Cregar, Merrill, 1912-1991

              INTERVIEW: February 27, 1980
INTERVIEWER: Dr. Kenneth B. West
INTERVIEWEE: Merrill Cregar
WEST: This is an interview with Mr. Merrill Cregar. The date is
February 27, 1980. The interviewer is Kenneth West.
CREGAR: My Dad worked for me there. And it was something. We
had to run machines empty. I went and told my dad, you know.
"No," he said, "where's the material? Don't take it easy on
me." I said, "Well, we don't have any material. We gotta run
these empty." We got paid by the revolutions, you know. The
government paid. Well, he didn't do it. Boy they came out
after me and said when the machine isn't running... I said,
"I'll see him again; I'll take care of it." I told him, "I need
my job, Dad. You've either gotta run that or you're through.
I'm not gonna lose my job." He finally run it. He didn't like
it though.
WEST: Who was that?
CREGAR: My dad. He was sixty-eight.
WEST: Can we get a little personal background on you first of
all, Mr. Cregar, if you could? Are you a native of Flint?
CREGAR: No, a native of Indiana. Moved to Flint. We worked at
the Ansted’s there in Connersville, Indiana. We made the
McFarlan, the Lexington, and the Minute Man Six and the Cord.
And we later made the Auburn there. This was in 1930 and they
were laying off and had big signs up, "Metal Finishers Wanted in
Flint, Michigan.” Well, my dad was one of the best, because he
built the body out of aluminum by hand...they had to build 'em
by hand, them days.
WEST: Oh, I see.
CREGAR: It was quite an operation. In fact, I even went
over...if I'd want to go back to my experiences in building
cars, I'd have close to sixty years. Because I used to go over
at night and the aluminum molding we put on those cars, there
would be a little hole, every one inch. There'd be a barrel of
little aluminum pegs. My job was to go around and stick them
pegs in the hole. I was only ten years old.
WEST: You did that at ten years of age?
CREGAR: Yes, after school. See, Dad come home for supper and
then go back. He would have to work to ten or eleven because
you got paid by the piece, you know.
WEST: Oh, I see.
CREGAR: And I'd work with him; didn't get no money for it, see.
That's what I was trying to tell you. Then dad would come along
with a ball peen hammer and peen that aluminum pin over, take
his file, file that off. That's how you put the moldings on in
those days. Today they snap 'em on every second. And then, so
we moved. Dad and I came up alone in 1930. And we went out
there to the employment office and he said, "You be sure and
tell them you're eighteen." I was only sixteen. They wouldn't
take me, but they threw a door. They always had a door there.
They knew just what was wrong with that door. They threw the
door up on the counter in the employment office, and give dad an
inspection of it and a piece of chalk. They said, "Mark up that
door; see what's wrong with it." Well, dad being a good... They
could feel it and they said, "Come on in." See, a lot of 'em
were trying to bluff their way in in those days. They needed a
job; they'd say they was a metal finisher, but they weren't.
Well, so dad went to work in 1930; then they had that big
strike. 'Cause I went to work with A & P Tea Company working
one or two days a week.
WEST: That was in Flint?
CREGAR: Flint, Michigan. Got three dollars and a half for
working Saturday. This went on until 1931. The big strike in
‘30 there...we had a strike in ‘30 but I wasn't in that.
WEST: Yes, that was Fisher 1, wasn't it?
CREGAR: Sure was. Oh, they had the mounted horses down there;
they had quite a time.
WEST: Was your dad involved in that?
CREGAR: No, my dad was very much a company man, much to my
disappointment. I'll tell you that later. Oh yes, he wanted me
to put cement in on week-ends free of charge and I said, "No
way, dad. I got to get money." For the superintendents, you
know; that's how he held his job. So in 1931, a gentleman come
in the A & P store where I was working, 3518 South Saginaw,
working for Charlie Rogers. He got a load of groceries--a big
box of groceries for $5.00. You know you waited on them in
those days. You didn't go and it was no self-serve. "May I
carry 'em out to the car?" He said, "Well, sure." He looked at
me kind of funny, you know. I was polite. I got out to the
car and put the groceries in the trunk. He said, "How would you
like a job at Fisher Body?" "Oh," I said, "sure would, but I'll
never get one. I'm only eighteen and I'm not married." My dad
was laid off and not working...forty-five my dad was, and I was
eighteen. "You come out to the front office Monday morning.
Don't line up." They were lined up
for ten blocks waiting to put in an application. "You come in
the front office and my stenographer (I know her just as
well...Benson) she'll meet you there in the lobby and she'll
direct you to my office." I went home that night from the A & P
and I told dad about this. Why he said, "You're crazy. I've
been lined up there. I'm a good man. I'm a good metallurgist.
You aren't gonna get no job." I said, "Well, I'm gonna try,
dad." Oh he laughed about that. I went in the front office.
The plant manager threw down a pad and said, "Write 1 to 10
there." And I wrote it down. "Well," he said, "you write
pretty good. We'll put you on in the Receiving Department, pays
forty-nine cents an hour. You work seven and a half hours, no
lunch hour. But you can take twenty minutes to eat your lunch,
and be paid for it." Well, I went home and I told Dad and then
I said, "Tomorrow morning I go to work." He said, "Are you
sure?" I said, "That's right." He didn't know what to think of
that. So I went on in to work. My dad here that had already
been working there, he was sitting home. You couldn't do that
today because the union would prevent it. He said, "You'll
advance up through the ranks." So I went in there at forty-nine
cents an hour. When their steel would come in, I would check
it...sizes, prepare a lift card identification card for each
amount of money, hang it on the bundle and put a receipt card in
the file with a stub and we'd know just what we had on the floor
at all times. That went on for quite awhile...’31, ‘32. ‘33 I
was laid off quite awhile. My dad, he was laid off more than
I was. And he didn't like it. When we talked about the union
he said, "You'd better not mention the word, you'll get fired."
And I said....
WEST: When was this that you talked "union"?
CREGAR: Oh, early, about ‘34 or ‘35. So it went on and on and
on. And then I came out of the receiving office and went into
the shears.
WEST: Shears...what?
CREGAR: Shear Department. We cut the material to various shapes
and sizes...and then sent it on to the press room.
WEST: Metal?
CREGAR: Metal...where they drew it on the die. And that's how
you get your panel. But it was rough. So I bought me a new ‘31
Chevrolet, my first car. Paid $710 for it. That was the price
of it, but I financed it. I owed those payments. I didn't want
to lose my job. I took a lot of...the foreman had the power to
hire and fire. There was no such a thing as seniority or length
of service. You could hire a new man off the street. And you
could work him on a Saturday and a man that had been there five
years like me, "You stay home; I'll tell you when to work. If
you don't like it, there's the door. We got men to replace
you." Well, I wanted that car paid for...’31.
WEST: What sort of foreman did you have?
