Interview with John DeAngelo

Q: Tell me about yourself.

DeAngelo: My name is John DeAngelo. I came to work here in Highland Park in April of 1928. I started in the trade school.... But then they wanted me to work afternoons, and I didn't want to work afternoons, so I told them I was going to quit.... In the trade school I was working for fifty cents an hour, and I was doing the same work that the people out in the plant were doing for about a dollar an hour.

So I told them ..., "You are not going to keep me here." So they said, "We are going to send you down to the employment office." And they sent me down to the employment office, and I told them I wanted to quit. They asked me why, and I said because I am not getting the money. They asked if I had a little bit of knowledge about machinery and different things. I said yes, I have, because I went to the Cas Tech high school, and they had a big machine shop there, so that is where I started to learn about machinery.

So they asked me my age. I said sixteen. They said, "Well, look, you can't go in the shop at sixteen. You're eighteen, aren't you?" I said, "Yeah," I says,"I'm eighteen." And they put me in the plant. They would tell you you have got to make so many pieces a minute -- don't miss a lick, don't miss a stroke. And if you couldn't do it, they fired you.

They put me in the H building working on drive shafts. But I was not working -- I was sent in there to job-set for the people. At that time you had a lot of older people who didn't know nothing about machinery, or they couldn't even speak English at times, so they made me a job setter, as they called it.

Q: What does a job setter do?

DeAngelo: When a machine breaks down and the worker on that particular machine doesn't know what to do, then the job setter goes in there and finds out what is wrong with it and corrects it. Sometime it might be a tool, sometime something is loose; things of that nature. But that is his job. And if they bring in a new job, then the job setter has to set it up for the department to run. That is a job setter's job.

So I worked there, and then in January of 1929, they moved us out to Dearborn. At that time they used to call it the River Rouge. So we were moved out there, and I was in the B Building there, which is called Assembly Plant now. We were on the drive shaft -- as they called it.... We started up the machines when they moved everything in there, and everything was going well. But at that time, you had to work. There was no play.

As a job setter, if I didn't have anything to do, well, I just stayed out of sight. But people on the machines, on the lathes, had to stay there and work eight hours a day. They started about seven o'clock in the morning and they had lunch about 11 o'clock. You couldn't go to the bathroom between 7:00 and 11:00 because that was not allowed, you know; you were supposed to go on your own time, so you went in the morning. The toilets were filled in the morning and at lunch time. Then after lunch you came back to work, and you worked the rest of your time. See, at that time there was no overtime. You were working forty hours a week. And I think they were making about a dollar an hour. I was a job setter, so I was getting a little bit more money....

But they mistreated you..., they really did. Maybe Henry Ford didn't know about this. I don't believe he knew because they had a man called Harry Bennett who ran the Ford Motor Car Company, and he ran it his way. And there was another guy, a Vice President called Sorenson, who was as mean as could be. If you were caught doing anything, even if you were sick or didn't feel right and slowed down, you got fired. There was no question about it. If you could not work, they didn't want you in here....

Q: What was it like working on the line?

DeAngelo: Just one thing -- work all day long, eight hours a day.... They wanted the work. And if you couldn't do it -- [if] you got too old, you just died on the job or else...they fired you.... You had to do the amount of stuff the company wanted you to do. They would tell you you have got to make so many pieces a minute. They don't care if you even have to cough a little bit and couldn't. No, you have got to make that production for them. But back then there wasn't any rating of anything. You just had to do it.

Q: What if you couldn't?

DeAngelo: One thing: you got fired. Well see, they didn't move you any place because you had nobody to fight for you. That was it. They were management -- that was it.

In 1932 I was working afternoons. They called us to the desk -- the superintendent called us to the desk one at a time and told us we were working for 50 cents an hour -- no matter what we were making. If you were making a dollar an hour, you went down to 50 cents an hour. We were making $20 a week, and that was during the Depression, which was very hard...

Q: As the company got into trouble during the Depression, did things get tougher?

DeAngelo: ...You used to come to work, and you would work eight hours. Then when the Depression came -- in 1930, '31, '32 and '33 -- they would have you come in and if they had an hour of work, that is all you worked, that one hour. And then you went home. There was no pay coming to you. You just worked that one hour and then you went home.... People were starving.... At this point we were over there in Dearborn. And then came that hunger march.... The people marched, and some of them go hurt really badly there.

Q: Were you there when Miller Road took place?

DeAngelo: I was working in Dearborn when the hunger march was on Miller Road, and I heard about it after it was all over.

Q: Did that influence you?

DeAngelo: Well see -- in 1932, when it happened -- you couldn't even talk about it in the plant. You couldn't even say, "Well there is a friend of mine who got hurt out there." You couldn't say anything. They wouldn't allow that into the plant so you couldn't even talk to anybody about it. Even in the toilet you couldn't talk about that stuff. The hunger march was outside -- it was not the company. They didn't bring it out there. Some guys -- what they called the "communist group" -- brought it out there.

So then in 1934 and 1935, the unions started to move in. And I have to say one thing first. The union didn't get the union into the Fords or General Motors or Chryslers or anybody. Management forced the union in. Management decided that the people had to do the work, and they didn't care about anyone. They fired people, and they didn't have a chance. The union was brought into the companies by the companies themselves. If they would have treated the people fairly, the union wouldn't have even gotten in there.... But when you treat somebody unfairly, that is when if somebody gives you something better to work with, you are going to do it, period. That becomes a must.

