Workers’ Tension, Anxiety Fill Last Days at GM Plant

As wives, children and relatives toured the General Motors plant in Van Nuys one recent afternoon, it was possible to forget for a moment the tension and anxiety that fills this giant factory, which closes for good on Thursday.

For many of the “Family Day” visitors, it was their first--and last--chance to see a Southern California automobile factory in operation. And as if in a museum, they beamed with curiosity. The sounds of fascinated children rose over the drone of machinery. Nobody seemed to mind the searing heat.

But deep inside this 45-year-old forest of dangling wires and machinery, in areas hidden from view, the assembly line was breaking down frequently. Absenteeism was unusually high. Cigarette butts were casually being tossed into unfinished Camaros and Firebirds. One steel shell of a car rolled into the body shop with a crushed beer can in it.

To workers, these were more than just isolated acts in the plant’s final days. They were signs of anxiety and frustration from men and women afraid of joining tens of thousands of other jobless auto and aerospace workers who are scrounging for a living. Many say they will not miss their hot, grimy, punishing jobs at the factory, yet they fear that the uncertainty ahead could be worse.

“What are we going to do?” asked plant worker Chris Dorval, his face dripping with sweat as he paced inside a cavernous booth, grinding car panels as they passed by. It was a question to which the 37-year-old Quebec native, whose father retired from the plant, could only answer: “I don’t know. Anything and probably everything.”

Dorval will be one of 2,500 GM workers out of a job Thursday morning when the last of 6.3 million vehicles built at the plant since 1947 rolls off the assembly line. That vehicle--a bright red Camaro with black stripes and red leather interior--has been custom-built for an Iowa car buff.

For the near term, Dorval and his co-workers can take some comfort in the company’s generous severance package: 85% of their average weekly pay of $700 and full health benefits for a year. What benefits they receive after that will depend on negotiations between GM and the United Auto Workers union.

Most employees, however, face wrenching long-term worries. With GM planning to close more plants, and thousands of previously laid-off auto workers seeking jobs, most Van Nuys workers have little hope of transferring to another GM facility. And their chances of earning a comparable wage doing something else are equally slim. Production workers at the Van Nuys plant earned about $17.50 an hour. That is about $6 an hour more than the average American factory worker, according to government figures, and $7 an hour more than entry-level computer operators earn in Los Angeles.

Although many Van Nuys employees are learning electronics and computer skills, at GM’s expense, they face a crumbling economy, a shrinking base of manufacturing jobs and employers who may be reluctant to hire former auto workers.

“They are going to carry a certain stigma,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County, a nonprofit business group. Employers may be hesitant to hire these “high-wage” former GM employees, he said, “because they’ll expect auto workers to be restless and looking around to regain their earning power.”

Nancy Vosler, a professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis who has studied the effects of layoffs on auto workers, said: “Many may be unemployed for long periods of time and re-employed at $5 and $6 (an hour) wages. . . . That puts stress on the entire family.”

And they may face other forms of job discrimination: Six of 10 workers are minorities: 43% Latino, 15% African-American and 2% Asian-American. Many speak halting English. The average age of the GM workers is 46, and about 1,200 of them are 50 or older. Eighty-six percent are male.

“They’re putting me out on the streets at probably the worst time,” said Martin Grandy, 55. “I have two daughters, one of them 13. I had hoped to put them through college.”

Grandy was 40 when he started working at the Van Nuys plant, much older than the typical new worker there. Most had come to the factory in their 20s, and most landed jobs through a father, uncle or other relative at the plant. Many never finished high school.

Inside the plant, Grandy, a white Minnesota native, worked alongside an African-American from Louisiana, a Mexican immigrant and an Asian-American from San Francisco. All were lured to the factory by high wages that promised a better life.

Despite their different backgrounds, many workers say they formed lasting kinships, a bond that made the hard labor bearable. Workers say they will miss that the most.

“It was a valuable way for people of various races to get socialized,” said Mark Masaoka, 38, an electrician and unit chairman of the United Auto Workers Local 645, which represents the plant’s workers. “You may not eat lunch with black workers,” the third-generation Japanese-American said, “but you work next to them and talk to them and learn about their communities, their lives.”

Like many of his co-workers, Masaoka thought he would finish his working days with GM when he started at the plant in 1980. Back then, GM was on top of the world, owning nearly half of the U. S. car market. But that was before the Japanese flexed their muscle in the U. S. car market. GM’s share has since plummeted to 35% of U. S. sales.

The Van Nuys plant closure is a small piece of a sweeping restructuring plan by GM to shore up profits and halt its prolonged decline. By shifting production of Camaros and Firebirds to a newer plant in Canada, GM says it will save money by not having to ship parts to California from its supply outposts in the East and Midwest.