CREGAR: Poor. He was one of the toughest ones. I'll get to
that later. After we organized, the management had a comment,
"You got a bargain with these men. We have a union in here
today." Right to the end he was a die hard. Well, you're
talking about foremen. In them days you couldn't tell the
foreman from the working man. Foreman didn't wear a tie, he
wore clothes...a work shirt and he was greasy. He did a lot of
work, you know; he was a driver. After the union came in we put
ties and white shirts on the supervision, see. You could tell
one when you went through. It says, "Foreman" on the shirt.
Anyway, so one thing led to another and I talked to Big Bert
Harris, great big two-hundred-eighty-pound one. He was our
first organizer. He was a head organizer; a great big, rough
man.
WEST: In your department, then at the shears?
CREGAR: Yes, right in the same department. He ran the big tong.
He told me, "You better get in the union, because if you don't,
you won't have a job here." So I said, "Okay, Bert." I was the
eighth member there to join.
WEST: When was this that you joined?
CREGAR: In the first part of ‘36. So we kept on but couldn't
get anybody. Everybody, no, they had a spy system set up in
there. I was approached one day by a man, John E. Richardson.
And he said, "How would you like to make a little extra money?"
I noticed he didn't have any friends; he was just kind of a
loner. "How would you like to make a little extra money?" I
said, "Why sure, John, what kind?" "Well I'll tell you what you
have to do. You carry a notebook of paper and pencil. You
write down anything you see. If you hear the words, you get
that man's badge number; try to get his name also. We meet once
a month at Frankenmuth for chicken dinner." Now that was
something. That was a dream in them days, when you were working
for forty-nine cents an hour. A chicken dinner was $1.25, see,
something you dreamed about having, but you never could afford
it.
WEST: We meet. Who did he mean by "we"?
CREGAR: All the stool pigeons, all the spies and management.
That's when you get your... He said, "It pays forty-five dollars
a month. Well, when you're only making seventeen a week, seven
times five...you're only making about seventeen fifty a
week...thirty-four, sixty-eight dollars a month and you get
another forty-five, that's pretty tempting. He said, "You're
deputized." He said, "Pull this back, here's a gun on me." He
said, "You carry a gun!" Well, I went home and told my dad. I
said, "Dad, I got a chance to..." He said, "What doing, to make
forty-five dollars a month extra?" Well I said, "Well, you just
keep track and make notes." I was a green kid; I didn't know
that was a stool pigeon!
WEST: This Richardson was just a worker, too. He wasn't a
foreman?
CREGAR: Oh, he worked with the men, but he had a checking job
where he could contact everybody. And what an easy job they had
him on. They had thousands of 'em in there.
WEST: He was checking, and what was his job?
CREGAR: Oh, his job maybe was to check the scrap on the line,
some job that was a stinking job. So anyway he was a...they
always kept 'em busy; they had a job to do. You couldn't tell
'em until they approached you, who they were. But it wouldn't
take you long; I could spot 'em by lookin' at 'em. So Dad said,
"Don't get involved with that, son; that's a stool pigeon,
that's a rat. Don't get involved in that. You better get your
mind off that union and don't take no job writing anything down
for that man." So I didn't take it. Later, when we had the big
strike we got a letter from management signed by John E.
Richardson, this stool pigeon, and Walter Sullins. They were
called "The Fisher Body Volunteers". They were urging every man
to come back to work and break the union. That didn't work
either. So it went on like that.
WEST: Now this union that you were involved in from early ‘36
on, that was the CIO union. Before that they had A F of L
unions. Did you get involved in A F of L?
CREGAR: Yes, the president of our A F of L, Plaz Carpenter,
became plant superintendent. See, the object after the strikes,
any labor trouble, you tried to get the leaders and get
supervision. That's a good way to try to break the union; but
it didn't work. So many of us knew both sides. We want a good
day's work, but we weren't gonna drive 'em like mules. We
weren't gonna demand soap and water. General things that man
expects... So anyway I'm getting up there, about ‘36. In ‘36
they'd passed a lot of laws. Governor Murphy. I'm
trying...it's just been so long my mind isn't...
WEST: Well, he would have been elected later as governor in
November of ’36, the same election Roosevelt won.
CREGAR: Yes. So we made up our minds, we had enough. We had
quite a few men but we didn't know how many. But no black, like
the Journal said. I didn't recall the black. I got the first
two black for Fisher l. I received the two black men...first
two black that ever worked there...in ‘42 when Roosevelt said we
had to employ ten percent. They sent me down Gil Hemphill and
Sam Kelly, two black. "Huh, the men said, "I'm not working with
him. Get me the committeeman." That's right after the company
became organized. And the committeeman came by and he told
these men of mine...that's a little ahead of the story...but
anyway he told us, he said, "Now look, the government says we
have to hire ten percent, you're going to have to work with
them; they're men also." So I got my first two colored men in
‘42. That would be a good year to talk about, too. So at
noon...I was on production...at noon, at eight-thirty we went
out and went across the street to the union hall. And Bert
Harris, boy, he was a funny fellow, if there ever was a national
leader...great big bull. He said, "We're gonna pull the sit-down
strike. We've notified all the units in the other plants.
We'll have it when we go back in on lunch hour. Don't go to
work. Just have every man sit down and shut off any machine you
see around you. Don't let anybody work." Well, we went back at
nine o'clock from lunch and some of them wanted to start the
machines.
WEST: That was second shift.
CREGAR: Yes, second shift. No way, we wouldn't let 'em run.
Boy, the boss come up to me and he said, "See what you've done
now!" He said, "Go on home." I said, "No, I'm not going home
and you aren't either until you get a pass from Bert Harris.
You can't even leave the plant until you get a pass from our
leader." We wouldn't let supervision go home. So we stayed in
there, which was wrong when you come right down to it, occupying
a plant.
WEST: Did you think it was wrong at the time, occupying
property?
CREGAR: No, I didn't, but I got to thinking afterwards that's
kind of wrong you know; that isn't fair to take over somebody's
property. I guess they can't do it today.
WEST: No, they can't. Could you have pulled a successful strike
without sitting in?
CREGAR: No, because it was only a handful of us. When Murphy
was to come in and push us out, the paper said twenty-seven.
But I was in there. They were going to storm that place, they
thought that we were armed and everything. We weren't armed
with guns. There was thirty-two of us in there.
WEST: That was in Fisher 1.
CREGAR: Yes, in ‘36, first part of ‘37. Right when they were
gonna throw us out. We only had thirty-two men in there
during...when they were gonna push us out. It would have been
no job at all; just thirty-two little men.
WEST: They didn't make the effort though, did they, at Fisher 1?
CREGAR: No, they just started to. We turned the hose. We got
the water hose down, washed anybody that come near there. That
was the only weapon we had, was the garden, I mean the high
pressure hose, fire hose. We could wash 'em out...put them hose
in the windows. There was only thirty-two men. You had to
drive the others. And oh, what a job it was. Now, here was
your problem.
WEST: Well, not everybody sat in, though, did they?
CREGAR: Oh, no, no. They go on home; the scabs go on home.
WEST: How did they decide who sat in and who left?
CREGAR: They didn't decide. The ones that didn't belong to the
union, we let 'em go home 'cause they was cryin'. But they
didn't belong to no union.
