It's been more than six months since I've posted an entry here. The main reason is that I had nothing new to report. It was all "same old, same old" at work and I didn't want to harp on the same crap over and over again.
For five months I worked next door in the "junkyard" under my old/ex- friend Dean, who as I mentioned in my last post had just moved out of his house, with his wife initiating divorce proceedings. We have several echelons of supervisors in the yard. The lowest, a Step 3, is in the union bargaining unit, and thus has union protection/representation, such as it is. In theory (if I can even use such a word in the context of the place where I work) a step 3 is not in charge of a job--that is to say an entire ship. But Dean was a Step 3 for many years, and for the last several had been acting as a Step 2, running many jobs for our department, including those we worked next door at the junkyard, where our company wasn't the prime contractor. Even though the higher-ups tried to persuade Dean to accept promotion to Step 2, he declined for a long time, mostly to keep the union representation and union pension plan. Then, a few months ago, he finally relented. He couldn't have foreseen that this would be a fatal error.
A few weeks ago we learned that Dean had been arrested and jailed, charged with sexually molesting his adolescent step-daughter. Now I have no way of knowing whether there was any truth to the charges. But what made the whole thing suspicious was that, as I mentioned in my last entry--last June--Dean had then just separated from his wife, so presumably since then hadn't been in a position to molest his step-daughter. I suspected that some of this must have been connected with his increasingly messy divorce.
In any event, Dean spent eight days in jail, and when he tried to come back to work they told him he was fired. (They could do this at will since he was no longer a member of the bargaining unit.) Dean had been with the company for over 30 years, having begun as an apprentice. Well, he made a number of phone calls to old friends, as he told me later, "begging" them for his job back. They were able to get him rehired--but only as a "new hire"--a shipfitter with no seniority, and thus subject to layoff whenever the work gets slack. In addition, he went from having four weeks annual vacation to only one as a new hire. Furthermore, the HR director told him that if he spends any more time in jail he'll be out for good.
After this I ran into him in the shop and talked to him for a few minutes. He told me his wife offered to drop the molestation charges if he'd agree to sign the house over to her. I can't be certain that there's nothing to the charges, but even if there is, why did she wait so long to make them if it wasn't simply to use it against him in the divorce proceedings. Property-wise, I'm told, everything belongs to Dean, not his wife, including the house, which he already owned when he married her. (He always provided for the family on his own, he says, as she never worked.) Anyhow, if Dean had stayed in the bargaining unit instead of accepting the Step 2 position they could have busted him back to shipfitter, but not taken away his seniority and vacation.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Hot and Hotter
I'm still working at the yard next door -- the "junkyard." It doesn't get any better, only worse, now with Summer weather upon us. Temperatures often in the 90s. For about a couple of weeks I was working in the engine rooms, where it's very hot even on cooler days, because the ship while in drydock, without the AC functioning, is a big steel oven. The only relief is the ventilation blower we carry around with us. It's about the size of a small beer keg laid on it's side. These are very powerful -- they make a lot of wind, but the blow all the dirt and grit around, too. We lock it up at the end of our shift with a chain and padlock, but sometimes people cut these and take the blowers anyway (which happened to us last weekend).
Other than that, it's pretty much S.O.S., same old shit. I've been bounced around on about six different jobs, without having finished any of them. Well, the other day we (who the "we" is at this moment, I'll get to in a bit) did finish one, four foundations for lube oil pump controller boxes, but today Tim Babbitt, my current supervisor, told Denny Dennison, my partner, we had to take part of it down again, so the cry baby welders could weld part of the back side before we put it up again. I told Denny I wasn't going to do it. "Fuck the welders," was how I expressed it.
Okay, about Denny, who as a matter of fact they sent to another job down river today, so we're no longer working together. He's an odd one, but then everybody in the shipyard is odd, it seems. Denny is 45 years old, was born and raised 5 minutes from the shipyard, and talks like a redneck. He's big -- 6'1" and 260 pounds, with curly dyed black hair and a cherubic face with a smudge of mustache. He's a good fitter when he decides to get off his butt and get moving, which normally takes a while. He plays golf -- usually with his older brother -- and plays the stock market. Because he lives so close, he went home every day for lunch, and when he came back he'd report to me on how the market was doing that day. He told me he's in a garage band (that stays in the garage), plays guitar I think and also sings falsetto! When he first said this I thought he was joking, but apparently not. In addition, he says he's got every song Frank Sinatra ever recorded as well as the Billboard top 100 songs for every year since 1944. It also came out that he likes The Village People. He's not married, evidently never has been, and doesn't seem to have a girlfriend -- or boyfriend.
