Darius Delaney got the call at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, exactly a half hour after he had gotten home from guard drill. The call meant he would have to leave immediately for Cranston, Ohio, to quell another labor disturbance at a plant that had been regularly jamming the GM parts pipeline for the past 10 years. “Enough is enough,” he was told by the GM president, who was in the Bahamas for the holidays. “Take care of it.”
Darius was the first special assistant to the president of General Motors. He was a fireman in the Michigan National Guard. He was an MBA graduate of the School of Business at Miami University in Ohio. He was a member of the prestigious Phiwi fraternity, which was famous nationwide, no, worldwide, for its luau every fall on the Oxford, Ohio, campus. And Darius had served as the chairman of the luau for three consecutive years during his time at Miami, a period of service unmatched ever by any other fraternity brother.
The luau was not trusted to just anyone; rather, there were usually enough complaints every year—the Tri Delt freshmen wore panties to the party, the pig was done too late, or maybe the baby oil ran out at midnight—always some detail that caused enough grumbling to ensure a yearly turnover of chairmen. But Darius had proven himself three times, and only finally relinquished the position because it was time for him to move on—“Time to grow up, boy”—as his grandfather and GM vice-president of sales pronounced, “and come put the GM yoke around your neck and get ready to be somebody.”
The same day Grandpa had arranged his National Guard physical, Darius had interviewed for his first GM position. He and Grandpa never dreamed that he would be starting out in the president’s office. In fact, the old man had laughed, if he had known that, the National Guard thing would not have been necessary—Darius would have been exempt from the draft by virtue of his high position in a company so necessary to the national defense of the United States of America.
What had landed Darius this advanced starting position was none other than the fact that he had been chairman of the Phiwi luau for three consecutive years! As a past president of the Phiwi chapter at Duke, the corporate personnel director had been privy to a permanent invitation to the yearly bash, though finally one year at age 25, when he awoke in the kitchen naked with a pair of men’s underwear around his neck, he never went back again. But he knew, as did anyone who knew about such things, that a man who could be trusted to be in charge of the Phiwi luau for three years could be trusted with anything GM had to throw at him.
So it was that Darius Delaney found himself on Route 23 near Carey, Ohio, on November 29, 1970, at 8:00 p.m. He had hustled in to GM headquarters where he had been met by the president’s secretary and briefed on the Cranston situation. He needed to leave immediately, he had been informed. This was bad news to Darius since he and his fiancée had planned an evening together once he was back in town from guard duty. He had hinted over the phone from the base that he was horny, and Melanie had admitted the same, and for a nice girl like Melanie to say she was horny meant that Darius had a pleasurable evening before him.
But now, surrounded by the corn stubble of dark Ohio farmland, Darius was not going to get laid. He was going to get a hotel room that smelled like old shoes in a town full of fucking hillbillies whose main goal in life seemed to be to fuck up the works of the largest corporation in the world. And he was going to put a stop to it.
The United Auto Workers Union was a pain in Darius Delaney’s ass. If not for the union, it would be smooth sailing for the company—record profits every year instead of a struggle to match last year’s. And without the UAW, Darius would have smooth career advancement. The recent national strike, which started on September 14 and lasted sixty-seven days, had left him exhausted. He had been on the go the entire time, writing press releases, flying here and there to offer his superb organizational skills wherever they were needed. And yet the union had kicked the company’s ass. Thirty years and out for retirement. That meant a man could possibly retire at age forty-eight with a monthly income of $400! That wasn’t right in Darius’ mind. That and the wage increases would cause inflation. And dental care? That was unheard of for any industry, yet the UAW had gotten it for all the hillbillies and their families. More money, cost of living wage increases, more holidays, more health insurance, retirement. It might not have seemed so bad to him, but he was sitting at the bargaining table as it happened. He wasn’t responsible for the negotiating and the giving in, but he was sure that anyone who was a party to this boondoggle of a contract would go nowhere within the giant company in the future. Only a bunch of losers would have agreed to such a contract. And Darius Delaney wasn’t a loser. He had chaired three consecutive Phiwi luaus!
By the time he reached the edge of Cranston, Darius had hatched a plan. He would design an ad for the local newspaper blaming the United Auto Workers for the deaths at the plant, saying that the hourly workers who died had been killed for not supporting the union. That’s what he would do. He would make a name for himself on this strike. It was this local UAW union in Cranston that had caused more trouble than any other local union in the country. It was this bunch of hillbillies that was the enemy. Darius Delaney would bring the UAW to its fucking knees!
