By TomL
Will a 32 hour work week happen? It was introduced by Bernie Sander a Socialist. Should we trust him? I just put him the same category as Joe Biden. Well let me tell you a story about my 32 hour work week.
It starts out in the 60’s Hollywood Florida at a company called Chestnut Hill Industries, it had it’s own city block, yes the building was that big. They made Ladies Garments. Name brands at the time.
Mr. Dino, Pantino, Harburt, Chestnut Hill. It was own by four Jewish family’s. There were hundreds of employee’s. I worked in the area where they had a printing press which was in the Mail room area.
The factory did it all…There were fabric cutters, seamstress’s, presser’s, garment warehouse where thousands of garment’s hung on hanger. All the groups of garments were on tracts.
When the order came in the packers would order the garments from the warehouse and pack them in boxes with tissue around them. They would go by conveyer to the stapler. One person stapled the boxes closed. Each box had a label giving the destination.
There was a armed guard at the only two exist doors in this huge building for security reasons. They would check you in, the men would open their lunch boxes & open jackets and the women would open their purses and lunch boxes coming in and going out. As you can imagine there were hundreds of employees. Chestnut Hill Industries moved there because the City of Hollywood gave them a five year tax free exemption and I believe helped with a grant to build the building. Chestnut Hill promise to employ 400 to 500 people who would live in Hollywood and help the economy by spending their money in town.
The union manage to get in and take control of the employee. All of the partners had garment factory’s up north so I assume they followed them. The idea was to share in the Florida factory. It was a great idea to try to share expenses in manufacturing garments. There were two shop stewards. Several were fired when there was controversy, or they were forced to quit. I was approached to take on a portion of the shop steward job, being the most out spoken one in my area employees wanted me to do it. I took the place of a shop steward that suddenly left. I had several hundred workers in my area, honestly it was a pain in the butt. In a very short time the union wanted us to strike for a 37&1/2 hour work week. We hit the street a few more heads rolled but not mine. The company excepted the demands after a week.
I must put something in the time frame…My wife and I eloped in this time period. Her parent were not happy, you see they thought I was a bad boy! Years later we would make friends and my wife and I would invite them to live on the Loury Farm. They did for many years and learned I was not so bad…..
Mean while In about six months there was another demand for a 32 hour work week. I stood up against the union and it did get a little rough near the end of it all. I refused to strike and I gave notice. The company was in it’s fifth year of their tax deal with the city. The company ask me to stay, I was getting stale at that job. It was time for me to move on.
I had a job in two days, there was a demand for pressman in the area. I went to the Hollywood Sun Tattler in composition as a trainee. I wanted to go through all the apprenticeships that I could to learn the whole business.
I ran into a co-worker from Chestnut Hill Industries and she told me she unemployed, she explained what happened was the company facing the no tax deal ending with the city and a 32 hour work week they went to their own mail room and mailed all of their high end garments to their warehouses to Boston and went bankrupt.
Now who won there, 500 hundred employees were out of work. Chestnut Hill took their loss losing out of date garments and moved back up north where most of their interest was anyway. They each had their own factory’s and ended the experiment of incorporating all of their factory efforts.
So Bernie Sanders is wrong, but he has no example to check it to. He has never run a business he just wants to run everyone else’s business!
So that is my story about my 32 hour work week experience. TomL said that!
Maybe next month we can talk about my union membership or the lack there of at the Hollywood Suntattler. Tilll next month…