I've already mentioned Dean, who's in charge of the shipfitters on this job. Many years ago we were friends, but have drifted apart. So I was very surprised a couple of weeks ago when he stopped me to ask about my daughters, the second of whom had just graduated college. He told me he still had a photo of my first daughter when she was two. I don't remember how he turned the subject to himself, but he said his father had died a year or two ago and now he was all alone except for his brother. I said, "But you're married, you have a family." He said his wife wanted a divorce. I asked if it was because he was married to his job, working all the time. No, he said, he had "fucked up." "You mean you were messing around with somebody else?" "No, not really," he said. "That doesn't exactly sound like a categorical denial," I said, but he wouldn't elucidate any further. Thinking about it, and knowing Dean, I'm betting she caught him with pornography on the internet. A few days later I asked him if she was really getting a divorce. "Yes," he said. "Does she have a lawyer?" "Yes," he replied, and added that he was now living in a motel.
Other than that, it's pretty much S.O.S., same old shit. I've been bounced around on about six different jobs, without having finished any of them. Well, the other day we (who the "we" is at this moment, I'll get to in a bit) did finish one, four foundations for lube oil pump controller boxes, but today Tim Babbitt, my current supervisor, told Denny Dennison, my partner, we had to take part of it down again, so the cry baby welders could weld part of the back side before we put it up again. I told Denny I wasn't going to do it. "Fuck the welders," was how I expressed it.
Okay, about Denny, who as a matter of fact they sent to another job down river today, so we're no longer working together. He's an odd one, but then everybody in the shipyard is odd, it seems. Denny is 45 years old, was born and raised 5 minutes from the shipyard, and talks like a redneck. He's big -- 6'1" and 260 pounds, with curly dyed black hair and a cherubic face with a smudge of mustache. He's a good fitter when he decides to get off his butt and get moving, which normally takes a while. He plays golf -- usually with his older brother -- and plays the stock market. Because he lives so close, he went home every day for lunch, and when he came back he'd report to me on how the market was doing that day. He told me he's in a garage band (that stays in the garage), plays guitar I think and also sings falsetto! When he first said this I thought he was joking, but apparently not. In addition, he says he's got every song Frank Sinatra ever recorded as well as the Billboard top 100 songs for every year since 1944. It also came out that he likes The Village People. He's not married, evidently never has been, and doesn't seem to have a girlfriend -- or boyfriend.
I've already mentioned Dean, who's in charge of the shipfitters on this job. Many years ago we were friends, but have drifted apart. So I was very surprised a couple of weeks ago when he stopped me to ask about my daughters, the second of whom had just graduated college. He told me he still had a photo of my first daughter when she was two. I don't remember how he turned the subject to himself, but he said his father had died a year or two ago and now he was all alone except for his brother. I said, "But you're married, you have a family." He said his wife wanted a divorce. I asked if it was because he was married to his job, working all the time. No, he said, he had "fucked up." "You mean you were messing around with somebody else?" "No, not really," he said. "That doesn't exactly sound like a categorical denial," I said, but he wouldn't elucidate any further. Thinking about it, and knowing Dean, I'm betting she caught him with pornography on the internet. A few days later I asked him if she was really getting a divorce. "Yes," he said. "Does she have a lawyer?" "Yes," he replied, and added that he was now living in a motel.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Deja Vu
For three weeks I worked outside the yard, at the Navy Base. When the work there petered out they sent me back to the yard. But they didn't keep me there. They gave me what one of my co-workers called the "double whammy." They brought me back to the yard from the Navy Base bad)and sent me to a job at the yard next door to us (worse).
That yard is supposed to be our competitor and they used to be our competitor. We do submit competing bids, but then the Navy will award one package of ships to them and another package to us. We end up with something like 40 percent of the work on the bids they win, while they get a similar quantity of work on the bids we get. So at any given time there are a shitload of their people working at our yard and visa-versa. They call it a "teaming agreement." Go figure.
Anyhow, everybody hates to work at that yard because compared to ours it's a junk yard. The pits. A shithole. Plus, we have to park at our yard and take a shuttle bus back and forth. That adds about 10 minutes to the commute going home. They have a couple of piers - - actually they're not even piers, they're old barges moored together and anchored in the river. Also a pretty big floating drydock and a bunch of tower cranes. But their main building is a huge old brick structure that looks like a gigantic sweat shop left over from the early days of the industrial revolution. And for the rest it's a hodge-podge of shipping containers, quonset huts, prefabs, and piles of junk that look like the whole thing washed up on shore from some tsunami. But you get used to anything over time. And the atmosphere is pretty slack there, so long as you watch out for their safety inspectors, who're a bunch of assholes.
So, I'm back working for Dean. If you've been taking notes, you might recall that Dean kicked me off the job he was working at this same yard last November because I wouldn't kow-tow to his gofer/lapdog Myron, who had just graduated from the apprenticeship program and been promoted to supervisor, and who threw a tantrum over it. So I was pretty surprised when they sent me back over there to work for Dean. But when I got there Dean acted as if nothing had ever happened. I did overhear part of a phone conversation between him and Myron, however, which I think was about me, with Dean telling the excited Myron that he wouldn't have to deal with me, or something like that.