For their part, workers say there is a lot of blame to go around for the Van Nuys plant closing. Many blame GM, saying the world’s largest auto maker reneged on a promise to bring another car to Van Nuys after workers agreed in 1987 to adopt Japanese-style work rules. GM has repeatedly said it made no such guarantees.

Other workers fault their union. “We were not all together,” said Manuel Hurtado, 45. “The UAW International did not give us 100% support in our struggle. They did not seriously fight to keep the plant open.” UAW International officials say that is not so.

A few workers will admit privately that the blame lies with themselves: “It’s the lackadaisical worker at the plant, and the union protecting that kind of worker,” said one employee in the body shop.

The question of who is at fault for the closing will probably always be debated by GM workers. As the plant’s last day approaches, however, workers are pondering weightier matters, reflecting on their many years at the plant and what the future holds for them.

Raymond Alvarez was not born when his father, Ramon, paved his son’s way into the Van Nuys plant.

In 1947, at age 21, Ramon left his impoverished family of seven brothers and seven sisters in Puerto Rico, and came to Pennsylvania to work as a contract farmhand. Prompted by a friend, Ramon soon trekked to California and found work with the Southern Pacific Railroad.

In November, 1956, Ramon got a job at the Van Nuys plant, recommended by a brother-in-law who began working there a year earlier. Ramon says he was happy working as a maintenance man on the graveyard shift. He earned $2.60 an hour--twice as much as he had as a railroad worker--and he liked the feeling of working among shiny Chevy Bel-Airs and Impalas. Two years later, Ramon bought his first house--an “old raggedy home”--in Pacoima for $9,000. A year later, in 1959, Ramon and his wife, Pabla, had their first son, Raymond.

Ramon, who used to liken the factory to a “jungle,” hoped for something better for his son. But he also did not discourage him from working there. During his senior year at Glendale High School, Raymond found it hard to resist the temptation of a high-paying job at GM. He dropped out of school and, with a recommendation from his father, got a job at the plant.

Raymond, too, was happy at first. Only 19 years old, his $7-an-hour job enabled him to buy a $68,000 house in Arleta--a bigger house than his father’s--and one he would share when he married his high school sweetheart. The future, he figured, would take care of itself. He would be just 48 when he could retire under GM’s “30 and out” program.

Today, both Raymond and his 66-year-old father own ranch-style homes in Palmdale, less than a mile apart in a largely undeveloped area that has become a refuge for auto workers seeking inexpensive homes.

Raymond is not sure what he will do. A couple of years ago, he got a real estate agent’s license. But his wife is also an agent, and because the housing market is lousy, he believes that it would be too risky for both of them to work in that field. So Raymond is taking classes at Antelope Valley College, learning how to fix air conditioners.

Raymond’s father, saddened by his son’s job loss, wants to return to Puerto Rico.

“We got family in Puerto Rico,” he says to Raymond, goading his son to join him. “We can buy a piece of land, start a business.”

Raymond at first appears interested, then mentions his recent visit to Puerto Rico. He says glumly: “I think it would be hard for my family to adjust. I guess I’ll just wait to see which way the winds blow.”

Inside a steamy booth in the plant’s body shop, Charles Gatewood faces a canvas mat dangling from the low ceiling. The mat is there to protect him and another worker from sparks that fly while tools are ground by hand. On this afternoon, an odd message is scrawled in yellow chalk on the mat.

“I Love My Money,” it reads. Gatewood, whose job is to grind and smooth the welds between car roofs and side panels, lifts off his helmet and then says: “A while back I wrote: ‘I love my Toyota.’ But someone changed it when I was gone.”

At 6-foot-2 and 260 pounds, the 44-year-old African-American does not slide easily into his sporty Toyota Supra. He makes no apologies for driving a Japanese car.

“Listen,” he says, “I drove a Firebird, an ’84 Firebird. But it started having problems after 6,000 miles. It had 30,000 miles and they had to repaint it because the paint had cracks in them. Before I got rid of it (at 60,000 miles), it had two transmission jobs.”

Gatewood says he gets teased a lot for driving a Toyota. “But so what,” he says. “I drive what I want.”

After 14 years at the Van Nuys factory, Gatewood struggles to explain why quality problems have plagued the Van Nuys plant.

“It’s not the workers’ fault!” he shouts, his emotions rising. “There are people who say auto workers are lazy and overpaid. But you can’t be lazy. How can you be lazy in this booth?” he asks, hustling to work on the next car.

Gatewood talks momentarily about the “team concept,” a Japanese management practice aimed at giving workers on the assembly line more say in the plant’s operation.

But after four years of practice, Gatewood says the team concept has not made any difference. To buttress his point, he hollers at his team leader: “Hey Chris, team concept, you see any of that?”

“Nah,” the team leader shouts back, shaking his head. “If they did it right, it might have worked.”