In 1981-2, the Kartemquin filmmakers returned to the Taylor Chain plant to show labor and management working together ag | dG1fNlh6SDNMQU9pcjQ
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 After lunch, the company demands contract concessions,
00:03 including the removal of language that restricts their freedom
00:06 to hire part-time workers.
00:08 The union feels that these contract concessions
00:10 will not solve the company's problems and rejects most of them.
00:13 Half of this stuff here is bad management,
00:16 laziness on the company, stupidity.
00:18 I have to be being admired that your position is
00:20 that everything that's wrong with Taylor Chain
00:22 lays solely on the shoulders of management.
00:24 90% of the house.
00:25 That's fine.
00:26 And we can spend today, the next two weeks,
00:29 or the next six months arguing that particular point.
00:33 All right?
00:35 If you want to.
00:36 I think management looks at these negotiations
00:38 and they're thinking they may have made a mistake.
00:41 They shouldn't have asked those employees
00:43 for the 10% wage reduction in April
00:45 and just let the plant go.
00:47 And why in the heck extend that plant just for another six months?
00:50 It doesn't make any sense.
00:51 So maybe we did make a mistake.
00:53 Well, it's very possible that people made a mistake, too.
00:56 I'm sure there's a lot of people that's got laid off since then
00:59 and probably wish they had their vote again
01:01 because they got laid off anyway without any hopes of returning to work.
01:04 So it was immaterial whether the plant's shut down or you get laid off.
01:08 What difference does it make?
01:10 Okay, let me say something.
01:12 You've got item one over here where you want the word "part-time" removed, right?
01:17 Well, I would say about two months ago--
01:21 what is this, October?
01:23 He called us in his office, and he had a job to do.
01:27 He wanted to use our people for that job,
01:30 but he wanted them as part-time people
01:33 and didn't want to pay them our union scale, so we disagreed.
01:38 And this is what I'm getting from this.
01:40 First thing you know, you've got 40 people working part-time
01:43 and 20 people working 32 hours a week.
01:46 And these people are not paying any dues.
01:49 You won't keep them long enough to pay any dues, you're wrecking the union,
01:52 and there's not going to be a party to it.
01:54 God damn it, we just can't give and give and give.
01:57 Really, if we gave you that language, we don't even have a contract anymore.