Anyway, to give what credit is due, although Dean kicked me out before, he apparently didn't rat me out to the higher ups, because I never heard any more about it. So now things are back to the same old same old. They're bouncing me around from job to job. Last week I was installing some foundations to mount new controller boxes in the engine rooms when the ship cut off hot work there because they were draining fuel or something. So they put me on another job for a few days. Monday they told me hot work had been cut back on, but they didn't want me to go back to that job, they wanted me to do something else. Never said anything about rounding up and securing the parts for the engine room job. So later on, when I or someone else goes back to that job the stuff will be missing. And it turns out the job they put me on is the same one that caused me to get kicked off the job on the other ship. I've been thinking of asking Dean what I've got to do to get kicked off this job.
We had another heart attack victim last week. A 62-year-old Filipino rigger on night shift had a heart attack while working last Friday night. They called the rescue squad who tried CPR but they could not revive him. Yesterday somebody posted an obit in the time clock shack. It said he was survived by, among others, his mother and his fiancee.
That yard is supposed to be our competitor and they used to be our competitor. We do submit competing bids, but then the Navy will award one package of ships to them and another package to us. We end up with something like 40 percent of the work on the bids they win, while they get a similar quantity of work on the bids we get. So at any given time there are a shitload of their people working at our yard and visa-versa. They call it a "teaming agreement." Go figure.
Anyhow, everybody hates to work at that yard because compared to ours it's a junk yard. The pits. A shithole. Plus, we have to park at our yard and take a shuttle bus back and forth. That adds about 10 minutes to the commute going home. They have a couple of piers - - actually they're not even piers, they're old barges moored together and anchored in the river. Also a pretty big floating drydock and a bunch of tower cranes. But their main building is a huge old brick structure that looks like a gigantic sweat shop left over from the early days of the industrial revolution. And for the rest it's a hodge-podge of shipping containers, quonset huts, prefabs, and piles of junk that look like the whole thing washed up on shore from some tsunami. But you get used to anything over time. And the atmosphere is pretty slack there, so long as you watch out for their safety inspectors, who're a bunch of assholes.
So, I'm back working for Dean. If you've been taking notes, you might recall that Dean kicked me off the job he was working at this same yard last November because I wouldn't kow-tow to his gofer/lapdog Myron, who had just graduated from the apprenticeship program and been promoted to supervisor, and who threw a tantrum over it. So I was pretty surprised when they sent me back over there to work for Dean. But when I got there Dean acted as if nothing had ever happened. I did overhear part of a phone conversation between him and Myron, however, which I think was about me, with Dean telling the excited Myron that he wouldn't have to deal with me, or something like that.
Anyway, to give what credit is due, although Dean kicked me out before, he apparently didn't rat me out to the higher ups, because I never heard any more about it. So now things are back to the same old same old. They're bouncing me around from job to job. Last week I was installing some foundations to mount new controller boxes in the engine rooms when the ship cut off hot work there because they were draining fuel or something. So they put me on another job for a few days. Monday they told me hot work had been cut back on, but they didn't want me to go back to that job, they wanted me to do something else. Never said anything about rounding up and securing the parts for the engine room job. So later on, when I or someone else goes back to that job the stuff will be missing. And it turns out the job they put me on is the same one that caused me to get kicked off the job on the other ship. I've been thinking of asking Dean what I've got to do to get kicked off this job.
We had another heart attack victim last week. A 62-year-old Filipino rigger on night shift had a heart attack while working last Friday night. They called the rescue squad who tried CPR but they could not revive him. Yesterday somebody posted an obit in the time clock shack. It said he was survived by, among others, his mother and his fiancee.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Snipers . . . and Wannabes
This afternoon we ran out of work so Mack, my supervisor, sent me to another ship on another pier to deliver a required Hotwork Notice form for that ship's Fire Marshall to sign. On the way back to my car a sticker on the back window of a pickup truck that was parked on the pier caught my attention. "Sniper," it said. "No need to run, you'll only die tired." Well the truck was parked next to a DDG, a ship of the same class as the Bainbridge, the ship involved in the rescue two days ago of the merchant marine captain taken hostage by the Somali pirates. That crisis was resolved, as we know, after Navy SEAL snipers killed three of the pirates.
So I wondered if the truck with it's bloodthirsty message might belong to a Navy SEAL sniper assigned to this particular ship. I walked around it looking for clues, and quickly noticed, not any identifying Navy markings, but a parking lot tag and door placard identifying it as belonging to some guy who worked at one of our competitor shipyards. He also had stickers that said "POW-MIA," "NOBAMA, 2008," and "Who's our president - - the answer's a no brainer." This guy wasn't a sniper, he was just some right-wing wannabe. I didn't wait for the owner of the truck to appear, but it wouldn't surprise me if he was some guy in his 50s, overweight, a heavy smoker, with diabetes and a heart condition. Of course, the description would fit a large number of shipyard workers.
That's not to say that I'd put it past a real Navy SEAL sniper to put a sticker like that on his truck. I'm sure there are some who would. I mean, in this voluntary military service there are probably quite a few who get into something like the SEALS and into sniper school because they want a chance to kill somebody legally. Which reminds me of an apprentice we have in our shop, who they say was discharged from the Army for being mentally unstable. I've had a little contact with him, working in his vicinity, and he hasn't done anything crazy. In fact, he seemed quiet and mild mannered. Of course, those are the ones who always turn out to be the killers.
