There have been two major plant-wide strikes at Schenectady GE, not counting the 1946 strike after World War II. The first occured in October 1966 when GE insisted in terminating the piece work system under which production workers were paid for the work they performed. Vouchers for each operation had a price established and the more operations the operator could perform the more money he or she would receive. All the support services, such as crane operators and followers, sweepers, tool crib attendants, etc., were "day work", paid with an hourly rate which depended on the skill level. This, of course, required a massive office force to determine the prices in minute detail and the printing of the voluminous quantity of vouchers. There were many disputes over the voucher amounts which required the attention of salaried professionals such as planners and rate-setters. GE decided to eliminate this cumbersome system for straight hourly rates which would result in radically lower wages for most "piece workers". For all its faults, the method resulted in high production since workers were "incentivized" to earn all they could make. Many developed ingenious devices to speed up the process and put the earnings into their pockets.
The bitter strike lasted for 12 weeks. I was assigned to picket the Subway Gate on Krusie Avenue. The so-called "subway" entrance to the GE plant actually went under the Delaware & Hudson main line tracks. Guards were posted on the GE side for security. The resulting settlement ended piece work at the locals where it existed with special compensation for the former incentive workers. My occupation, assembly floor, spring cage assembly, was rated at a daywork D-18 - the same as a radial drill press operator although we performed many operations from layout to assembly. I had grieved the rating through our Union to no avail. Mostly due to Bob's efforts, our wages (pay check) had gotten up to $4.00 and hour, not bad although not up to the machine operators pay. The settlement allowed a special adder for each former piece workers' based on their average wages. In my case it amounted to an additional 41 cents an hour regardless of the job I was on for the rest of my career. Although the Company expected less production on hourly pay (about 80% of incentive) management tried to keep output as high as possible. To this end they had a man from the planning department go through the bays with a note pad, later a tape recorder, recording the state of production at each work station at irregular intervals. Bob devised an air horn that he made from a pipe and attached to an air hose. When he spotted the "spy" he released a blast from the horn to alert the floor who was coming through. It was a lot of fun until General Foreman Ed Kuzia gave a warning and the shop floor returned to its basic roar of machinery.
As time went by Bob spent more and more time in Bldg. 50 on his special projects for LAC Engineering. They were curious about the process of lubricating our spring cage segments and decided to build a model to test different ideas to direct the oil flows in the vertical thrust bearings. Naturally Bob ended up with building the model spring cage and we constructed it in our area in Bldg. 60. I went with Bob over to an area on the second floor of Bldg. 69 in which the Works Lab had a test facility. Bob and I installed the model in a large transparent tank and got the chance to actually watch the experiment in operation.
In September 1969 we had a second nation-wide strike against GE. An apprentice, Bob Buehler, had recently been working with me on the spring cages as part of his course training. We were instructed to oil everything to prevent rust although we knew GE would try to maintain some production during our absence. The strike lasted into the Winter for 14 weeks. I was on picket duty every day, this time at the main gate. It was a long line that groups of office workers tried to break through despite police efforts to stop them (and GE's cutting down the fences around the buildings). We linked our arms and doggedly resisted all attempts successfully. At one time our IUE Local 301 was short of pickets at the Knolls Research facility so groups of us were assigned to go there in buses. We walked the picket line in front of the lower entrance on River Road, interfering with employees in their cars trying to gain entrance. Shortly thereafter the Company got an injunction and we were relegated to the sidelines watching the salaried employees enter the plant. Bob, employed part-time, worked at a local commercial radio company, Leonard Communications, on Crane Street. During the strike he worked more hours repairing automobile 2-way radios. He set up his home's garage to do the work and serviced all the Rotterdam Police patrol cars.
In a new contract settlement the Company agreed to set up a regular method of requesting upgrades and moves to other job openings. I filled out forms for a variety of jobs, mostly for an upgrade back to toolmaker. With over 20 years of seniority I had a good chance of gettting among the first of the upgrades. Meanwhile, the resident toolmaker of the Building 60 repair section was about to retire. He made replacement parts for machines that were no longer available and miscellaneous repairs. A very nice sinecure for which I immediately entered a request. I then found out management had already decided to upgrade a repair man to the post with no prior experience. In other words they really didn't want me competing for the job. Very coincidentally, of course, work at our station dwindled so much that I was sent to personnel (human relations now) for a transfer. They offered, and I was interviewed for, a toolmakers position in Building 17 - Medium Motors. The foreman, an apprentice graduate, was very friendly and, I am convinced, wanted me to take the job. However, Bldg. 17 was the punch press department with large presses on the ground floor shaking the entire building including the tool room on the 2nd floor balcony. When I saw the grinding machine wheel sparks sparkling in time with the presses I was really not impressed. Back to personnel. He was not pleased but offered me a machine operator's job in Blg. 93 - Foundry.