WEST: I see.
CREGAR: We let 'em go on home then. The union men stayed in.
WEST: The union men stayed.
CREGAR: And we let the supervision go on home. And we bargained
with them the following days and we left 'em...we give 'em a
certain man maybe for the powerhouse, what manpower they needed
to maintain the place so it wouldn't...we had to have it heated
'cause we were in there sleeping. We wanted the heat on. So we
give 'em that man. So then they brought them guards in; I
remember that. They didn't bring too many guards out to our
place. We were okay. Down in the Chevrolet area it was rough.
WEST: And at Fisher 2, when they had the Battle of the Running
Bulls.
CREGAR: So we went back to work and they still...some of them
supervision wouldn't accept it. Management had to give in. I
maintain yet that top management in General Motors are TOP.
It's the little guy down on the floor that's dealing direct.
Management don't know what's going on--higher management, all
the time. And they didn't know the conditions were like they
were. In fact, the late Bud Goodman, one of my favorites, he
became Vice-President of General Motors. Bud Goodman, he's dead
now. He played a tape and we had supervision. Every plant in
the United States had to go to this meeting...hear that tape.
Boy, I was at that meeting and, boy, some of them
supervision...oh, they hung their head. Bud Goodman said on the
tape, "We're living in a different era. We're dealing with men,
not mules."
WEST: When was this?
CREGAR: Oh, this was recently, about in the fifties. He said,
"Our employees today, our labor today some of 'em have two cars,
they send their children to college, they educate them. That
didn't happen in the old days 'cause you couldn't make a
livin'." He says, "They have boats; they want vacations. Now,
how would you like to stand in a puddle of oil and do your job?
When you see oil on the floor, get it cleaned up. When a man
wants a vacation, grant him a vacation; he's entitled to it.
You take one." Oh, he laid the law on all the... That was
right down my alley; I loved it! 'Cause that was the way I
wanted to run my men!
WEST: You were on supervision, then?
CREGAR: Supervision, yes. I'll tell you when I went on
supervision in just a moment. They tried everybody else.
Anyone who knew anything about the department, they didn't want
to. They put me on supervision.
WEST: When was this?
CREGAR: At the start of the war, in ‘41. And I'll tell you what
they did. They give me sixty men. They brought in carload
after carload of prime oak four by fours and the government paid
for it. They set up my table saws in my department. We were
gonna give all of our steel, prime steel, thousands of tons...I
don't remember the exact number...I did have it at one
time...the number of thousands of tons we sent. Now they give
me five checkers for the office, and we'd only been using one
checker, which later will lead up to why we had the second
strike when the war was over. We had an ordinance man standing
over the job the men were working. There was more men there
than you could handle, ten percent plus. I'd take a lift of
steel...for instance if I took a lift of roof steel, I'd take
the thickness .035 times 68 times 109 and a half, times .2904
which is a cubic weight, because of the weight of a cubic inch
of steel. I would get the weight of that sheet of steel...they
ran approximately 109 pounds, and I'd divide that into 4,000. I
had to reduce every bundle down to 4,000 pounds so they could
handle them on the boats going to Russia. Take a bundle of
doors, forty by fifty, .035 times 40 times 50 times .2904. So I
take a bundle of roofs that weighed twenty ton...at twenty ton I
was putting them in two ton bundles. I would get ten bundles,
then re-bundle them into ten bundles. Specifications were very
strict. You had to cut your four by fours. If the lift of
steel was over forty-eight inches you had to use three four by
fours. Like on the roofs, I'd cut, the men would have the four
by fours cut there with a forty-five degree angle on the end of
the fork. It had to be right; so it would be a little more like
a sled, so it would slide a little bit on the boat. Do you
follow me? Staple an inch and a quarter band on; it had to be
on the center of that four by four. They checked that out; it
had to be right. After you count your...you count ten sheets,
you put a metal tab, bend it down. You know how just every tab
there's ten sheets in between. You paint it with a rustproof
oil, which had an awful odor...a fishy odor. You put four
corner protectors...eight...one, two, three, four...one, two,
three, four on the bottom...cardboard. They even manufactured
them for us; they brought 'em in all ready. All you do is just
slip it on the corner. Then you wrap it in this wax paper and
they even told us where to crimp the seal on the bands, too.
Then I had one man...Hiram Day...I'll never forget him, he stole
enough of them diamond pencils from me. His job was to take the
diamond electric pencil that had little lead tags about this
wide and it had a slit in each end. You could put the band
through the slit and through this slit that's on the band; do
you follow me? On that tab he had to write...I'd prepare all
this information for him...or the clerks would in the office.
They would give him the contract number, everything, the size of
the steel, the number of sheets, the weight. Then that bundle
was ready to go to Russia. And they put 'em on the boats. I'd
put 'em on freight cars and also we shipped a lot of them by
truck. But during the meantime, I'm working seven days a
week...I worked three hundred sixty-five days every year out of
the war, whether there was anything to do or not. If I'd get
too far ahead, they'd fire me, maybe. Anyway, here's little
boxes. People outside don't know what's going on. Save your
old razor blades; we're short of steel. Save razor blades, when
I'm shipping thousands of tons to Russia! That was my first job
during the war. It took me one year to do this job. It took me
one year, seven days a week...that's Christmas and New
Year's...every day. It took one year to get that material out.
Then they started bringing more supervision in. Oh, man, so I
had Anderson...Andy we called him; I can't think of his first
name; he's dead. He lived in Lansing. A lot of the supervison
they go from way out of state to get them. Ship ours to some
other state and bring other states in. That's a cost there. So
Andy Anderson had the sprockets. His job was to put a sheet of
108's...47108, inch and a quarter, ten twenty steel...blue and
yellow. He had torches and he'd cut four sprockets at one. All
you do is trace this regular sprocket, you know and then he'd
get four out of that
sheet of 108 inches long. We made the sprockets in the tracks
up there in one end of my department. We mounted the seventy-five
millimeter gun on the turret and we shipped that to Grand
Blanc where they mounted it on the hull. We also made a lot of
parts of the hulls throughout the plant during the war. Then
briefly, right after the war in August of ’45, why, I had to lay
off my surplus checkers in the office. Went down to one, had to
move back to one; you had to put people to work. We had to get
General Motors back doing cars. That's when we had the big
strike. We hadn't worked in four years.
WEST: Can we go back to ‘37 now, the time of the strike? How
were things organized in the plant? You sat down how long, the
full time?
CREGAR: Yes.
WEST: You were in there the full time.
CREGAR: If you checked out you checked with one of your leaders.
We had a leader for every ten men. He knew who his ten men
were.
WEST: What did they call him...were they stewards then?
CREGAR: Yes, there was a steward for every ten men. If you
wanted to go home and get a good bath and a good meal, they
would give you permission, give you a pass out and to be back
here at a certain time. We would go through the window; we
tacked the doors with a weld so nobody could get in. We had a
lot of welders to do that, you know. I'd go home and have a
good meal.
WEST: So you went home; did you go home most every day then?