Today I passed an Army recruiting station. Only it didn't say Army Recruiting Station. It said Army Career Center. Yeah. If your want to make a career out of chasing Taliban around the mountains of Afghanistan. I suppose if your career goal is to be sniper and shoot Somali pirates there's a Navy Career Center somewhere. And if you flunk out of both you can always get yourself a macho bumper sticker and stick it on your truck.
So I wondered if the truck with it's bloodthirsty message might belong to a Navy SEAL sniper assigned to this particular ship. I walked around it looking for clues, and quickly noticed, not any identifying Navy markings, but a parking lot tag and door placard identifying it as belonging to some guy who worked at one of our competitor shipyards. He also had stickers that said "POW-MIA," "NOBAMA, 2008," and "Who's our president - - the answer's a no brainer." This guy wasn't a sniper, he was just some right-wing wannabe. I didn't wait for the owner of the truck to appear, but it wouldn't surprise me if he was some guy in his 50s, overweight, a heavy smoker, with diabetes and a heart condition. Of course, the description would fit a large number of shipyard workers.
That's not to say that I'd put it past a real Navy SEAL sniper to put a sticker like that on his truck. I'm sure there are some who would. I mean, in this voluntary military service there are probably quite a few who get into something like the SEALS and into sniper school because they want a chance to kill somebody legally. Which reminds me of an apprentice we have in our shop, who they say was discharged from the Army for being mentally unstable. I've had a little contact with him, working in his vicinity, and he hasn't done anything crazy. In fact, he seemed quiet and mild mannered. Of course, those are the ones who always turn out to be the killers.
Today I passed an Army recruiting station. Only it didn't say Army Recruiting Station. It said Army Career Center. Yeah. If your want to make a career out of chasing Taliban around the mountains of Afghanistan. I suppose if your career goal is to be sniper and shoot Somali pirates there's a Navy Career Center somewhere. And if you flunk out of both you can always get yourself a macho bumper sticker and stick it on your truck.
Monday, April 13, 2009
It Must Be Finished When I Say It Must Be Finished!
At the start of the shift on Monday, March 30, Ronnie Wilson picked me out of the shape up meeting and told me I was going to another job - - a job outside the yard at a nearby Naval base.
That morning, before work, as some of us were sitting around the lunch table in the fabrication shop, Kenny the burner said they were sending him to that same ship, and I said, because Kenny always kids around about not wanting to work with me, "Well, I'm going down there with you." I meant it as a joke, but Kenny didn't know that. So you can imagine my surprise when Ronnie gave me the news.
Well, not real surprise, because I seem to have an uncanny knack for making a joke about something and then having it come true. I wasn't sorry to be sent on a job outside the yard. For one thing, the Naval base is closer to where I live so it means less commute time. And the atmosphere is always freer outside the yard - - not so many big shots and would-be big shots walking around. Not so many rules.
The thing that kills me, though, is that they sent me off without even asking for any turnover on my job - - that is to say, without my briefing my replacement on where things stood. The diagonal aluminum bulkhead. The job wasn't finished, and who knows who they might have given it to. I took it upon myself to pass on to Vince where I'd hidden two parts they'll need (so they wouldn't grow legs and walk away), but there's no telling if he'll remember, or even if he does, whether he'll tell whoever takes over the job. More wasted time while whoever it is figures things out.
Anyhow, now I'm down at the Naval base on a 'hot' job. Kenny and I are installing two new watertight doors. The supervisor there is Mack, an old fitter who they made a supervisor a couple of years ago. Last year he had a heart attack and had to have multiple by-pass surgery. He's supposed to take it easy, so he usually spends his time hanging out in his truck in the parking lot. He calls his people on their cell phones. Only neither Kenny nor I have cell phones - - I think we're the last two holdouts on Earth. Well, they've been worrying him to death about these doors, and he's been making us nervous, coming up and hanging around on our job. We thought he was going to have another heart attack right there on the spot. What the big rush was, I don't know, because the ship isn't going out to sea, in fact, it's getting ready to come into our yard to be drydocked. He kept telling us, "We've got to be done here by Friday." That was last Friday. And he meant the doors had to be welded out, too. And what's more, somebody's started counting beans, so they wouldn't let us work overtime on this job.
Here's the way it works: some bozo in some office comes up with a date he wants a job finished, regardless of the realities of the situation. Then they tell you it has to be done by that date. Well, of course we work by the hour and we know the realities, so our attitude is, it'll get done when it gets done. (At least some of us see it that way. There are always some assholes, or newcomers, who are either scared or trying to suck up, who get themselves bent out of shape by these dictums.) But that's not the way the supervisors react. They're yes men, remember? They wouldn't dare try to explain why a job can't get done when the big shots say it must be done, or they wouldn't be supervisors for long. So what happened is that the bozo who came up with this completion schedule forgot that the ship had to de-fuel before coming into the ship yard, and when they are transferring fuel the Navy won't allow you to do any hotwork - - burning/plasma cutting, grinding, or welding. They've had hotwork cut off now for three days. We finally managed to finish fitting up the doors today, but they haven't even started welding them yet, and this afternoon Mack told me that now they won't do it until the ship comes into the yard, which means finished a week late - - three weeks instead of two - - if they're lucky.
