We Hired You for Your Back Not Your Mind

When I started at the cement plant in Calera, Alabama back in October 13, 1976, I was introduced to making cement.  I remember my first day and all the wonders associated with manufacturing cement.  The first thing that my supervisor showed me was clinkers.  He reminded me that cement making is dangerous work.  He looked me in the eye and said, “Hopper, you were hired for your back and not your mind.  Work safe, you may walk into the plant and before the day is done we may have to tote you out!”

Clinkers are made by kiln burning raw materials of lime, iron ore, sand, and aluminum.  Years later I would be a kiln burner operator and watch as the blended ingredients would start a four-hundred fifty feet journey down the kiln.  I trained my eyes to watch the “burning zone” as the powder turned to liquid, then to a clinker as the liquid turn solid as it rolled down the kiln wall. 

Clinkers varied in size from dust particles to baseball size.  They could be gigantic if there was a disruption during the burning process.  The largest I witnessed was four feet in diameter.  It looked like a Volkswagen Beetle rolling toward me.  That’s a story for down the road.

One of my first jobs with the labor crew was helping to tear out bricks from a kiln.  Kiln bricks are 9 inches x 4.5 inches x 3 inches making a circle in a 12 feet diameter kiln hull.  That’s a lot of brick.  Back in the seventies management told us that replacing one row or course of brick cost $125,000 considering all the variables of down time, removal, replacement, and startup curing.

Brick removal is very dangerous.  First a “key” has to be cut in the bricks.  A 90 lbs. jackhammer is the principal tool to cut the key.  The jackhammer weighs more than 90 lbs.  It takes 90 per square inch of air to run it.  It is hard using it on a flat surface and more difficult to operate it in a 12-foot circle surface which 36 feet around the kiln.

Most of the time, about 3 feet high on each side of the key is as high as one could operate the jackhammer.  The rest of the row incorporated a sledgehammer that we effectually called “Percy” in honor of Percy Sledge the recording artist who was an Alabama native.

I had the privilege to operate both the 90 pounder and “Percy.”   One of my first claims to fame involved the sledgehammer.  I had the strength to sling the hammer.  I could tear out the brick but with one fatal flaw.  I would break the head off the handle.  That day I broke every sledgehammer in the plant which was no small number.  My co-workers replaced the handles until they had used everyone the storeroom had driving the cost a little higher.  It is like the man of God replacing the lost axe head in II Kings.

Another time Don, my co-worker, and I were charged by our supervisor, Hubbard, and the plant production manager, Killingworth, to cut a key in the burning zone of the cement kiln.  This area of the kiln reaches temperatures of 2200 degrees and uses a more expensive brick.  $125000 multiplied by 100 rows (75 feet) is $12,500,000 for a rough estimate in 1976.

Don and I asked how far they wanted the key cut.  They responded, “Don’t worry about that, just cut to we get back.”  So, we did as instructed.  I ran the jackhammer and Don tossed out the brick.  I cut three bricks, then four for seventy-five feet key.

Suddenly, Don and I smelled the aroma of a pipe in the draft of the kiln.  Hubbard, which we called” Pawpaw”, could not sneak up on us because of the pipe.  Killingworth, which we called “Killer”, not because of his name but due to an attempted suicide, entered the kiln.

It was a grand entrance.  Killer’s face turned blood red like unto a cartoon character and tossed his hardhat up the kiln in anger and cussing like a Corinthian sailor.  Pawpaw had some unlike Pawpaw words as well.  “Why in the &@!$#did you tear out so many bricks?”

 Our answer was classic.  “You told us not worry about it just tear them out to you got back.”  They denied it but Don that Pawpaw kind of favored said, Hubbard you did say tear them out to you got back.”

Don and I had worked hard without stopping while they were gone.  They were only going to replace 15 feet.  Killer and Pawpaw told everyone that the brick were rotten and that is why Don, and I removed them so quickly.  Killer and Pawpaw had to report to upper management, but everyone in Calera knew they were just covering their very costly blunder.