CREGAR: Oh, no, once a week. We'd have meetings every day and
tell them how the strike was progressing up in the office, you
know.
WEST: Did you have radios then in the plant?
CREGAR: Oh, yes, we had our radios in...no television...but we
had radios. And we all made blackjacks. There was no knives
made; knives were made through the war, but not during the
strike; we didn't think of knives. We didn't want any; we had
no arms. There was no arms that I know of in the Fisher 1.
They might have had 'em at other plants; I've heard there was.
So then when we come out, when we went back to work there was a
big change then.
WEST: You noticed a difference in the way the foremen treated
you?
CREGAR: Yes, but it was slow. They had to battle them. Some of
them die hard foreman, it was pretty hard. But they couldn't
call the men a Swede. They all chewed Copenhagen; we all chewed
Copenhagen. But I'll tell you. If the foreman's sitting by
you, you want to have your Copenhagen out. He got free
Copenhagen, got his house painted free, grass cut free and his
vegetables carried in in the summer. There was an awful trading
going on for the brown...we called them “brown-nosers.” Is that
all right for me to say that?
WEST: Sure.
CREGAR: All right. Here let me tell you about one man by the
name of Doc Boner, crane operator. Bought him an old hearse.
WEST: He was a worker?
CREGAR: Yes, a crane operator, hourly rate. But he was one of
the spies that the plant had hired. He went to Malden, Missouri
every weekend and bring back ten from Malden. He moved the
whole town of Malden up here. Now, I haven't anything against
the southerners. But I want to tell you. All right, all men
are created equal, but all men are not equal on the job. If the
company wants a hundred an hour, you might be able to do it with
ease. And maybe John Doe over here, he's got to work like the
devil and only get maybe ninety, ninety-five burning his heart
out. But at the end of the day, you know, I was on one job
there where production was a hundred, say, an hour. I'd
hear...see this big...I called them hillbillies, which they
were. He'd go over to the boss and say, "Maybe I can get you a
hundred and thirty tomorrow." And here I'm fighting to get my
hundred. Then he'd be after me. "Why can't you...this man over
here's getting a hundred and thirty now; we've raised the
production on this job." See they could do it. Foreman could
raise the production as they wanted. But Doc Boner went down
and finally he got arrested for not having a license. He didn't
have a license to haul that many. Now when he'd bring 'em up
here they'd go to the restaurant across the street to Turner who
would give 'em a two-week meal ticket. They had to pay. And
they'd charge them ten dollars to go across the street and get
the job. And they hired all these Missourians.
WEST: Who charged them?
CREGAR: Turner got ten dollars and Doc Boner got a kickback for
bringing them up. See, he would work Saturday and Sunday in the
plant. Then he would go down to Malden and bring ten more.
WEST: What did he bring them up in then?
CREGAR: Pile them in his hearse. My brother-in-law was along
and he come up. I haven't got anything against him, my brother-in-
law. And my sister married a fellow from Malden. They moved
the whole city up. Now they were good workers. Pretty soon I
put them on supervision. And they could drive like a mule.
It's all right, but they have a tendency to...first thing they
do...we wouldn't have asked. We'd wait until somebody come at
to you to come do the work for free of charge. But they would
ask, "Do you have any painting we could do?" They were the
hardest to get in the union. You couldn't get 'em to join the
union. They'd raise enough potatoes, go to work in the shop,
work until they couldn't walk, go home and have a big garden in,
so they could carry the bushels of tomatoes, potatoes, for the
supervision. We didn't; the northerners didn't. I could take
you over on 709 Frank Street where my dad...oh, him and I were
enemies for awhile...oh yeah, but it turned out...until he
inherited a lot of money, and then it quieted down. My dad
said, "How about helping me tomorrow?" I said, "What are you
going to do?" He said, "I'm going to put Bernard Benson's
driveway in." I said, "What does he pay?" He said, "Nothing."
He's superintendent out there. I said, "Well, that don't cut no
mustard for me." That was before the union got in; we didn't do
it after the union got in.
WEST: Did it pay off for your dad?
CREGAR: No, he worked for me. See, I went on supervision then.
He worked right up until he was sixty-eight. But he was a
production getter; he got his production right up until the end,
man, up until he was sixty-eight, good man. But his brother
died...when my dad was seventy-nine, his brother, ninety-two
died. Left seven hundred forty thousand dollars and there was
no heirs. And my dad got a nice slice.
And I come in on a nice...that's when I lost a lot of friends, I
mean from the higher-ups. Because I bought my first Cadillac in
‘71. And I was the only man in there driving it. I was not too
popular. My dad died when he was eighty-four. But he worked
for me. Boy he said, "Don't take it easy on me." He always
wanted me to be a laborer. When I got my first job in 1930 at
the A & P Tea Company he went in to Charlie Rogers and he said,
"Got a big boy here, strong as a bull. I'd like to get him a
job packing up potatoes in the back room." Charlie looked at me
and smiled and smiled. Well, Charlie said, "Mr. Cregar, I'm
going to give him a job, but I can't guarantee it will be
packing potatoes. I'll think I'll probably have him out here on
the counter, working and waiting on people." Dad didn't say
anything; but he always had me figured as a laborer. He always
wanted to get me a job as a laborer. When I went on supervision
he said, "You better think it over, you know." He never...he
worked like a dog...he came from an old German family that were
hard workers and that's the way he thought everybody ought to do
it. No supervision, stuff. Funny that we pass everything on.
WEST: What was his attitude when you sat down in the plant?
CREGAR: He didn't like it, but then he joined and became quite a
union man afterwards. You had a lot of good union men
afterwards. But they were no good before. We had to make the
road! See.
WEST: Yes, but after you struck, in February of ‘37, you got a
lot of people to join. Did you have to persuade people?
CREGAR: Yes, quite a few. But the company then notified them;
or the company notified them they'd be fired if they didn't.
WEST: But that was later, wasn't it?
CREGAR: Oh, they hated that. Some of them people from Malden,
Missouri.
WEST: Did you notice how guys were recruited into the union
afterwards? Did they have to use any persuasion to get some of
the tough ones in?
CREGAR: Yes, the toughest one we had I didn't do it myself,
because I was on supervision. No, just getting ready to...they
had me on a clerical job where I had...I took my withdrawal card
to the union. I wasn't on supervision; I was on a salary job.
See I had had various jobs. Had dispatching jobs, which was
like an assistant foreman. But the last one to join the union
was John E. Richardson, the one that approached me and wanted me
to be a stool pigeon. And I didn't see it, but I heard that
they drug him down the durn railroad track by rope. They got
him out of there. They said, "Outside, if you can't join the
union, outside." And he came back in and joined. He joined,
but he wouldn't wear a button after it was recognized.
Everybody put your union badge on. You paid up for the month;
every month they had a different color when you paid your dues.
He never would wear one; he was definitely against it. 'Cause
he was getting forty-five dollars a month on the side he thought
that's the way life should be. But he was wrong.
WEST: Did some of the men, after the strike, pay off old scores,
you might say, against some of the foreman?