So, in 1937 I joined the UAW at an office on St. Alban and Grasship on the east side of Detroit...a lot of other people did too. We had a president in our union, Homer Martin, who started to double-cross the workers themselves and gave out names to the companies about them....

They started to fire people because they were active in the union. So at Ford's, it died down again until 1941. Well in 1940 it started actually. And then in 1941 it got to where we were really organized at Ford's..., not officially organized with the company, but amongst ourselves.

So finally in June...the union called a strike and we went on strike. Now the strike was against Ford -- that was the biggest part.... We were all staying around the Ford Motor Car Company but not too close to it, the first day.... After that we went to Gate 4 in a big march, and we picketed there.... Seven days later Henry Ford told Bennett, "Forget all problems and get these people in here and give them what they want." You see, Ford must have figured there must be something wrong for the people to go out all together and stick together.

And that is when the union came in. At first, we didn't know anything about a union; we didn't know how to negotiate. We only knew force at that time. Force was going to get us what we wanted. So we demanded they bring back some of the people that were laid off, fired, in 1937, and the company did... Then in 1941 it started to work a little bit better every year... And finally we got to where we started to learn to negotiate. That's when Walter Reuther told the people, "Forget your bats and clubs and all of that. Carry a brief case." And that is what we did. And from then on it was a very good thing.

Anything that the people got in this city, or in the United States, was all started from the union. Everything -- pensions, social security --...we started it, we talked about it, we got people involved.... Our senators and congressmen would pass the rules. And then we got a terrific president: Franklin Roosevelt.

In 1945 [Roosevelt] told the companies they have got to give the people medical assistance, some kind of medical assistance. I remember my wife in 1945 needed an operation. I went to the Providence Hospital, which is on 12th and the boulevard, and she had it there. But they would not release her until I paid $400. And believe me, $400 then was just like $5000 today. So now the government is talking about health for everybody....

Q: How was the discipline in the company done?

DeAngelo: I am going to tell you a little story about that... In 1933, I was working in the B Building or the Assembly Plant on the afternoon shifts. We had a general foreman called Poole. We were working five days a week. At the end of the day on a Friday we would always stop at 9:30 or 10:00 and we would have to clean the C Building. They used to run these machines by soda water to keep the tools...cool. So, on a Friday, we would have to take all the chips out of the machines and clean them with rags and mop the floor--the place had to be very clean.

One Friday night, the boss told us to work until 12 o'clock. At 12 o'clock we had to go to the clock and punch out, but they told us to come back to the machine and clean... So at 1:30 at night we had to see the superintendent to make sure our machine was clean and then he would tell us, O.K., you can go. Then we all assembled at Miller Road at about 1:30 at night. The Baker Street car was the biggest one there, on Baker, and they would stop running to the Rouge plant at 1:00. So here we were stuck out there. So, they got some trucks and buses and whatever they had, and they hauled the people to the closest line that was running. And that went on for about four or five weeks.

One week, some of the guys who were a little bit known as the head guys wanted nobody to drive that particular day, Friday. We were all going to assemble out there when we were done. So they had about 5000 people assembling around Gate 4 and they called Bennett up about it. They said to Bennett, "You know, we have got 5000 people here, what are we going to do with them?" He said, "What do you mean, 5000 people? Well, there is something wrong with the B building sending them all out at one time."

So Bennett and Sorensen told the guards to get any kind of vehicles they got to run and take all the people out of there. Then they got a hold of the bosses inside and told them that they can't do this to the workers or they will get fired. You see... they were starting to worry about the union.

So, after that, they gave Poole two weeks off, but we never got paid for that extra time we worked... that was when people really started to talk about the union...

Q: How did the unions change the life of the working man?

DeAngelo: They treated you fairly then.... They told us to drop the clubs and bats and go back into negotiating..., the union was here to stay. So let's try to cooperate.... They did treat the people fairly then.

Q: Why weren't they treating them fairly before then?

DeAngelo: Because you had to die..on that job.... If you weren't feeling good you couldn't say it. That was out of the question. I am going to tell you one instance: My dad was a business man all of his life. In 1930 he said, "You know, John, I am getting tired. Maybe I will go work at Ford's with you." So he got a job at Ford, and I drove him to work because I was working there too. So at 10:00 I see him coming by and he waves at me.... So I go up to him and he said, "Look, if you want to stay here, you stay. These people are crazy," he says. "I wouldn't work here." And he never went back for his three hours of pay even. He said they can keep it; he didn't want it. That's how bad it was. And he was a foreigner who was used to hard work but he couldn't take it in there because you had to die on that job.

They had people who used to tell the general foreman what was happening: This guy was doing this wrong, that guy is doing that wrong.....

Q: How did that work, the ones keeping an eye on people?

DeAngelo: They would get favors done for the boss. Some of the workers used to take their general foremen home with them and feed them like kings just so they wouldn't bother them at the job. And sometimes they might even do other things with their families to show them that they were on their side so they wouldn't fire them...

Q: Was there a sense of powerlessness?

DeAngelo: Yes. They were frightened.

Q: What went through their minds?

DeAngelo: Look. A man needed a job badly. They told him to go buy a car and then he will get a job. He invested in a Ford car and then three months later he was laid off. They didn't need him anymore. See, they used to call you at the desk and lay you off, but they never did say they fired you because when the union got in, they could never prove through the records they fired anybody. They never fired anybody, they just laid them off... So, they were laying off and hiring at the same time; they hired the next man who bought a car... The people had no power at all and they knew that ...they just looked for anything to try to get a job. Anything...

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