Vox Populi:

In the summer of 1960, after my freshman year in college, I got a summer job at Continental Can Company, Plant #5, in Chicago. It was an aging, half-block-sized brick building near Cicero, former residence of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone. The plant was a “closed shop,” which meant, much to my corporation vice-president father’s displeasure, I had to join a union, in this case the United Steelworkers. This was my first union membership, and I was happy to belong. Going in on my first day, I noticed a new Chevy Impala in the Cyclone-fenced parking lot had been stripped of its tires, wheels, transmission, and probably more. The thieves had left it propped up on cinder blocks. I was soon to discover my new workplace was also in sorry shape.

      I was assigned to the first shift, which ran from 8 a.m. to 5. The foreman led me into a cavernous room that took up most of the ground floor, where three huge machines unspooled 16-ton rolls of tin plate into sheets to be turned into cans. The machines resembled aircraft carriers, with ladders to the control towers. He took me over to an end of the one he said I was to operate. The noise was almost painful. When I climbed up, I saw an array of dials, buttons, and switches—and tin plate moving rapidly along a conveyer belt. A short, swarthy guy, maybe in his 50s, was there to break me in. His work shirt read “Hubert.” I noticed a reddish scar running from under the side of his Local 47 cap to beneath his shirt collar. Captain Ahab came to mind. He told me he was just back from three months in the hospital. As he was running through what all the controls were for, I asked about the bright red button, which was big as a Caddy hubcap.

Go to link