That morning, before work, as some of us were sitting around the lunch table in the fabrication shop, Kenny the burner said they were sending him to that same ship, and I said, because Kenny always kids around about not wanting to work with me, "Well, I'm going down there with you." I meant it as a joke, but Kenny didn't know that. So you can imagine my surprise when Ronnie gave me the news.
Well, not real surprise, because I seem to have an uncanny knack for making a joke about something and then having it come true. I wasn't sorry to be sent on a job outside the yard. For one thing, the Naval base is closer to where I live so it means less commute time. And the atmosphere is always freer outside the yard - - not so many big shots and would-be big shots walking around. Not so many rules.
The thing that kills me, though, is that they sent me off without even asking for any turnover on my job - - that is to say, without my briefing my replacement on where things stood. The diagonal aluminum bulkhead. The job wasn't finished, and who knows who they might have given it to. I took it upon myself to pass on to Vince where I'd hidden two parts they'll need (so they wouldn't grow legs and walk away), but there's no telling if he'll remember, or even if he does, whether he'll tell whoever takes over the job. More wasted time while whoever it is figures things out.
Anyhow, now I'm down at the Naval base on a 'hot' job. Kenny and I are installing two new watertight doors. The supervisor there is Mack, an old fitter who they made a supervisor a couple of years ago. Last year he had a heart attack and had to have multiple by-pass surgery. He's supposed to take it easy, so he usually spends his time hanging out in his truck in the parking lot. He calls his people on their cell phones. Only neither Kenny nor I have cell phones - - I think we're the last two holdouts on Earth. Well, they've been worrying him to death about these doors, and he's been making us nervous, coming up and hanging around on our job. We thought he was going to have another heart attack right there on the spot. What the big rush was, I don't know, because the ship isn't going out to sea, in fact, it's getting ready to come into our yard to be drydocked. He kept telling us, "We've got to be done here by Friday." That was last Friday. And he meant the doors had to be welded out, too. And what's more, somebody's started counting beans, so they wouldn't let us work overtime on this job.
Here's the way it works: some bozo in some office comes up with a date he wants a job finished, regardless of the realities of the situation. Then they tell you it has to be done by that date. Well, of course we work by the hour and we know the realities, so our attitude is, it'll get done when it gets done. (At least some of us see it that way. There are always some assholes, or newcomers, who are either scared or trying to suck up, who get themselves bent out of shape by these dictums.) But that's not the way the supervisors react. They're yes men, remember? They wouldn't dare try to explain why a job can't get done when the big shots say it must be done, or they wouldn't be supervisors for long. So what happened is that the bozo who came up with this completion schedule forgot that the ship had to de-fuel before coming into the ship yard, and when they are transferring fuel the Navy won't allow you to do any hotwork - - burning/plasma cutting, grinding, or welding. They've had hotwork cut off now for three days. We finally managed to finish fitting up the doors today, but they haven't even started welding them yet, and this afternoon Mack told me that now they won't do it until the ship comes into the yard, which means finished a week late - - three weeks instead of two - - if they're lucky.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Sausagegate
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Petty corruption is common in the shipyard. I'm not talking about bribes, kickbacks, or that sort of thing. I mean corruption that takes the form of people engaging in business enterprises, legal or illegal, while on the company payroll, which means on the taxpayers dime, since almost all the work we do is Federal contracts.
People run gambling pools for football or basketball. There is, or I strongly suspect there is, prostitution. I've heard of instances of people being caught and fired for having sex while working (or supposed to be working) aboard ships. That's easy to do on night shift when there are few people around and practically no supervision. Knowing the people in the shipyard as I do, I'd strongly suspect that in a case like that a commercial transaction was involved. I also heard of a worker, or two workers sharing, who paid a firewatch $100 a week for sex on a regular basis. In that case I doubt that any sex took place on the job, but the transaction was certainly set up there. Anyhow, it gives an indication, tip of the iceberg so to speak.
I once had a firewatch working for me over a period of time, a black woman about 35. Her mother was career army, and she had lived all around the worlk. She she was unusually well-educated and well-spoken for a firewatch. We talked a lot, which upset another firewatch, a lesbian who had a crush on this woman. My firewatch didn't have a car, and since she lived along my route home, I offered her a ride. On the way, she asked if we could stop at a 7-Eleven and asked me for a couple of bucks to pay for whatever it was she wanted. I gave her rides a couple more times, but stopped when I saw that the mooching was becoming a regular habit. Some weeks later I learned that she'd been arrested for prostitution and her lesbian friend had been bailed her out. I never heard anybody accuse that woman of hustling on the job, but I mention her story because I'm sure there are others like her among the firewatches, the lowest echelon of female shipyard workers, who rely on casual or part time prostitution to supplement their otherwise erratic income.