Darius had to pass the plant to get to his hotel in downtown Cranston, and was shocked at what he saw. At all three plant gates on Route 30, there were huge bonfires, each with at least a dozen men sitting around the fire drinking beer. Others stood along the highway, holding their picket signs aloft for the entire world to see that they were in charge of this General Motors plant. Darius was pissed.
As soon as he checked into the Imperial Hotel, he called the city police. He wanted action now, but the dispatcher on duty at the tail end of this holiday weekend calmly told him he would have to come down to the station and file charges. He slammed the phone down and then dialed the sheriff’s department number. He got a similar response to his call for the cavalry to come swooping down on the hillbillies and throw them off his property. “Yes, I own the fucking property,” he found himself shouting into the phone at the dispatcher. “I am management! I own it!”
It just happened that Sheriff Thomas Greene was at the office making sure his orders to make an hourly check of the plant were being carried out. He was concerned over the fatalities even though his initial investigations had shown that all but one appeared to be accidental. He was on his way through the dispatcher’s office when he heard the shouting over the phone receiver, which he took from the bewildered young woman at the desk. “You will do what I tell you to do!” Darius shouted.
“Who is this?” Thomas asked.
“This is General Motors! Who is this?” Darius shouted.
“Sheriff Greene here.”
“Ahhhh. About time. Now here is what you are going to do,” Darius said.
Thomas chuckled as he heard the usual GM tantrum begin. “And what would that be?”
“Why, for starters, enforce the law. There are too many pickets.”
Thomas shook his head. He had made sure that no vandalism was taking place by having his deputies drive past the plant every hour. If they knew the pickets, the deputies were free to stop and talk in order to get more information for the sheriff. He was concerned this time. The men had just completed a sixty-seven day strike and had only worked three days when they went on the first wildcat. That one was just for fun compared to this one. The shop chairman and the president were both fired, leaving no local leadership in the union. And both of them were popular leaders. If it had not been a holiday weekend, the sheriff would have been in contact with GM and UAW brass in Detroit to get things moving. The United Auto Workers International Union had grown just as weary of the Cranston plant as had General Motors. Thomas Greene was worried about real violence if this thing did not get settled. He knew many of the men at the plant and knew what they were capable of.
“Do you understand me, sir?” Darius barked at the sheriff.
“Yes sir,” Thomas answered, thinking ahead to tomorrow when he could get some assistan
ce from Detroit. Whoever this pissant on the phone was, it wouldn’t do any good to get him more fired up than he already was.
Darius set to work immediately on his ad. “Five men are dead because of the United Auto Workers,” it would read in bold print. “Just when you think the union can stoop no lower, it resorts to murder,” the ad would read in fine print. Darius stared at his document. Maybe that was a bit much, he thought to himself, but just as quickly knew he needed to get some kind of information in the paper tomorrow. GM was already losing the public relations battle, witness the morning’s Cranston Journal. He had looked at the front page story, “Five Dead at Local GM Plant.” The first couple of paragraphs covered the deaths of the five men. The third one was what had caught Darius’ attention.
After a 67 day national strike to secure basic cost of living wage increases and a decent retirement, the local United Auto Workers union has seen the need to once again strike the local GM stamping plant. The difference between all the other strikes and this one is the obvious anger among the rank and file.
Darius had planned to get the ad out in the morning, but after reading the newspaper story decided to take it downtown tonight. Quick action was needed.
Editor Tom Finnegan was still at his desk late Sunday night. He was convinced he knew what had happened at the GM plant. And it wasn’t just a one-day occurrence that had resulted in five more deaths at the factory, but a cumulative, abstract sort of cancer that was festering out there and destroying lives and families. He wasn’t sure that he should write the truth, indeed, that he could write the truth. First, he had to be vigilant that his feelings about what had happened to Bobby stayed under control. In addition, he knew that the following days would bring the GM Public Relations brass into town, and
also that the owners of the paper would be interested in what he had to say before this thing was finished. And just then his phone rang. It was the shift editor. GM had just dropped off an ad for the morning paper. And he was a little concerned over it. “Bring it up,” Tom said.
All it took was for Tom Finnegan to read the GM ad and he proceeded with his editorial:
The deaths Saturday, November 28, 1970, at the local General Motors stamping plant are a continuation of the irresponsible behavior of General Motors to the community of Cranston. The tragedy on that day brings to ten the total number of men who have died within the walls of that plant in as many years, leaving children, and parents and wives and brothers and sisters to grieve at the unnecessary losses of life.
It appears that GM’s arrogance in handling personnel matters is out of control as this time the plant fired the union’s leadership. Firing these men is the equivalent of the union kidnapping and holding for ransom the plant manager of the local plant. GM has been asking for trouble, and it appears that this time they have gotten it….
Chapter 9
Big Men Rule