CREGAR: No, they couldn't. I could have myself. My foreman was
a Polish fellow. Tobeloch. He couldn't read or write, couldn't
talk too good. He give me a lot of verbal orders when I was on
the shears."Cut this here forty-tree and tree-sixteenths, but
he'd break his language. I'd say, "What did you say Joe?" Oh,
and he'd cuss me out. "God damn it, can't you understand
English?" I said, "Yes, Joe, but you got a little accent; I
can't quite get it." Oh, I taught him how to make J. R. so he
could sign his name with J. R. After the strike, supervision
had some things to do...that paper work involved. You had to
write up a grievance. You had to write an exit pass. You had
to do this and that. And we lost a lot of our supervision that
couldn't read and write. They were drivers, but they couldn't
write and read. That made openings for the men that could, that
had an education. And he came back to work for me but he
treated me like a dog. But I never took it out on him. No, I'm
not like that. And I've had some of the supervision. Oh, he
was so dumb. They had him on supervision and the
superintendent, he had a house right back behind where there's a
parking lot now...a little house he paid twenty-three hundred
for it. Jack Tie, the superintendent would go home at noon to
have his dinner at home, a hot meal, the superintendent. And
Joe would have to sit down and eat his lunch out of the lunch
box. He'd go home and eat with Joe's wife at lunch hour. Joe
made Dago red wine; he was a very good wine maker. So Joe, he
stayed on supervision because he couldn't read and write. But
he could make good wine. And he furnished it. You had to have
a gimmick like that. That's the way they operated. Then after
the strike, there's a lot of men couldn't handle it because you
had exit passes to make. You had to write a man's name on it,
his badge number, sick, and send him home. Before the strike
you didn't have that stuff.
WEST: You had the steward system then, didn't you, after the
strike?
CREGAR: Yes, the stewards. And then after that they called them
committeemen.
WEST: Were they the same?
CREGAR: Same thing. It's the same thing.
WEST: I understood that stewards had fewer men to supervise.
CREGAR: No, you had a steward for so many employees and
afterwards they called them committeemen. They were the same
thing. We had some awfully smart men in that union. Johnny
Orco, he came in the same time I did in ‘31. He and I were the
only two that hired in that ‘31. That was a rough year. I
don't know who he knew. But you had to know somebody to get in
that year. And very few men carry the seniority date of ‘31.
That was a slow year. Johnny Arker, our president that just
retired from Fisher Body was a...came in in ‘31. Had a fine
fellow. The company offered him supervision, Larry Huber. But
he later went to the international and got a big job, paid big
money.
WEST: Did you keep your job steady from ‘31 on?
CREGAR: Yes.
WEST: That was unusual, wasn't it, during these depression years
when people were out of work?
CREGAR: Well, now wait a minute; let me interrupt here and tell
you this. I had forty-one years when I retired...forty-one
years and nine months. Well, they beat me out of the... My
birthday is the thirteenth of October and they...
WEST: 1914?
CREGAR: No, I was born in 1912. My birthday was October
thirteenth and they retired me as of October first, which beat
me out of a year's seniority. Okay. So I only had forty-one
years and nine months. But the old rule used to be...in fact,
let me explain it to you like this. ‘32 was a slow year and I
only worked two months. But I got a year's seniority for that.
Providing you're not off, you get up to a year to come back
after they call you back, even before the union come in. See I
got a year's seniority. Now, they got that after the union was
in. But you see now, in ‘33 I was laid off for six months. I
went to Florida and was taking pictures. We'd take pictures,
developed them ourselves, this friend of mine and I. They were
nine by twelves. Take them home and develop them and go back
and deliver them. We were taking pictures all through the
South. And I got a telegram to come in to work. My room was on
North Rampart, in New Orleans. I come home that night and
noticed a telegram which said, "Come to Flint immediately to
work." And, boy, we started off and I drove right straight
through from New Orleans to Flint. That was in ‘33.
WEST: You'd been laid off then.
CREGAR: Yes, I'd been laid off for about three or four months.
Then, I went on salary in ‘34, ‘35. I never lost a day since
then. I've had a paycheck coming in. All my time's been in one
department, the stamping unit. I've had forty-one years and
nine months. I've seen 'em come and go. I've carried a lot of
legs to the hospital.
WEST: I was going to ask you about that stamping job. Now in
the years
before the strike, particularly. Was it a dangerous job?
CREGAR: Very dangerous, because they didn't have safety
equipment. After the union, we got organized and the union
forced some safety measures. They woke up. We still lost some
things because men would disobey the safety measures. For
instance, we had a tripod with two buttons on it, in front of
the press, about waist level. The man put his steel in and
touched the two buttons and the press would turn over. If he
took either hand off the button, the press would stop. This man
was running the instrument panel line. And it's a very touchy
one because in those days, the forty-nines and fifties, we had a
stencil put on the instrument panel sheet at the factory. It
looked like a wood grain; looked like a piece of wood. And you
drew it upside down; the finished part was on the top; where
most panels you draw them, the finished side was on the bottom
when the punch goes on. We had a girl that painted oil on this;
we had to be very careful because if you got a dingum (sic) on
them instrument panels you can't finish that grain. You
couldn't get it back the way it was. It had to be perfect. So
he had a pimple on the instrument panel on the die on the punch.
And he took his hand right off. The press stopped right there;
and he reached in like this to wipe it off and when he did, the
chest touched the other button and it pressed him out like this
piece of paper, head and all. So, then we came along, company
passed a rule "all palm buttons will be eye level." When you
send a man to the press, the first thing he does is look and
adjust them; they go up and down; they have to be your eye
level. Because if you take your hand off you can't have them up
to your body. So we've had a lot of fingers, a lot of hands,
and then we've guarded everything. We have a good set up there
now.
WEST: But you didn't have any of that before the strike.
CREGAR: No. I'll give you an illustration. I was working on a
toggle. They always farmed me out; I don't know why. If some
department needed a man, out I'd go. Put me on a "C" line with
Bert Harris, our union leader was running it.
WEST: Was this before or after the strike?
CREGAR: This was before the union. Now, a big toggle...you've
never seen one, I don't presume. It's about a little bit bigger
than these two rooms and it's two stories high with one story in
the basement. It's a big machine. When you press your turret
over, the binder comes down and that holds the metal all around
the edges. And then the punch comes home in the center to make
this stroke and that presses the panel out. Now, it takes four
men...it took four men in them days; today they run it with one
man because we got everything automated. Two men put this big
quarter panel sheet in and two men have to reach in that die
with a pick, prick it loose because see the finished side's
underneath that when the punch comes home and shapes it like the
quarter panel in your car. There's only one operator, big Bert
Harris. They got ten cents more on the hour. He had a great
big lever and boy he wanted to make his money. He had so many
to run when he had his production. And he was good. One time I
slipped; oh, I just barely got my arm out, almost lost it. He
come back, cussed me out and said, "Get her out of there or
you'll lose it; I'm not turning this thing off. We're running
this on the hop or I don't make my money." Here's four men with
their arms and face and head into that die; and only one man
could control the lever. What if he should be talking with you?