It was September 1972 when I joined a group of young men at Bldg. 93. We had all been hired before the operation was ready. In the building, men were breaking up the concrete floor where welders, chippers and burners had previously removed flaws and prepared castings from the Bldg. 95 foundry for machining. They were now reduced to the front half of the building. In a bee-hive of activity in our half, carpenters were making forms in the floor for machine foundations and concrete was being poured. Some of the Vertical Boring Mills (VBM's) were in operation but, since we had been hired to operate one of the three Horizontal Boring Mills (HBM's), we spent the day observing until shortly before quitting time foreman Guy ? roused us each day to clean up the alley outside the building (looking busy at shift change time). Eventually our machines were operational and I became the day operator of the 8" (spindle diameter) Skoda HBM. Now the fun began. We learned the set-ups for machining while our crane operators learned their hook-ups. The Skoda was on a horizontal track and, of course, the head went up and down with me on the platform. After being prepared by the burners, chippers and welders, our layout group layed out the castings and we rough-machined the faces and bores leaving material for finish machining in Building 273 (Large Steam Turbine) after heat-treating.
In our half of the building, facing toward building 95, the vertical boring mills were on both sides of the aisle. Then on the right hand side was the office partition for our supervisors and planners. Opposite the office was a concrete wall enclosed area where they had an X-ray facility to check the castings for flaws. We all wore radiation badges which were periodically collected to determine our radiation doses. The large castings had their own building next to Bldg. 273, our operation did the smaller valves and valve chests. Continuing on the right came the lay-out area with Ignacy (Iggy) Kubina and George Hollenbeck. Opposite the lay-out area were the three Horizontal Boring Mills. First came a German machine operated by Hugo Kalvaitis who was of Lithuanian background (and spoke German). In the middle was my Skoda (Czechoslovakian) HBM and lastly, an American Giddings & Lewis (G&L). After that, of course, started the upgrade floor with their burning and welding. Our machines had three shifts assigned. My second shift operator was Francis "Frank" Dreszek, a jolly young fellow who lived in a short street off Eastern Avenue ending at the Vale Cemetery. One Winter day he and his neighbors, frustrated by the city's non-plowing of their street, decided to shovel the street out by hand. After this was accomplished, others, seeing the clean street, moved and parked their cars. After Frank and the men promised violence to the new arrivals they managed to park their own cars in the hard-won parking spots. Ah, the pleasure of living in a well-organized city!
Going home from work on I-890 I went around Hugo's car stalled in the deceleration ramp leading up to California Avenue and Michigan Avenue. I pulled my car up on the shoulder and walked back to Hugo. He had run out of gas and asked me to take him to a gasoline station. I did and he got a can from the station and bought a few gallons of fuel. Now we had to get on the same Eastward lane of I-890 so I had to drive down to the Broadway ramp, which took some time with the distance and traffic lights. By the time we returned to Hugo's car a Freihofer truck had run into it on the ramp. I left Hugo to the police procedure and continued home. The case came to trial and I was called as a witness to testify. The case turned on the fact that he had not turned his four-way flashers (and I had not thought of it). Hugo's insurance company made a settlement even though we thought the Freihofer driver had been careless (he claimed a car in front of him blocked his vision.
After some time on the Skoda I was asked, because of my Apprentice and Bldg. 60 experience, to join Iggy Kubina and George Hollenbeck laying out the castings for machining. We had a couple of iron tables on which we layed out the angles and faces and then carried the dimensions up to the leveled and centered castings. Then, of course, we prick-punched the lines for the operators for set-up and machining. Our crane operator and follower would set up the stop valve, control valve or valve chest on screw jacks on the table. Then, invariably, George (or sometimes Iggy) would use a large pry bar and steel block and jockey the casting into place on the table layout. It was an enjoyable operation and I appreciated the comraderie with George and Iggy. Now Iggy was an eccentric character - a good worker but inclined to paranoia (he decorated his house on Hamburg Street with anti-Nazi slogans and rode a bicycle with an American flag gaily waving from the rear wheel). He was convinced Manager Kruszona was spying on us; George cheerfully aided and abetted his delusions.
Iggy was quite involved in camping and had a "pop-up" trailer which Dad had talked about many years ago. He liked the idea of the compact folding trailer whose top was cranked up into position when on the camp site. His idea concerned replacing the crank with air cylinders which would be supplied with compressed air from the automobile's spare tire. He was after George to help him with the patent application. George side-stepped the proposition so Iggy turned to me. I went to his house and tried to help him with the drawings and description. We then went to a patent attorney in Scotia for an interview. Iggy paid a fee and I think nothing came of the effort, except for constant complaints of the attorney wanting money and no results. In the mean time, I had several requests in for upgrades to better layout jobs or, of course, a return to the toolmaking which I had trained for. After an enjoyable tour on layout with George and Iggy I went to personnel on their request concerning an offer of a layout job in Steam Turbine.
| Memoir 1:1932-1947 Birth to Draper HS | Memoir 2:1947-1957 Apprentice to Bldg.46 | Memoir 3:1957-1966 LSTG to LAC |
|---|---|---|
| Memoir 4:1966-1972 LAC to Foundry | Memoir 5:1975-1977 Layout to Toolroom | Memoir 6:1977-1990 Bldg.285 Toolroom |
Original: June 18, 2008.