Page 80 - Part One of a Two-Part Story: We Worked for General Instruments

ISSUE : Issue 49

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1988/8/1

new training period would start for that person that just came on. And so on and so on and so on. (The government-paid train? ing....) It lasted for about a year. (So it wasn't something that went on for the 6 or 7 years.) Oh no, no. After that initial year went by, then we had our own training set-ups in the plant, just as we did in any other plant. The company paid for that. (As I understand it, of those trained, only about a third would actually get a job.) Lots of them wouldn't even come to work as a regular employee. There was a turnover there going on constantly, constantly. Peo? ple were quitting. It was a type of work that was completely unknown to this area. And when you told a person who came to train on this, that when you are trained, you should be able to do 450 of this opera? tion, on this continuous line of maybe 35 people, and so on--where the cycle of work was very small--it was not a real hard training to get accustomed to. Let's say it was not a hard learning job. But there was the speed of assembly. The speed of passing that product from one person to the other, or putting it on the conveyor belt and let? ting it go down to the next person. Now when persons unknown (to this kind of work)--let's say, not accustomed to working in this type of atmosphere--heard that they were going to have to do 450 pieces in an hour--this was absolutely unheard of. They were completely amazed. And said, "You guys got to be a bunch of slave drivers. You've got to be out of your mind. Nobody can do Keddy's Sydney Hotel 600 King's Rd., Sydney, N. S. KEDDY'S 218 ROOMS Air Conditioned Colour Cable TV Licensed Dining Daily Features Restaurant Hours: 7 A.M. - 2 P.M. / 5 P.M. -10 P.M. Coffee Shop Hours: 6 A.M. - MIDNIGHT Featuring Our Indoor Recreation Facility - ''Pool ? Sauna