He occasionally had his back to the press. Two in the front
putting the sheet in and two on the back, you got to get 'em
out. Now when we run the deck lid inners, we ran an inner and
outer together when the die was big enough it had two separate.
The inner was a little harder to get out. It was crinkled more;
it didn't have to be a finished panel. The outer, you had to be
real careful with it, because that was the outside of your deck
lid, trunk lid. When that inner goes on, you weld that together
and its hard; and there you got the complete deck lid, the inner
and the outer put together. I didn't get mine out a couple
times on the deck lid outer 'cause I didn't want to scratch it
taking it out. And he ended up just coming too fast. And I
pulled my hand back out. And of course, you can do a little
damage to the die, then. If the operator don't turn it off, it
turns on over and it don't do the die any good. But it was a...
WEST: Did it go automatically then?
CREGAR: If you don't pull that lever, it's automatic. It just
goes right on over, makes it cycle, the punch comes down
first...I mean the binder, and then the punch comes on down home
and goes back up. And you gotta get it out 'cause there's
another sheet going right in...just continuous runs; they're
dangerous. But we got everything pretty well; when I retired
eight years ago, everything was in pretty good shape. But we
lost a lot of hands and a lot of fingers. But the worst one was
when Gilchrist got his bolster plate; he lifted it up wrong; it
was partly his fault. There was four big holes in this bolster
plate, six inches thick, and it's bigger than these two rooms,
weighs several ton...sixteen ton, maybe. He put a pin, a die
pin, twelve inches long, about that big around in this hole, on
this corner and this corner. He put the chain in around that
pin here under here, took the bolster plate up and it tipped
some way and fell out of the chain. It took his leg off here.
I had to take that leg with me down to the hospital. That's
when I was on supervision.
WEST: Was that one of the things that the union was fighting for
then, better safety?
CREGAR: Safety...and we wanted seniority rates and fairness. We
wanted...on overtime work, we wanted it divided up so it was
equal. When it come your turn, you got it. You didn't give it
to the fair haired boys that raised the potatoes and painted the
houses. That's all we wanted.
WEST: I understood that the union originally was talking about a
thirty-hour week, too, weren't they?
CREGAR: Oh, not for years later. They have here...oh, not until
way, way later. They never wanted a thirty-hour in those days.
No, I never remember that. Here recently they got one. They're
out of line now; I think way out of line. Like, they want
dental care, they want this. They want dental care; they want
the cars. I think they're going way overboard. I think General
Motors is a good place to work, now. You can't beat it. But I
think there's got to be...they got to stop sometime. It's going
too far. Makes it hard on the little man, you know. See, a
super for General Motors, I guess, gets eight and a half an
hour.
WEST: Yes. Did you know Bud Simon, in Fisher 1?
CREGAR: Yes, he was in there when we was in the sit in. Bud
Simons, yes. I knew the Reuthers, Walter and Victor.
WEST: What sort of a fellow was Bud Simon as a leader?
CREGAR: Well, he's dead now, isn't he?
WEST: No, I think he's still alive, out in California, in fact.
CREGAR: Well, he was more on the Communistic side. I don't know
if he got his education in Russia or not, but the Reuthers did.
They went to Russia and went to school there. Did you know
that?
WEST: I know they were there for awhile on a trip.
CREGAR: He was very radical. He was one of the...he would
encourage them on, even though there was only thirty-two of us
that night. We won't leave. He was very radical.
WEST: Did you notice much of that radicalism in the plants and
around? Did people talk to you about joining the party?
CREGAR: No, they never talked to you about it, no, no, no. They
never talked to me about it. And they...I might tell you.
Here's one group I'd like to see organize. And I say my
experience is being on supervision. I would have joined the
union in a minute if they'd only organize. No, you couldn't get
any of 'em to do it.
WEST: Foremen, you mean.
CREGAR: Yeah, now here's why. General Motors does not want
their supervision to show the other man his paycheck. You
cannot tell the other man what you make. There's a reason for
that, you see. It
shouldn't be a secret. We know what the governor makes; we know
what a congressman makes. Now, but us fellows didn't do it like
they wanted us to do. I called my buddy over, you know, Bob
Morris went on five, six years after me. Wasn't doing near as
good a job as I was. "How much do you get Bob?" He said,
"I'll tell you what I get; don't repeat it." That's when I
was...salary was real low...I was only getting $319. He said,
"I get $412." I go over to the next guy, Beachey...Telek
Beachey. Go over to him, "What do you get?" $463. I'm getting
$319 and the oldest supervisor that's in there. See I wasn't, I
didn't...I leaned a little, I mean I give a man a fair...I
wouldn't...put it this way: I treated a man like I want to be
treated. Get a man down, I don't want to walk on him, you know.
They noticed, I was kind of a union sympathizer. I wanted a man
to have a fair deal.
WEST: Do you think it counted with management that you had been
in the sit-down strike?
CREGAR: That's right. And that's the reason I was the lowest-paid
foreman, and the oldest.
WEST: You said they didn't want to put you on supervision.
CREGAR: They brought a man in by the name of Rudy Rupp from St.
Louis and they tried Bob Samuelson as superintendent of material
handling. And finally they said, "Well, we'll give it to
Cregar." And everything run like a top. But I want to tell you
what it did. All this time that I was grieving inside me on my
salary I had charge of the second shift, four 'til twelve-thirty,
had identical manpower and ran the same machines. And
on days they had a superintendent and two foreman. I did the
same work as three men on days...identical same work. I run
the slitter, run all the shears, all the decarders, and I got
less money than they got. Couldn't do anything about it; I
asked for an increase. I didn't turn in too many of them. You
see, for the supervision you turn in better methods, the more
better methods you turn in, if you can eliminate manpower, you
get a raise. Well, I just...I'll tell you what I found out a
long time ago. The more you give 'em the more they expect.
Please them, give 'em what they want, but don't try...if they
want two hundred on a job and you try, say well I'm going to try
to get you two fifty, it's going to make it that much harder for
you. A lot of men can't get that many. I told you there's a
difference in manpower.
WEST: Thinking of supervision in the period before the strike.
How did a man get to be a foreman?
CREGAR: The biggest suck-ass. He didn't have to have any
education. All he had to do is be a driver. But he had to know
a little bit about the job. You see, when I was running a shear
before the union came in, if your blade got dull on the shear,
you go down to the crib. The foreman will tell you, "You go
down to the crib, get a thirty-six inch pipe wrench and your
sledge hammer and your blade." And you get eighty-nine cents
for changing that blade. You did your own machine repair
work. Now after the union come in you don't touch a shear; we
had classifications. Labor was classified. Machine repairmen
would change that blade. They'd move you to another job. Now,
if you need an electrician, we'd have an electrician come down.
You had a line where you could go. Foreman could not work and
take a man's job.
WEST: But they did before.
