The so-called air was thick with red colored fuzz and coughing was heard from just about every lung in the suffocatingly closed in sewing factory. Great. Today would be red fabric all day which automatically put all the women in a foul mood. First shift had already been at it for quite awhile and stirred things up nicely. Just what I needed. I had just gotten over having bronchitis from living in the cold damp cow shed I called home and this was not going to help. I stashed my lunch under my machine and quick went to get punched in on the stupid time clock. I was early but it wouldn’t matter, they wouldn’t pay me for that, they’d only dock me for being late- never reward you for being early; it’s just that there was a line and I as at the end of it. There was a one way street here and it did not go my way.
The buzzer sounded and like a bunch of cattle we all headed in single file lines to our machines and took up our work. The country music station played in the background, interrupted by an occasional announcement from management or call for a supervisor over the loudspeaker, but mostly we heard sewing machines and cutting machines humming –probably about 150 of them at once. .Zip…Zip… Thunk… Zip… Zip…The movements were automatic-no thought required. Mine was a Five-Thread Overlock machine with a razor cutting edge. The fabric I sliced off with every line of stitching helped create a lot of the red dust floating in the air. The same dust that causes Brown Lung disease, especially when using the most toxic red dyes, like today. The female mountain mama equivalent of Black Lung but not really talked about or even acknowledged by most people- even those who know of it. None of the other colors made us cough like that- just the red. We were making ladies shirts and I was just making the hems on the bottom of the sleeves- all day long. Dozens and dozens of them all day long. Zip…Zip…Zip…Thunk..Zip…I got really fast, really quick because it was really boring so what else was there to do? The other ladies gossiped and took it easy, but I do not have any friends here, so I just get into the work. Zip…Zip…Otherwise, the day would drag by so slow I couldn’t stand it.
Another BUZZER!-really loud, breaks my reverie, and the momentum. Break time! Everybody jumps up and practically runs for the break room with the coffee pots and vending machines. I feel like such an automaton already that I have to break away and walk the other direction and go outside. This is seriously frowned upon. Why am I being different? What is wrong with me? Why can’t I act like the others? They will not let me near the coffee pot anyway, so what would be the point? I am an outsider here and there is no room made for me in the break area and not enough time anyway for me to get to a machine or a coffee pot through the unfriendly lines. I bring my own hot drinks-sometimes herb tea with honey, sometimes coffee and a snack, and I sit outside and enjoy the five minutes of solitude and the weather, whatever it is. You can’t tell what to expect when you open the door. There are no windows in there, at all. This is my idea of hell.
The BUZZER! sounds again and back we all go, single file, moving slightly slower than on the way out. This is way worse than high school ever was and the pay absolutely sucks. But it IS pay, and for where we are, in the middle of nowhere West Virginia , we are all lucky to have a job at all. We work piecework with a guarantee of minimum wage, which at this crappy Neanderthal place means minimum wage only. If they were intelligent I would be able to make more and they would also be able to earn more off my productivity, but for some reason they do not want to do that. Zip…Zip…Zip…Thump…Zip…Zip … .As soon as I get good at a skill and start making more than the minimum, they quick, switch me to a new one and have me learn that, to slow me down. Zip…Zip…Zip..Thunk…Zip… I have only been here two months and have learned most of the machines and could probably supervise the entire place, plus fix the equipment, but I am still just making the minimum wage of $2.10 an hour. Go figure. Zip…Zip…Zip… The problem is I have a brain and I am using it and it seems to make them nervous. Most folks here do not bother to bring their brain to work as it would be wasted and they learned that long ago. Like I said, I am new here .Zip…Zip…Zip…Thunk…Zip
BUZZZER ! Again. Lunch. Back outside for me. Don’t know what I’ll do when it gets really cold out here – the heater in my Volkswagon is not worth much. I do not want to think about working here too much into the future. I am only here because I am desperate, but surely not forever. Not like the ladies inside who have been here twenty some years. God, how depressing. I have to do 144 dozen sleeves today-a gross. That about sums it up.
