Free We're All in This Together by Owen King

management positions.
    It was one thing for the commoners to organize, Taft-Hartley seemed to say, but it was quite another for such things to get
out into the greater community, where men wore ties and worked at desks. That wouldn't do at all.
    And it was this last point that should have resulted in Local 219's complete unawareness of the midnight shop work, because
this group of low-level white-collar workers most certainly included all of the foremen of the Amberson Ironworks, the on-site
representatives who filed the reports to New York. Except—
    —Except that upon the passage of Taft-Hartley, Henry McGlaughlin had, much more quickly than most, gauged the new lay of the
land, and taken preemptive action. That is to say, in the best interest of his constituents, Henry immediately began giving
a select group of Ironworks' foremen a monthly token of Local 219's appreciation—a very modest bribe. Along with this cash
subsidy, in 1952, it may still have meant something to these managers that Henry was a fellow like them, who lived in a house
like theirs, and not in some apartment in New York City with twelve-foot windows overlooking Central Park, and a bathroom
with one of those gold-plated sinks to wash your ass.
    Or, as Gerry put it when she visited the wives of these managers every third Monday afternoon to present the crisp ten-dollar
bill that promised their husband's loyalty, "You know we're all in the same boat, honey."
    Nonetheless, as Local 219 flouted the direction of the Taft-Hartley wind, and demanded new safety regulations and full benefits
for a dozen part-time hires, Henry McGlaughlin had lately been much concerned; the Lewiston Sun-Times reported that several unidentified sources promised that a lockout was inevitable.
    "We [company officials] don't like it [Local 219]," says one anonymous source. "Those people [the workers] have been given
an inflated sense of self-importance. It's bad for them [the workers], and it's bad for business. We're not running a socialist
enterprise here. We plan to re-establish the chain of command. We need workers who want to work, do their jobs. What we don't
need are whiners, reds, and other undesirables that the unions typically carry along and suckle."
    All of which leant Tom Hellweg's unauthorized after-hour's visits to the pipefitting shop a particularly suspicious appearance.
It was a well-known scheme among downsizing companies to cross-train workers, to teach them how to do more than one skilled
task, so that in the case of a sudden layoff production would not be affected. The problem, of course, was that while production
would not be affected, the men who lost their jobs and the families of those men would most certainly be affected.
    After a second glass with his wife, this one with a bit of ice, Henry McGlaughlin went off to find his old friend, Tom Hellweg.
He went off to ask Tom—formerly the boy with whom he tamed the black roller coaster of Drummond Street Hill, the boy who bore
Henry's weight as if it were his own—just what was going on.
    Or, as Henry McGlaughlin put it then, "What the fuck are you up to here, Tommy?"
    Tom stood at his station in the painting shop. He stared at Henry from beneath drooping eyelids, a crocodile stare, the one
that says that the crocodile would eat you, if only the meal weren't so paltry as to make the effort redundant. Tom spat a
tiny cigarette butt out onto the floor, probably one that his children had picked from a gutter so that he could get another
three drags out of it.
    "Well, speak up, Tommy," Henry said. "I'm asking you a question."
    Tom turned back to the section of metal plating that he was spraying with red industrial paint, and carefully spelled the
word "HENRY." Over the top of this word, he then wrote the word "CUNT."
    "No," said Tom. "I'm asking you a question, Mr. McGlaughlin: just what the fuck do you think you are doing?"
    Then his old friend plucked another grimy butt from his pocket. Tom lit it, turned his