OK, I have to admit I'm stretching things a bit here.
But that's a time-honored tradition amongst headline writers in the mainstream press. If a bit of confabulation is good enough for the New York Times, what the hell, it's good enough for The View From Falling Downs.
I got fired from Dresser Industries about 10 years before Cheney became CEO of Halliburton and 15 years before Halliburton bought Dresser. But hang in there; it's a good story.
Before I'd been at Dresser I did a spell at an outfit called Kearney National. The president of Kearney National was a guy named Freeman Spracklin.
This was an era when manufacturing plants in Southern Ontario adhered to what might be called a traditional stratification. The plant manager was usually some guy who had done military service and was discharged with some middling rank. He was invariably British or a first or second generation spawn of Brit immigrants.
The office folks were white and Anglo.
The shop floor was an assortment of Pollocks and Wops, Squareheads and Jamaicans, with an occasional working class Canadian thrown in for good measure.
I spent an entire summer of my employment at Kearney National, a manufacturer of electrical switch-gear, painting Freeman Spracklin's house. I was a welder. I guess this is one of the fringe benefits you don't have to declare when you're a big dog.
Get the niggers to paint your house on the company's dime.
Anyway, one of my fellow painters called up to the big house was a guy named Cheech Contini. Me and Cheech were like brothers. We both liked to toss back a few. We both had illustrious family connections.
Me, well I've told you about the connection to the Von Trapp Family Singers. It's in the blog. Look it up. Let's just say the Captain wasn't quite what he's made out to be in the movie.
In Cheech's case, the family connections were reputed to be to that other "family" of Italian folklore. You know the ones.
So all good things come to an end and the welding/painting the CEO's house gig did too.
Couple years later, I land a gig at Dresser, and holy shit, there's Cheech!
Cheech is raving about the place. He's got himself a sweet spot in shipping. Writes his own overtime ticket! He's also a shop steward! Not only that, but his brother Tony is President of the Steelworkers Local that represents the workforce!
So, I'm thinking, happy days are here for good. Stay tight with my Italian friends and this could be my dream of early retirement come true!
Little did I realize that uncontrollable forces were working behind the scenes. The Dresser plant built overhead cranes and oil rigs. Business was booming. The company had actually gone to England to recruit Brit steelworkers from Glasgow and Sheffield by the dozens with promises of ten years of work. Guaranteed!
Then the commie-symp Trudeau brings in his National Energy Policy and the entire oil rig side goes for a shit literally overnight.
The Brits got lay-off notices and eventually launched a class action lawsuit.
I got called into the office on the last day of my 90 days probation and was told my services were no longer required. One more day and I could have been part of the class action.
So here's the good part. Under union rules the shop stewards are the last to get the lay-off. The Dresser plant hobbled along for a couple of years with a skeleton crew of half a dozen workers to finish off outstanding contracts - at which point shop stewards outnumbered workers by a ratio of 3:1!
Tony was the very last to go.
Rumor has it that he managed to hang on for a couple of years as Local President even after there were absolutely no workers left in the plant for him to represent, and Dresser eventually offered him a generous buyout just to get him the hell out of there.
Good for him!
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