Another form of corruption in the shipyard involves union officials. When I first came to work at the place where I work now, 30 years ago (I left after 5 years, then returned many years later), the union president was a welder. The company gave him an especially easy job. He never had to go out on a ship, but stayed in the welding shop all day and did little gravy jobs from time to time. He had a refrigerator there, and sold sodas and snacks. He had his gravy job and ran his little side-line business with the full knowledge of the company. You think he accepted those favors from the company and didn't give them anything back?
The current vice-president of the union is also a supervisor, in name at least, which to me is a conflict of interest in itself. He has the rank and pay of a supervisor, But the real reason he has it is that he's a so-called 'apprentice instructor.' In reality he does little or no instructing of the apprentices. All he does is monitor their attendance, disciplinary problems they may have, and the notebooks in which they are supposed to record what they have done on the job. But he is in a position of power over them. The union pays a bounty of $20 or $30 per head for each new union member that someone signs up (we're in a 'right-to-work' state). So this guy uses his authority over the apprentices to get them to join the union, then collects the bounty on them. It probably doesn't amount to much money over the course of a year, a few hundred bucks at most. But he also uses his position to get overtime work whenever he wants it, although he does almost nothing when he does comes in on overtime apart from walking around and acting like a big-shot. Using their position to arrange overtime for themselves is something many of the supervisors do, by the way.
But here's the case I wanted to talk about. My job was shut down temporarily so we could concentrate on jobs that have to be finished for 'PCD,' or 'partial completion date.' Yesterday Starner had me helping Vince. But this morning he told to help Harry Edwards, the crew leader, who's working under Marc Malloy, not Starner. Night shift had put in a large, curved side plate of thick aluminum. They'd 'made up' (fitted together flush) the butts, or the edges of the plate, but hadn't pulled it in to the longitudinal beam that is part of the framework of the ship. Edwards wanted me to fix it, which meant undoing almost everything that night shift had done and doing it over again. That wasn't difficult, but the odd thing was that Edwards already had three fitters and an apprentice working on this job, not to mention a welder. I ended up supervising all these people as well as working with the tools myself, which is what the crew leader is supposed to do. So I'm thinking, well, they must be giving Edwards too much to do if he can't be here taking care of this himself.
When we had the job most of the way finished, I went looking for Edwards to report. That was at 11:10 am, 50 minutes before lunch. I couldn't find him anywhere, but I ran into Marc Malloy and asked him if he'd seen him. "No," he said, "But he's probably back in the shop making his food." What he was talking about was that Edwards sells sausage and onion sandwiches at lunch time from the locker room over the fabrication shop. These he prepares using one of those big, banquet size slow cookers.
I'd known about this little sideline of Edwards's, because I'd seen him doing it one day when I came to work around 11:30 am after a doctor's appointment. At the time I wondered how he got away with it, but I didn't think about it any more until sometime later when I ran into him collecting money, during working hours, for his football pool. He was doing it right out in the open - - in the supervisors' trailer. I've heard that a lot of the supervisors are Edwards's lunch-time customers, including Bobby Lee Palmer, the assistant foreman of our department. Go figure.
Petty corruption is common in the shipyard. I'm not talking about bribes, kickbacks, or that sort of thing. I mean corruption that takes the form of people engaging in business enterprises, legal or illegal, while on the company payroll, which means on the taxpayers dime, since almost all the work we do is Federal contracts.
People run gambling pools for football or basketball. There is, or I strongly suspect there is, prostitution. I've heard of instances of people being caught and fired for having sex while working (or supposed to be working) aboard ships. That's easy to do on night shift when there are few people around and practically no supervision. Knowing the people in the shipyard as I do, I'd strongly suspect that in a case like that a commercial transaction was involved. I also heard of a worker, or two workers sharing, who paid a firewatch $100 a week for sex on a regular basis. In that case I doubt that any sex took place on the job, but the transaction was certainly set up there. Anyhow, it gives an indication, tip of the iceberg so to speak.
I once had a firewatch working for me over a period of time, a black woman about 35. Her mother was career army, and she had lived all around the worlk. She she was unusually well-educated and well-spoken for a firewatch. We talked a lot, which upset another firewatch, a lesbian who had a crush on this woman. My firewatch didn't have a car, and since she lived along my route home, I offered her a ride. On the way, she asked if we could stop at a 7-Eleven and asked me for a couple of bucks to pay for whatever it was she wanted. I gave her rides a couple more times, but stopped when I saw that the mooching was becoming a regular habit. Some weeks later I learned that she'd been arrested for prostitution and her lesbian friend had been bailed her out. I never heard anybody accuse that woman of hustling on the job, but I mention her story because I'm sure there are others like her among the firewatches, the lowest echelon of female shipyard workers, who rely on casual or part time prostitution to supplement their otherwise erratic income.