CREGAR: Oh yes. Now a machine repairman...if you have trouble,
we had what we called the bull pen. There's one man, one below
us for machine electrician, two for machine repair, three for
something else and four was for pipe fitter. Whatever you have
trouble, that man goes right to the bull pen and he'll blow the
horn and wait there. And here comes the repairman and he'll
tell him what machine he's on and they come and fix it. Before
you was a jack of all trades. There was no...see pipe fitter,
machine repair paid more money than a shear operator. Then
after the union come in, we didn't have to do that. We didn't
have to change our own blades. You got to work within your
classification.
WEST: In Flint, at the time just before the strike, there was a
group known as Black Legion apparently in town. Did you know
anything about that group?
CREGAR: Not a thing, no, not connected with the union in any way
to the best of my knowledge.
WEST: Well, I had heard that some of them were out to get union
sympathizers, union people and so on.
CREGAR: No, I never heard a thing about that. I never saw or
heard anything about it. No, and then, boy today we've even
got...you see today... I went to the front office and I told
them what I thought about my wages. "Look, I've been on this
job twenty years." "You know," I said, "with an hourly rate
man, we have a hiring in rate...twenty cents below the rate of
the job. You work thirty days on there and if you're doing the
job, good job, trying and making an effort, you get ten cent
raise in thirty days. You work another thirty days; in sixty
days you get the top rate of the job. All right, on foreman,
supervision you don't do that." They'll tell you what your top
rate is. You have a top rate for a foreman, say would be
between...well, let's use a figure of a thousand and fourteen
hundred. Well, say, if I'd be working at a thousand a month and
here's the rest of them get their fourteen... I asked them this,
"Why don't you do this with me?" 'Cause I had money; I didn't
care. I had money. I said, "Why don't you do this? Why can't
we have it like this? If a man comes on a job...foreman...and
even after six months, if he can't do the job, he isn't worth
the rate of the job, why don't you replace him and get somebody
that can do it?" Oh, no, they couldn't do that. I was doing a
three man job, see. I said, "I've done this job now for ten,
twelve, fifteen years, maybe." I quit hollering after dad died;
I had bought my five Cadillacs, and I had a little resort up at
Gaylord. I got my cars at twenty-five off, you know. I got the
same discount as the other supervision. But I made more up
there than I made here on my job. See, we drove for funerals
from West Branch north. Seventy dollars every time we drove.
My daughter drove, my wife drove. And if we have the drivers we
had, we could get a good driver, an elderly man that had the
clothes and dress up pretty good, be clean, neat, polite to
drive. You drive the relatives to bring them back to the
funeral. I'd pay a driver twenty and I'd get fifty for each car
they used. And I kept a limousine for myself. I'd drive a
Fleetwood now; and that didn't go over too good, you know. The
rest of 'em buying them little tinny Buicks; I'm buying the big
stuff, you know. I've been with General Motors. My first car I
had in ‘31. And we counted up the other day and I've had sixty-three
new cars.
WEST: Oh, my goodness.
CREGAR: Sixty-three new ones. Now I've had everything. But I
was playing cards in the Elks one night and Moorehead, he's got
the Lincoln, Mercury and Ford distributor. He said, "When am I
going to get you in a good car?" And I had four Cadillacs then.
I said, "Whenever you can beat the price." I said, "I'm a
General Motors, I buy from General Motors; I get a discount. I
think they're a better car. But I'll tell you what I would do,
Howard. If I could get a Lincoln Continental limousine,
equipped like my Cadillacs, Fleetwoods, with all the equipment
on and less money, I might try one of 'em." Golly, he was
drinking that night and I was beatin' the hell out of him in
poker too. Anyway, next day I went into Moorehead’s and this
was after I retired. I went to Moorehead’s and he said, "I'll
set you in the Lincoln Town Car...one was black, full leather
interior. The other Cadillacs were velour. But I found out the
leather is a little better to wipe off with all them people.
Black leather, full equipment, rear window defroster, deluxe,
everything deluxe on it...black, black paint, half leather roof,
and I want the little coach light...everything like that on the
Cadillac. He put me in one for ninety-three. And my last
Cadillac I'd bought up there I paid ten, seven with my discount.
I got this one for ninety-three. So I took one Lincoln. But
you know them darn morticians, if they don't have a couple
limousines say, "Be sure and bring the Lincoln." They all like
that black Lincoln. It was a nice car. Then so I thought, well
wait a minute. I'm going to get me a little sport car to drive
around. So I got me a Mark V, ‘77. It was a nice car. I'd
always had El Dorados. But on Fords, here's the reason I like
them better; all your controls are on the arm rest. On a
Cadillac if you want to adjust the seats, you got to take your
hand down here on the floor and you can't see which way; you
can't read the directions. But on a Marks or on any Ford you
just push the button. I like his cruise control better, but
General Motors copied it. Cruise control is right on the
steering wheel; you just use your thumb on it.
WEST: Nice.
CREGAR: And another thing I liked about it, in my experience
with two Lincolns; I only had two. I've always criticized
General Motors on that entrance; you know on the floor, right
where you step in, right the first thing when you open the door,
twenty-three thousandths and it's like tissue paper and it's
aluminum. Fisher Body emblem, see. It's a strip of chrome,
goes right on the floor; holds the carpeting down there, you
know. But on Ford he's got a nice piece of quarter inch and
it's chrome, and big piece of thick corrugated rubber they
inserted in there with nice chrome screws...a much better
entrance system. Just certain things that I like better on the
Lincoln than General Motors.
WEST: Were you...you weren't married then, at the time of the
strike?
CREGAR: No, not in ‘36. I was married during the big strike we
had in ‘46, right after the war.
WEST: Now after the strike was over, there was some other
activity in Flint, I understand, in the summer of ‘37...other
strikes in which the UAW played some role. Do you recall
anything?
CREGAR: No, I can't recall. There were so many. We had a lot
of flare-ups due to not being able to get together and following
the rules on the contract.
WEST: I was going to ask you about these wildcat strikes that
took place.
CREGAR: Yes, there was quite a change and people had to get used
to it. And some of them...I think then that the company was at
fault at most of it and brought it on. Because the men followed
the contract. They had smart men there and they knew what they
had coming. And the company wouldn't give it to you that way.
We got seniority rates. We have a list and the oldest man gets
to work. No, you divide the hours and we'd have equalization of
hours. Even though the oldest man, he's five hours ahead. You
take the next man that's in line. You equalize overtime.
Because when you get ready to lay off just because you don't
like a guy, you can't lay him off. You go by service, length of
service, which is only fair.
WEST: From reading the newspapers, I get the impression that in
the summer of ‘37, now there was a flurry of activity. Penney's
was on strike and some UAW people, I guess, took part in trying
to organize, make Flint a hundred-percent union town. That was
the phrase that was used.
CREGAR: Yes, there was a lot of that going on. And oh, that
went fast and everybody, they start organizing. Oh man, you got
the fire departments, police department, teachers, everything
organized.
WEST: And there was a strike against auto dealers. You were
involved in cars. I wonder if you know about this?
