Rivethead; Social Issues Of Work Essays - Ben Hamper, Hamper

Rivethead; Social Issues Of Work Introduction Ben Hampers book Rivethead; Tales From The Assembly Line is a gritty in your face account of a factory workers struggles against his factory, his co-workers, and the time clock. Hamper makes no apologies for any of his actions, many of which were unorthodox or illegal. Instead he justifies them in a way that makes the factory workers strife apparent to those who have never set foot on an assembly line and wouldn't have the vaguest idea how much blood, sweat and tears go into the products we take for granted everyday. Rivethead is an account of the entire life of Author Ben Hamper, from his long family lineage of ?shoprats? and his catholic school upbringing to his numerous different positions on the General Motors assembly line and his equally numerous lay-offs from the GM Truck & Bus Division. Unfortunately the many years of back breaking labor combined with Hampers own personal demons led him to check into an outpatient mental facility (at the time of the completion of this book) where he learns daily to cope with his many years of mental anguish. Rivethead is a social commentary on industrial America, assembly line work , and the auto industry. This essay, however, will focus on the more specific aspects Hamper considers, such as the monotony required on a (then) modern assembly line, the relationship and hierarchy among workers and their interaction with management as well as both collective and individual responses to work and job satisfaction (or lack there of). Analysis When Henry Ford first developed the idea of the assembly line he was heralded as one of the most forward thinking men of his time, and without the assembly line we would no doubt not be as powerful a nation as we are today. The assembly line principle as it matured in industrial society however, proved to destroy workers creativity and stifle the very essence of human life. Growth and change. On an assembly line workers are degraded to automatons, performing the same tasks over and over and over. Day in day out, without ever having any knowledge or input into any of the other tasks related to completion of the project. This monotony in the workplace spills over into the daily life of many factory workers and affects how they live their life outside of the factory after the whistle blows as much as it does while they're on the assembly line. This spillover was observed by Hamper of his Grandfather. ?Straight home from work, dinner, the evening news and immediately into bed at 7:00 p.m. He arose each weekday at 3:30 a.m., fixed himself some black coffee, turned on the kitchen radio, smoked a handful of Lucky Strikes and waited to leave for work at a quarter to five. This regimen never varied one iota in the forty years he worked for GM? (Hamper pg.6). It is fairly clear that the monotony of the assembly line has a way of setting personal routines for it's workers that eventually work their way out of the factory and into the home. One interesting question that is raised, is whether people who like their life to be routinized eventually find their way to an assembly line or if the assembly line monotony brings the propensity to routinize out in people who previously did not live by many routines. The relationships Hamper discusses between the workers on the assembly line are unique to say the least and sometimes comical or dangerous. After reading this book I would surmise that most factory workers build friendships with other factory workers almost exclusively. This could be due to their similarity of interests, similarity of jobs, the fact that they are in contact daily, or just by virtue of the timing of their shifts (as was Hampers case). I think one thing that helped to bind the workers together was the fact that they saw it as workers against management and by their solidarity they could turn the balance of power in their favor. This solidarity was visible when a new supervisor was hired who wasn't cutting the workers any slack, so the workers resorted to sabotage. ?We simply had no other recourse. Sometimes these power-gods had to be reminded that it was we, the workers, who kept this place runnin'? (Hamper pg.206). Relationships between workers were generally very good, although there was a hierarchy among the workers between the new guys and the experienced guys. ?Franklin...made a career out of intimidating rookies? (Hamper pg.51) because until a worker had put in 90 days he could be fired for any reason. Not all of Hamper's co-workers saw eye to