Another form of corruption in the shipyard involves union officials. When I first came to work at the place where I work now, 30 years ago (I left after 5 years, then returned many years later), the union president was a welder. The company gave him an especially easy job. He never had to go out on a ship, but stayed in the welding shop all day and did little gravy jobs from time to time. He had a refrigerator there, and sold sodas and snacks. He had his gravy job and ran his little side-line business with the full knowledge of the company. You think he accepted those favors from the company and didn't give them anything back?
The current vice-president of the union is also a supervisor, in name at least, which to me is a conflict of interest in itself. He has the rank and pay of a supervisor, But the real reason he has it is that he's a so-called 'apprentice instructor.' In reality he does little or no instructing of the apprentices. All he does is monitor their attendance, disciplinary problems they may have, and the notebooks in which they are supposed to record what they have done on the job. But he is in a position of power over them. The union pays a bounty of $20 or $30 per head for each new union member that someone signs up (we're in a 'right-to-work' state). So this guy uses his authority over the apprentices to get them to join the union, then collects the bounty on them. It probably doesn't amount to much money over the course of a year, a few hundred bucks at most. But he also uses his position to get overtime work whenever he wants it, although he does almost nothing when he does comes in on overtime apart from walking around and acting like a big-shot. Using their position to arrange overtime for themselves is something many of the supervisors do, by the way.
But here's the case I wanted to talk about. My job was shut down temporarily so we could concentrate on jobs that have to be finished for 'PCD,' or 'partial completion date.' Yesterday Starner had me helping Vince. But this morning he told to help Harry Edwards, the crew leader, who's working under Marc Malloy, not Starner. Night shift had put in a large, curved side plate of thick aluminum. They'd 'made up' (fitted together flush) the butts, or the edges of the plate, but hadn't pulled it in to the longitudinal beam that is part of the framework of the ship. Edwards wanted me to fix it, which meant undoing almost everything that night shift had done and doing it over again. That wasn't difficult, but the odd thing was that Edwards already had three fitters and an apprentice working on this job, not to mention a welder. I ended up supervising all these people as well as working with the tools myself, which is what the crew leader is supposed to do. So I'm thinking, well, they must be giving Edwards too much to do if he can't be here taking care of this himself.
When we had the job most of the way finished, I went looking for Edwards to report. That was at 11:10 am, 50 minutes before lunch. I couldn't find him anywhere, but I ran into Marc Malloy and asked him if he'd seen him. "No," he said, "But he's probably back in the shop making his food." What he was talking about was that Edwards sells sausage and onion sandwiches at lunch time from the locker room over the fabrication shop. These he prepares using one of those big, banquet size slow cookers.
I'd known about this little sideline of Edwards's, because I'd seen him doing it one day when I came to work around 11:30 am after a doctor's appointment. At the time I wondered how he got away with it, but I didn't think about it any more until sometime later when I ran into him collecting money, during working hours, for his football pool. He was doing it right out in the open - - in the supervisors' trailer. I've heard that a lot of the supervisors are Edwards's lunch-time customers, including Bobby Lee Palmer, the assistant foreman of our department. Go figure.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Hot
Thursday, March 26, 2009
For several weeks I've been working in the same space - - what formerly was two spaces, now being combined into one in what the Navy calls a 'shipalt.' For the first few days I was partnered with Elmore Sr., but Starner, my supervisor, moved him to other jobs, working with his son. Since then, I've been on my own, working alone except for the occasional welder (with his firewatches), who I need to tack weld for me.
On steel work we shipfitters generally do our own tacking, but on this aluminum work, which they deem 'critical,' the Navy requires that all welding, even tack welding of temporary attachments, to be done by a welder certified in the process to be used, in this case wire feed (MIG) welding machines.
I have installed a diagonal bulkhead, which will have a wire cage door in it, in place of the solid, jogged bulkhead that existed before. I have also installed an insert to close up the hole left from removing a door from the p-way that used to access the office that is no more.
Yesterday I was on a roll. I worked solid all day, practically without a break except for lunch, 'inserting' (or closing off) two large cut-outs in the top of the new diagonal bulkhead. These cut-outs were the result of a design screw up on the part of the shipyard contracted by the Navy to do the design work on this shipalt. Whoever did it envisioned a bundle of cables passing in one side of the new bulkhead and out the other. It made no sense, because there wasn't any reason for the cables to enter the space at all.
My 'buddy' Joe had started this job, and going by the print he had raised the bulkhead plate with the cables looping in one side and out the other. Getting this bulkhead in was a pain because of criss-crossed beams in the overhead and the fact that the plate isn't flat but rolled about 45 degrees on each end, not to mention the various other obstructions. Anyhow, I was the one who pointed out the screw up, although reps from the Navy and the design contractor had both scratched their heads at seeing the cables go in one side and out the other. I took the plate out again to remove the cables so they could pass in a straight line outside the bulkhead.