All they had to do was tell us what they wanted.  We just used our backs and did not think.  

 But as one was felling a beam, the axe head fell into the water: and he cried, and said, Alas, master! for it was borrowed.  II Kings 6:5 KJV

He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.  Proverbs 10:4 KJV

Counting the Cost

I remember the last day I worked for Blue Circle Cement Incorporated at Calera.  As I left the electrical department, Truman Hughes stopped me.  He asked, “How long do you think we will be out?”  He was referring to a strike planned for the next morning, August 3, 1994.

I responded with, “Truman I have worked my last day.” 

With eyes of disbelief, he said, “No, really how long do you think we will be out?”

Once again, I said, “Truman, if we go on strike the company is going to replace us.  I have worked my last day.”

Still not believing me, he said, “Do you really mean it?”

With my electrical tool pouch on my shoulder, I said, “Truman, if we are not back to work in two weeks it is over.  I, like some others, will never be back.  I have been in negotiations since February and the company is ready to replace us.  They have told me that if we strike, I will not have a job.  Look, I have all my personal tools with me.  I have a few in my locker, but I have most of my hand tools in this pouch.”

Negotiations had been tough.  Chicago lawyers have disdain for Alabama rednecks.  Sitting across from an educated know-it-all who twists every article of a contract is deplorable.  Sometimes times we had to remind the lawyers that just because we talked slow does not mean that we were stupid.

Negotiations were long and frustrating with trips to Atlanta, Birmingham, and Anniston.  Every time the negotiating committee returned to the plant, the men had hundreds of questions.  We tried to give them as much information as we could without doing any damage to the negotiations.  Hearsay among employees ran rampant throughout the plant.

The men wanted to strike immediately when the contract expired in May.  The negotiating committee tried to hold them together as long as we could without hitting the highway.  Many of the men thought that we were not trying hard enough in negotiations.  They would remind us what they would do if they were on the negotiation committee.  I offered to let them have my position.  I never had any takers.

The anxiety was building with each meeting.  Co-workers would heckle members of the negotiating committee.  I remember an incident one morning while buying a coke in the canteen.  Some of my friends, I use the term friend loosely, sounded like laying hens in the hen house.  They were clucking as a hen does when laying an egg.  I will let your imagination take you were they were going with that one.

Another time a co-worker cussed me from the time I got out of my truck, punched my time card, and entered the plant.  He told me that I was not a man, had no guts, and that I was probably on the take by the company.  As a footnote, when we went on strike, that same man was the first to cross the picket line.

The president of the union and good friend on the negotiating committee was worried sick about the situation.  I remember riding back from Atlanta with him.  I told him that the situation was bigger than we were.  We knew that men wanted to strike and that the company was prepared this time.  There had been two successful strikes previously.  One was a twenty-four-hour wildcat strike over a dismissed employee.  The other was a two-day strike resulting from three years of implementation, which involved pay cuts, holiday and vacation losses, and benefit reductions.  The employees of the plant were confident, but the company had the workers and the money to outlast them.

On another occasion, he and I were standing outside the bathhouse.  He said, “Hopper, what are we going to do.”  I reminded him that we would make it.   As we talked, Eddie, another employee, walked by us.  I said, “I worry for Eddie.  He cannot get another job making $40,000-$50,000.  He has no education and his age is a factor.”

Billy, an older machinist, walked past us.  I said, “Billy is too old to get another job.”  Then, there was Jerry.  I said, “Jerry is in the same boat as Eddie, but you and I are young enough and have enough education to start over.”

The men voted to strike.  True to their word, the company bussed in enough strike busters to run the plant.  The men were strong until they missed their first payday.  After a month of negotiations, the negotiating committee convinced the employees to return to work.  Of 157 employees on strike, only fifty returned.  Some of us, especially the negotiating committee, never did.  I learned that although the majority rules, it is not necessarily right.

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:  Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it (Matthew 7:13-14 KJV).