I thought was really unusual over here is, if I can go right on down to the grievance level on things, is rarely was a grievance put in on small items. Rather than put in a grievance, the Committeeman would go to the supervisor and see if he couldn’t work somethin’ out that was equitable for both people, and that I found quite surprising. Uh, it – somebody’d say, “Well, yeah, you kinda got screwed over on this deal. Can I pay ya a couple [months 49:22] just to make for it?” and it never went to the grievance level; it just was taken care of on a lower level that made everybody happy. I could give ya a for-instance. I was goin’ down the escalator and, uh, this was one a the escalator that they shut down and replaced eventually out in the shipping area. Was leavin’ work. The thing ate my shoe. I mean, it grabbed that shoe and it sucked it right in, and luckily I had low shoes on, I was able to pull my foot, and, uh, I went to the boss and I says, “Look, number one, you’re gonna buy me a new pair a shoes. Number two, you’re going to get that thing fixed.” Safety Department came over and talked to’m, and the supervisor actually went in and, and [tapping] started arguing; “Look, we gotta shut this thing down. Everybody’s gonna have to walk until we get this fixed, and we gotta get it fixed.” And a few months later, it was shut down and repaired. Um, it’s just a, a different way of – like I say, you’re back working with management and the hourly people, they, they took care a that. They – I ended up – I had to get a new pair a shoes, but he paid me lunchbreaks till they felt that my shoes had been paid for. [laughter] And never made it to a paperwork-type situation with a grievance, and you’d a seen as a grievance at some a the other plan-, GM plants that I’ve been in. Cheryl McQuaid: Doreen Howard. Doreen Howard: [50:59] Um, earlier on you said you had some children. Um, are your children old enough that they may possibly work here? Mikel Lienhart: Yes. Doreen Howard: Do you have [inaudible 51:09]? Mikel Lienhart: I have three children myself; I also have two step-children. Uh, I don’t see any of them except for one that really wants to be a tradesman or work at the plants, and he’s got his on the army first; he just turned 18. Uh, myself, I – my dad retired from General Motors. He was a Toolmaker at the main plant. Um, I have one brother that’s was also a Toolmaker there. Uh, [thumping] and another brother that was a forklift driver. Doreen Howard: So you have a very long... Mikel Lienhart: Yeah. Doreen Howard: ...heritage with GM. Mikel Lienhart: Yeah, GM fed me when I was little guy too. Doreen Howard: Mm. Mikel Lienhart: Like I say, I was aware a the workings quite well, even back in the early ’70s when I did not want to come here and the issue was pay. Um, the trades paid better even as an apprentice than they did in here back then. Doreen Howard: Mm. Doreen Howard. [52:19] Um, you’ve been here a while, you’ve been other places, um, you’re not sure if you’re going to go to the new Delta plant. Um, the Skilled Trades people that, um, eventually be hired into General Motors, um, what words of wisdom could you offer anyone that would be interested in a skilled trade such as yours? Mikel Lienhart: Mine? It’s not going to exist. [laughter] It’s not going to exist. I know I don’t wanna go back to, uh, hangin’ off buildings with a rope and climbin’ around on steel anymore; I’m too old for that. Uh, like I did on the outside. But uh, I’d be very leary of it, because most of the GM trades – and it isn’t always that way in every plant – but, uh, like your Electricians, Plumbers, Pipefitters, if you were to go to work on the outside, you would be required a certain amount of training, a certain amount of time on the job, and working within GM to accomplish that is not good. Uh, you’re not recognized anywhere else as a journeyman in that group or in that trade. Um, if you’re an electrician here, you could be an electrician for 20 years, but they know on the outside that you may have spent most a that 20 years poundin’ caps on welding robots and they don’t want you. So if you really wanted to be a tradesman within GM or a tradesman period, ya know, I’d recommend you training somewhere else. ‘Cause GM only trains specifically for GM jobs. Cheryl McQuaid: Cheryl McQuaid. [54:18] Mike, is there anything you’d like to share with us that we’ve not asked? Mikel Lienhart: Such as, uh? Cheryl McQuaid: Anything at all that you’d like to be put in the history books. Mikel Lienhart: [sighing] I, I guess I’d like to see a lotta the, the history, ya know, th-, of the way this place came to be. Uh, a lot of us within this plant don’t even realize some a the things that went on in this plant, like the, uh, labor issues, like with [inaudible 55:04] when they had an explosion in the plants and th-, and we had guys die and it’s never been answered as to why or what happened. Uh, those kinda things. I think those are all history issues that, ya know, people would be interested in finding out. Um, I – there’s a lotta things that happened in GM plants that were very different in here that I think people should realize and it is their labor pool, I think GM led the way for all workers be on an equal footing, ‘cause even though I was an outside contractor and I was union, everybody knew if you were the boss’s son, you were gonna work and, uh, even if you weren’t as good, and in here, it, it – you learned a different way of doing things. Ya know, y-, you learned that you had the same rights as the next guy and, um, I ended up, uh, I think in my years in the trades on the outside I only worked with 3 women the entire time I was out there, and, uh, coming in here, that was a real education. It’s like, “Gee, I gotta be careful about the jokes that the guys tell [papers rustling] because, ya know, we’ve got other people here and other women and people would be offended by it.” Um, so that – I, I think that General Motors has done a lot in, uh, worker’s rights, in the way of establishing rules and ground rules. I think another thing that GM has done is, uh – especially since the ’80s, late ’70s and early ’80s, uh, they’ve s-, they’ve set the pay scale [sniffing] for the area. Um, a lotta guys say, “Oh geez, they make all that money and look what they do,” but they don’t stop to realize that if we weren’t makin’ that much, they wouldn’t be making that much. Michael Fleming: Absolutely right. Mikel Lienhart: Uh. Michael Fleming: Absolutely – Mike Fleming. We do set the prevailing wage... Mikel Lienhart: Yeah. Michael Fleming: ...in every area we’re in, and there’s always someone that has to set that prevailing wage. I think some folk get it and some folk don’t. Mikel Lienhart: Yeah. But I, I, I think that that’s been a big influence and I think [coughing] historically needs to be documents, because I don’t think people understand how much money is made outside a GM through GM in this town. I know how much money I made. Sorry to say I bought a brand new Ford in 1979 when I had a good year here, but GM paid for that Ford. Uh, ya know, I know that the scale would not have been that high for a local union out there had it not been for the fact that we had worked here in Lansing in the plants. Uh, a lotta the other locals were 3 and 4 dollars an hour lower than the, the Lansing local for a construction trade just because they didn’t have GM plants here. Um, a lotta those extra pays I talked about earlier, those premium pays, those were put in place because we knew we [tapping] could get it from GM. Um, you went to the other [background movement] areas in the state and you didn’t [papers rustling] get that. Doug Rademacher: Doug Rademacher. [papers rustling] [58:57] Mike, [papers rustling], you keep saying “we.” [papers rustling] Are you speaking of the union represented, represented bargained benefits? Mikel Lienhart: Yes. Doug Rademacher: Because... Mikel Lienhart: Mm-hm. Doug Rademacher: ...GM wasn’t handing things out... Mikel Lienhart: No. Doug Rademacher: ...[inaudible 59:09]. Mikel Lienhart: No. [laughter] I think that that’s, that’s where a lotta the holdover from the, uh, old fashioned adversarial relationship came from. I, I do see that is changing. I see that they, they realize [papers rustling] that, “Gee,” ya know, “we can’t beat’m so we better join’m and work together,” and, uh, I’ve seen that, but. See when I first got here, I didn’t see that and I [papers rustling] wanted no part of any union politics at that time because of that. Cheryl McQuaid: Doreen Howard. Doreen Howard: [59:42] Um, you touched base on a Ford that you had purchased early on before, um, when you were contract. Once you became a GM employee, did you purchase any of the vehicles that you ever were around that we made here... Mikel Lienhart: Ah... [sighing] Doreen Howard: ...in our facility or any other... Mikel Lienhart: Well... Doreen Howard: ...[inaudible 60:03]? Mikel Lienhart: ...3 days before I came to work here I purchased a brand new Ford truck, still had the sticker in the window. Um, that wasn’t really well-accepted. Uh, I remember the orange [inaudible 60:18] [coughing] paint down the side of it when I went out get it [inaudible 60:21] [coughing]. Somebody in the M-, the Maintenance Department had caught, picked up on it, didn’t like it either, and it hit it with one a the maintenance vehicles. Um, and they did, GM did pay to put a new door on it and a new mirror. [laughter] Um, but after that, I did buy GM cars. Um, it was kinda sad to say that when I bought that truck, uh, I had always purchased a full-sized truck, six-cylinder, and the only option I ever got on my vehicles were an automatic because I drove 30,000, 35,000 hour-, miles a year on those vehicles because I had to travel around and I wore them out pretty quick and needed to watch expenses, and, um, even though I knew I was going to work for GM and would be eligible for a discount, Ford beat GM by $1,000 for that same vehicle, so I bought the Ford. Um, since that time, the money’s gone the other way, and I have shopped for Fords a couple a times ‘cause I still buy a six-cylinder full-sized truck ‘cause I like to have a truck around the house, but they’ve always been GM since then because they have beaten the price. I’m not that loyal to the company. Um, I do like to buy UAW products, but, ya know, price is the biggest factor on that. Cheryl McQuaid: Doreen Howard. Doreen Howard: Um, I was wondering if there was any other questions that anybody wanted to ask of Mike before we wrap things up? Doug Rademacher: I’d just like to say it’s a pleasure interviewing you, Mike. Mikel Lienhart: Thank you. Doug Rademacher: Thank you for sharing your, your story with us. [clicking] Cheryl McQuaid: Thank you, Mike. Marilyn Coulter: Thank you, Mike. Michael Fleming: Thank you, Mike. [recorder clicking] /rt