Anyhow, as I was saying, I worked hard all day yesterday fitting up the plates to close off the cut-outs. Apart from the cables and pipes and other stuff in the way, this was no easy task because of the joint design our welding department came up with to make it easier for themselves but harder for us. This joint design calls for a 3/16" gap where the plates butt together, and each of the plates must be beveled 30 degrees on the edge. All this is to facilitate weld penetration. They then weld the joint using a removable ceramic back-up strip behind the butt. For fit-up then, the insert has to 'float' in the hole so to speak. Holding the 3/16" gap while aligning the plates is difficult, not to mention tedious, and requires special procedures. So yesterday I completed one plate start to finish, including cutting it to size, and got the other one about 80% done. But when I came in to work this morning I found that they had taken my welder away and the weld supervisor refused to give me another one. So I was pretty much stuck - - another wasted day, so far as production was concerned - - apart from some clean-up.
So today I was totally alone. Sometimes that isn't a bad thing. One day last week - - St. Patrick's Day, in fact - - I had two welders in the space with me - - both of them trying to give me shit about my fitting. Some of the welders are crybabies, including these two. They think my job is catering to them, to make things as easy for them as possible. (The biggest crybaby of the two is the son of one of the department foremen. I call him "Prince Philip.")
Then there was the heater. The Navy requires that the aluminum we're working be at a minimum of 60 degrees before welding. That isn't a big problem now because the temperature outside the ship has been 50 degrees or more lately. But we have a big 440 volt electric blower heater in the space to use when necessary, and it can bring the aluminum up to temperature in a few minutes. The problem is that some of the firewatches, especially the women, think the heater is there to keep them warm and they want it blasting all the time. It gets too hot for me to work. That day I had to battle them, too. Every time I'd shut the heater off, they'd turn it on again. That's the way it went all day.
For several weeks I've been working in the same space - - what formerly was two spaces, now being combined into one in what the Navy calls a 'shipalt.' For the first few days I was partnered with Elmore Sr., but Starner, my supervisor, moved him to other jobs, working with his son. Since then, I've been on my own, working alone except for the occasional welder (with his firewatches), who I need to tack weld for me.
On steel work we shipfitters generally do our own tacking, but on this aluminum work, which they deem 'critical,' the Navy requires that all welding, even tack welding of temporary attachments, to be done by a welder certified in the process to be used, in this case wire feed (MIG) welding machines.
I have installed a diagonal bulkhead, which will have a wire cage door in it, in place of the solid, jogged bulkhead that existed before. I have also installed an insert to close up the hole left from removing a door from the p-way that used to access the office that is no more.
Yesterday I was on a roll. I worked solid all day, practically without a break except for lunch, 'inserting' (or closing off) two large cut-outs in the top of the new diagonal bulkhead. These cut-outs were the result of a design screw up on the part of the shipyard contracted by the Navy to do the design work on this shipalt. Whoever did it envisioned a bundle of cables passing in one side of the new bulkhead and out the other. It made no sense, because there wasn't any reason for the cables to enter the space at all.
My 'buddy' Joe had started this job, and going by the print he had raised the bulkhead plate with the cables looping in one side and out the other. Getting this bulkhead in was a pain because of criss-crossed beams in the overhead and the fact that the plate isn't flat but rolled about 45 degrees on each end, not to mention the various other obstructions. Anyhow, I was the one who pointed out the screw up, although reps from the Navy and the design contractor had both scratched their heads at seeing the cables go in one side and out the other. I took the plate out again to remove the cables so they could pass in a straight line outside the bulkhead.
Anyhow, as I was saying, I worked hard all day yesterday fitting up the plates to close off the cut-outs. Apart from the cables and pipes and other stuff in the way, this was no easy task because of the joint design our welding department came up with to make it easier for themselves but harder for us. This joint design calls for a 3/16" gap where the plates butt together, and each of the plates must be beveled 30 degrees on the edge. All this is to facilitate weld penetration. They then weld the joint using a removable ceramic back-up strip behind the butt. For fit-up then, the insert has to 'float' in the hole so to speak. Holding the 3/16" gap while aligning the plates is difficult, not to mention tedious, and requires special procedures. So yesterday I completed one plate start to finish, including cutting it to size, and got the other one about 80% done. But when I came in to work this morning I found that they had taken my welder away and the weld supervisor refused to give me another one. So I was pretty much stuck - - another wasted day, so far as production was concerned - - apart from some clean-up.
So today I was totally alone. Sometimes that isn't a bad thing. One day last week - - St. Patrick's Day, in fact - - I had two welders in the space with me - - both of them trying to give me shit about my fitting. Some of the welders are crybabies, including these two. They think my job is catering to them, to make things as easy for them as possible. (The biggest crybaby of the two is the son of one of the department foremen. I call him "Prince Philip.")
Then there was the heater. The Navy requires that the aluminum we're working be at a minimum of 60 degrees before welding. That isn't a big problem now because the temperature outside the ship has been 50 degrees or more lately. But we have a big 440 volt electric blower heater in the space to use when necessary, and it can bring the aluminum up to temperature in a few minutes. The problem is that some of the firewatches, especially the women, think the heater is there to keep them warm and they want it blasting all the time. It gets too hot for me to work. That day I had to battle them, too. Every time I'd shut the heater off, they'd turn it on again. That's the way it went all day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