BUZZZZERRR! Again. That thing is really grating on my nerves and giving me a splitting headache. Zip…Zip… Zip…Whine, Ping…Oh, good. I get to take the machine apart and do some repairs and maintenance to it. Yeah! A break in the monotony! Sometimes I take it apart and put it together just for the heck of it but now it actually needs it. We have repairmen for this but they are kept pretty busy with the other women who use them regularly as their ‘spice’ for the day. Looks like I broke a knife so I will have to go get a part out of the repair shop up front which could take a little while. I will probably catch some flack from the floor- walker for that. She feels it is her job to give me (and everyone else) a hard time whenever possible. I think she gets about a quarter extra an hour for that job and now everyone hates her.
I got the part, swapped it out and… Right back to work. Zip… Zip… Zip…”ANNOUNCEMENT! THE FOLLOWING LUCKY WOMEN HAVE WON OUR ANNUAL THANKSGIVING TURKEY GIVEAWAY! Please report to the office when your shift is done to claim your prize.” Well wouldn’t you know, lucky me, the vegetarian, won a turkey. Guess I’ll have to give it to a friend. How bazzaar. Zip…Zip…Zip…Thunk…Zip…Zip…
Afternoon break BUZZZZZERRRRRR! goes off. Headache now pounding. Decide to go out and get some aspirin out of the car. Superviser stops me and accuses me of stealing fabric, smoking pot, etc, didn’t stick around for the rest. Got the aspirin out of the glove compartment and came back inside for some water from the fountain. All the folks who won turkeys were standing around chattering about how sweet it was of management to do this for them. I got to looking at them all and realized that we were all the latest hires. None of the old timers had won a turkey at all. This was strange and I said so. It was obviously rigged. What was going on?
“Oh, give it a break. Just because you don’t like turkey you have to go and ruin our fun”, said the ring leader of the group of local girls who all ate meat, married and had kids before they even got out of high school.
BBBBBBBUZZZZZZZERRR!! All thought stops and we head meekly back to our machines and pick up our work right where we left off. With…out… thought…. Zip…Zip…Zip…One hundred forty four dozen shirtsleeves… finished.
BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZER! This long day, in a string of long boring days without sunlight is finally over. I pack up my stuff and head up to the front office with the other lucky winners where we stand in line to await our frozen dead rewards. After awhile the manager comes out, gives the nod for the turkeys to be handed out and then he comes down the line and personally hands each one of us a note which says “Do to unforeseen circumstances we are having to reduce the workforce here at — —–. Unfortunately, since you are the most recently hired you must be the first to be laid off. Thank you for your services. This will be your last paycheck. If we need you in the future we will call you.” Awesome.
At first we stand in stunned silence, then a general murmur is heard. These women are very upset by this news, especially at this time of year. I, however, am grateful to have no reason to come back here next week, or ever again. I feel as though I have been let out of jail and am overjoyed at being unemployed without having had to quit. I have food put by in jars from my garden this summer, goats giving milk, chickens producing eggs, tons of potatoes under piles of straw. I might be broke, but I am not going to starve, so to hell with this job. I am free. I jump in my VW and head home and do not look back. I made a quilt a few years later using scraps from that job which serves to remind me of that time, definitely not one of my better job memories.
They actually had the nerve to call me back a few weeks later to rehire me. I enjoyed telling them it was the last place I would ever return to. The final blow was when I realized if they had kept us for even three days longer, they would have had to pay us unemployment when they laid us off. Calling us back was restarting that clock and they could and would keep doing it. This was just one of the many garment factories enslaving poor folks in the U.S. before they did us all a favor and shipped these factories and jobs to even poorer areas overseas. Good riddance.
Wendy lee , writing at https://www.edgewisewoods.com
photo from Wikipedia common files