padam
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Our country was at it's best.
Old days
- Thread starter Roger63
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towtruckAl
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I worked in car plant as skilled trade , you couldnt leave to go to bathroom untill they had equally skilled man to temp replace you , then they brought bicycle for you to get to bathroom . didnt almost make it one time , came out rode bike to parking lot and never went back , co phoned me to come back told personal I eat before them would eat well afterwards . got last pay and reg letter saying under no circumstances was i ever to be hired again by parent co or any subsiduries. I kept letter . and your right saftey was not a top priority back then . was only there 6 mo went back to general mech , liked the pay but not the 3 shifts .
I can never see these old pics too often!
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Cool photos, thanks for sharing 
joe smith
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My EX father in law died from Emphyzema many years ago... He told me he was pretty sure it was from his Packard assembly line days.... He leaded the rear qtrs and painted... On a good day he said he wrapped a hankerchief around his nose and mouth......
He’s 97 now married to a gal who just qualified for SS. Still jogs five miles a day cutting his smoking down to a pack a day.
GetX'd
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Yeah - I’m sure that made a bit of different but c’mon …. Just like so many other hazardous ways of mfging stuff back in those days - still terribly toxic. What I wonder is how many on that type job came down with COPD, Cancer, Emphysema and whatever other lung ailments you could get a bit down the road and never connected the dots…..
I can't believe they are painting two cars different colors 6 feet apart. What about overspray?
GetX'd
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Yeah the pics are definitely very cool. Makes me yearn for the good ole days….. In more ways than one. When we could make anything and did. When we could outproduce any 10 countries on the planet. When our “Made in the USA” moniker was a sign of pride and legendary quality at home and around the world. When America was America….
Downdraft booth, look it up. The air is flowing from above down into the floor. The overspray goes down into the floor grates where they are standing. It doesn’t fly around the room. Their shoes are covered with paint.
Yes I’m sure it’s still bad to be there without a respirator. I’m not condoning it. It’s just what they did back then.
We had a down-draft system to paint our large machines - no booths required; but took some safety measures to run the systems the way they were designed. Worked fine until one blew up...
Roger63
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Yep blowing up is a deal breaker.
Am I seeing A's and B's on the same line?
joe smith
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Guy I met was in managment on a Camaro/Firebird line.... He told me the Unions created the turmoil like you just explained..
Electrical, Plumbing, and others EACH had their own union... To unplug a machine from a wall outlet, required a Union electrician that could take 2 or so hours to get their.... Not dissing unions, but can you imagine running a business that way?
Had to do considerable study in college about unions. I grew up with one parent in senior management and the other (my mother) at B&S working on the assembly line and a union steward. Wow, the ‘debates’ I heard growing up btw them, lol. I only worked for about a year in a union job; but later, as it would turn out, I was pulled from my normal job at a large machine mfg to step in – in the Industrial Relations dept to assist with the sad duty of layoffs as the old guy in the job was on medical leave. This was before a whole lot was computerized. There was this rack with paper slips with each employee by job description. Oly chit what a deal it was to properly determine who was to be laid-off and who stayed by sliding out the employee’s slip and into another, then another. It of course went by job seniority; BUT also how long the employee had held prior jobs plus those jobs deemed necessary to retain. If a more senior worker didn’t have the prior job history, he would be out even though a less tenured employee overall had the history in those jobs.
This was during the time USA mfg’s got crushed by Japanese products, so the lay-off’s kept on and on. Fifty one week, 20 the next, 40 the next. This included salaried employees (I was among them) watching my fellow employees, having been with the company decades longer than I was, get their walking notices. I had been in a unique position keeping me there and kept wondering when my number would be up. I talked to my boss more than once to be candid about my hunting for another job; but he was no dummy…more like an asshole, telling me no-no you won’t be cut. Well he wanted to hang onto as otherwise the **** work I was doing would be all his. Was younger and dumber then as eventually I got my notice to take a walk. Five years of my career I’d like to erase from my memory bank. Coincidentally, part of this included our paint floor blowing up.
Here’s a couple pics of my grandpa, who was a Kendall Oil rep. If Kendall sponsored it, he was the front man at the event. During the long time between rounds at the strip, the strip owners turned to all manners of tomfoolery, hence the “big bus eliminator” and such. And, of course, who could forget his sometime sidekick!
towtruckAl
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on the paint line the guys would vaseline their bare skin and face and then put on what was really a dust mask along with down draft they had the water falls behind them . they still got paint on themselves . and a simple thing like import duties or some kind of tariff would have stopped the imports . and it is no different up here in Canada . same one percent controls .
chargervert
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