“Living and
Dying on the Factory Floor – From the Outside In and the Inside Out,” by David Ranney, 2019
This is a
wonderful political memoir about Ranney’s 7 years working in south Chicago factories in the
late 1970s and early 1980s. As a
university professor he decided to quit academe and get jobs at factories
instead, inspired by his political understanding and sequential membership in 4 left
organizations - the New American Movement, Sojourner Truth Organization,
Midwest Action League and News & Letters.
He had no mechanical tools or experience, was not a burly fellow and had
never done this kind of labor before.
But this was the time of the hard left’s turn to the factories, when
every organization either sent or encouraged their members to get hired
on.
Chicago’s workplaces were somewhat
segregated, with whole plants or job categories reserved for certain skin tones
or genders. Sort of like an American caste system.
The worst jobs went to African-Americans, Latinos or women. Ranney got himself hired as a machine maintenance
person and later after training, a welder – jobs that still could be toxic, hot,
dangerous and exhausting. He worked at 7
factories, getting fired from 4 for activism and once by not passing
probation. He participated in one strike
at a shortening plant led by dark-skinned workers. The picture on the front of
the book was taken during the strike. Unions were in many of the
plants and while working at Solo Cup (that Solo Cup) he participated in a failed union
drive.
The book
shows hostility between white, black and Latino workers that only broke
down as they struggled against the bosses, their common enemy. Management was
almost uniformly greedy, crude and vindictive.
Crooked or weak unions collaborated with the companies, while pro-labor lawyers made unsuccessful
legal maneuvers. The book hints at environmental and
health damage to workers and consumers from some of the factories. Ranney worked at one plant with born-again
Christians, finding out they were all pro-company.
On a
personal level, Ranney made sure to combat white bigots on the job. He worked closely with various coworkers when
they stood up to the companies. Many of
the African-American and Latino workers had little education but understood the
class and color caste system quite well and were the most militant. Ranney had ties to the south-side Workers Rights Center
and the lawyers there, so was able to help with leaflets, meeting space and
legal aid. He was injured once by
boiling steam and jailed once during that strike. He has fond memories for those he worked with
and who stood against the firms.
Ranney last job was on 3rd shift. This brutal sleepless schedule made him decide to go back to academe. I suspect the ‘dying’ in the title really relates to the damage sustained through the work itself.
 |
| Closed factory in Chicago |
I myself
worked about 13 years in northwest Chicago
factories starting just before 1980 while being a supporter or member of 3 socialist
organizations, so this book is familiar.
For all the socialist cadre who went into plants, this memoir will
strike an emotional chord. For those who
never did, it provides a window into the factory working class you won’t get on
TV. Only one plant that Ranney worked in
making railroad cars still exists. The
rest of the work was sent overseas or to the U.S. south, was automated, downsized or went
extinct. For the relocated factories in the global South, these Chicago conditions are now replicated on a new
workforce, but still under the brutal rule of the same logic, capital.
Other
reviews on this subject below. Use blog search
box, upper left: “Factory Days” (Gibbs); “Night Shift” (Kolm); “Night Shift – 270
Factory Stories” (Macaray); “The Unseen” (Belestrini): “Red Baker” (Ward);
“Facing Reality” (CLR James - Lee) “Mistaken Identity” (Haider); “Revolution in
the Air,” (Elbaum). Also the non-reviewed but hilarious book "Rivethead" (Hamper).
And I
bought it at May Day Books!
Red Frog
July 3,
2019
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