Autoworkers I knew

A Dec. 18 article in online The New York Times reports that President Bush is considering “forcing General Motors and Chrysler into a managed bankruptcy as a solution to save the companies from financial collapse.”

Having bankrupted the Republic and most of the world during the last eight years, it is nice to know that the President is taking during the last few days of his Presidency to preside over the destruction of the once mighty American auto industry. In February of 2000, Harper’s Magazine published an article (subscription required) entitled “Notes on A Native Son.”

The article chronicles Bush’s life and business career. George W. Bush had only two things going for him, boundless ambition and the fact that his last name was Bush. During most of his business career he bankrupted every company that he was ever affiliated with. Every time his companies reached edge of insolvency he would always be bailed out, first by his father’s and then his own political cronies. From that article, I got the sent that George Bush is a compulsive gambler who has never had to pay off any of his gambling debts. When Bush became President, I made sure to buy foreign stocks and bonds, because I was pretty certain he would bankrupt the United States, the way he had bankrupted Arbutus and Harken Energy. Most times when I guess I guess wrong but that time I guessed lucky.

Now as he spends the 30 or so days in office, trying to convince the American people who that he was misunderstood, and is not American’s worst president he has condescended to add to the suffering of thousand of Americans who make their living from some aspect of the auto industry.

For two years, I had a chance to work with three retired autoworkers. I was a guard at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Most of the guards were retired and would spend a month on and a month off as guards. The three I remembered were Sylvester Mosely, Earl Guy, and Charlie Moore. Kansas City had three auto plants at the time GM operated plants in Fairfax in Kansas City, Kansas and Leeds, which was shut down in 1989. Ford had one plant in Claycomo.

Sly Mosley was african-american, a tall, gentle man with a voice that was sweet and slow like molasses. He had fought in Italy during WWII in the Jim Crow Army. He suggested that I get a real job at GM. Go down to Leeds he would say and put in an application, you get good pay, great benefits and discounts on new cars. Earl Guy was a gray haired, medium build and medium height. When he retired from GM he told me he threw his alarm clock out the window and “run over his lunch box with a pickup truck.” Charlie Moore was short, built like a barrel, and wore coke bottle lens glasses. He worked at Claycomo and was a foreman. He once told me that he made sure the assembly line was always moving and if it stopped moving, “by God he wanted to know why!”

So now as the President pretends to be presidential and uses the financial calamities of GM, Ford and Chrysler to bash the union. I think of these three guys Syl, Earl and Charlie. I remember Syl Mosley and Earl Guy arguing with Charley Penfield, the ex-postman about unions. “You ever been on an assembly line and had to take a dump?” Earl Guy asked Charlie. “Well before the union you took a dump in your pants,” Earl told Charley. That was the end of the argument.

So I celebrate Sylvester Mosley, Earl Guy and Charlie Moore all American autoworkers, all union men. They fought in the War, built cars and made America great. That should not be forgotten as we watch the continuing agonies of Ford, GM and Chrysler, and the President and Republican Party’s continued attempts to dump on American autoworkers.

Il Capitano

30