CREGAR: No, I don't. I don't recall that. I remember that old
$995,
Boy, for years there, that old Buick; they just kept it under a
thousand. You know I got my first new one after the war. I had
a man by the name of Eugene Miller. He's superintendent out
there now, president of the NAACP. He went on relief and was
gone thirty minutes. He was gone an hour and a half. Boy, I
cried to the...I told him when he come back, "You're taking too
long; you're abusing the privilege." Got with the
superintendent and I said, "I got to have more relief men."
"What's the matter?" I said, "Miller took too long." He said,
"Write him up." I said, "I did." I wrote it up that I talked
to this man, that he took too long for relief. Well, he said,
"They don't all finish at the same time. Did you ever run track
in high school?" All A student at Northern High, he'd be a
brilliant man. So he said, "You'll never make it stick." I
said, "That's all right." Took it in to the office. Good. Few
weeks later he come out and said, "Merrill, you know that write
up you made on Eugene Miller?" And I said, "Yes." He said, "We
tore it up." I said, "How come?" "Well," he said, "he might
have had diarrhea." I said, "He's no good and you know it!" So
Eugene waved at me as I come through the plant, smiling. So I
had two little Indian boys working for me...Les Walters and Jim
Walters, nice fellows. Did me a good job. I told Jim, "I'm
gonna take relief set from them." He said, "I know just what
you mean. Now just let us take care of it." Afternoon, why
they went on relief, and they came back in an hour. I went back
in; I got it on that. "What's the matter?" I said, "That damn
jet diarrhea is going around." White man! If a colored man can
get an hour and a half relief, on my job, a white man can. I
don't mistreat 'em, but they only get fair play.
WEST: When was this incident?
CREGAR: Let's see, he went on superintendent in the die room.
Now he has a big job now, Eugene Miller. All A, he was a
valedictorian in Flint. Eugene Miller, former president of the
NAACP, atheist, wouldn't contribute nothing. I asked him what
church he went to. “We don't go to church; we don't believe in
it.” I ran into him coming home from Las Vegas. Met him on the
plane in Cleveland. I said, "What's your job now?" Oh, he
said, "I'm a special assignment; I visit all these plants and
review the die rooms." And he was nothing but a trouble maker.
WEST: You mentioned Buick as being...
CREGAR: Buick was a very good plant. They didn't have near the
trouble we had at the Fisher 1. I've heard reports over there.
Even the committeemen parked inside, like supervision. They
were really...I never heard any report on 'em before the strike,
pre-union days. But after the union come in, the Buick got an
awful good name. And it's like I say...
WEST: They were harder to organize, apparently, than Fisher.
The union made some impact in Fisher 1 and Fisher 2. But
apparently not in Buick.
CREGAR: Not at Buick; I don't know. I think that was the way it
more or less was. But Buick was...Fisher 1 was trouble. I
think it was due to inexperienced supervision hauling them in.
Not that I have nothing against southerners, but they're
drivers. And they expect more than a man could do. That's my
thinking. But I don't want this put out for this reason. Some
of these illustrations I'm giving you, they know just who it
would be. Let me give you another illustration I had to put up
with. Made me bitter; it's the reason I retired early. Plant
Superintendent's name was Ed Reid. Prior to the union, in the
twenties, ‘27, ‘28, and 1930, he and Ed and my dad finished
metal together in the metal shop. My dad hated him because he'd
work through lunch hour. Wouldn't even eat when the rest of the
men went out for a half hour lunch period. He'd try to get
another quarter panel through lunch. They got paid by the piece.
They later put him on foreman and he rose to plant
superintendent of that job. So, he never liked me, cause him
and my dad had battled. He took that out on me. But anyway,
this one night my plant superintendent on the second shift,
Johnny Gann came along and said, "Merrill, run three of your
decarters there over to two-thirty, overtime." That was when
Linda was born. That was in fifty-three, and boy things were
tough. Oh, money was scarce then! My salary was way down. I
was very happy to get a couple of hours overtime. So I said,
"Do you want me to keep my dispatcher?" "Yes, yes, you stay."
This was about eleven o'clock. About twelve fifteen, or ten
minutes after twelve, he come out and he said, "Say, Merrill,
you go home twelve thirty." And I said, "Do you want my men to
stay without a foreman?" He said, "That's right." I said,
"Okay, pretty God damned cheap." That's what I told him,
"pretty cheap." Me stay home; I supervise these men eight
hours, I should be able to supervise them for ten hours. So I
went up to the restroom about twenty-five after twelve, just
before twelve thirty. I'd be all done and tell them. I washed
my hands. He come in and he said, "Now what will you be running
now between twelve thirty and two thirty?" I said, "Johnny, I'm
not a mind reader; I won't be here. I don't know what my men
might be setting down. I can tell you what I'm running now."
He said, "Don't you get smart with me." I said, "I'm not
getting smart. I'm telling you, I don't know what they're gonna
do between twelve thirty and two thirty; I won't be here." So I
told them what they were running now. Next night I come in.
And my superintendent there, Bill Falk, said, "We have to take
you to resolve this right now." I said, "Okay." "Sit down," he
said. Johnny Gann wasn't there, but Bill Falk was there to
witness the interview. He said, "I hear you think this place is
pretty cheap; you made that statement last night to Johnny
Gann." I said, "That's right, Ed." I said, "I have to pay the
same price for pork chops as these men of mine. When they work
overtime and I stay home they make more money than me." "Well,"
he said, "why don't you quit?" I said, "I can't, Ed." Said to
me why couldn't I quit; I had over twenty-five years service at
that time. So one word led to another and he said, "You know,
if I'd been here last night, you would have been fired." Not
really, I don't think the top General Motors would have fired
me, because it was a true statement. So he told me then, fifty-three,
"You go back there. You're the same as a new man.
You'll be given no consideration for promotion, no increases in
pay as long as I'm here." Bless his heart, he lived right up
until I retired, before he died. And I never got an increase.
Now that's...see, I had no representation, no union. I sent it
to the union and supervision... And I never got an increase.
But you know, I said, I put it to him like this, I said, "Ed,
look, let's talk sense, now. Be sensible about this. You know
we've had a lot of accidents back there. That's a bloody place
back there. We lost a lot of fingers; we had a man electrocuted
back there." I said, "What if one of mine would get hurt? I'm
home in bed, twelve thirty. One of my men about one thirty gets
hurt, how's it going to look? No supervisor." He said, "You
let us worry about that." I had a point, see, sensible point.
And you know, he kept his word. And the rest of them smiled.
They said, "Well, you didn't get a raise, did you?" They said,
"We did." I didn't get a raise then until I retired. I mean,
when I retired I seen a nigger downtown that worked for me and I
asked him what he got. He was getting a hundred dollars more
than me, a supervisor. Forty-two years. If my dad and my uncle
hadn't died, why, that took care of me.
WEST: You say that your folks were German.
CREGAR: Yes, my grandmother, Emma Beck. My grandmother, they
had the Becks buried, too, over in Germany. That's when Dad got
his big settlement. See Grandma Beck's maiden name was Beck, or
I mean her name was Beck. She married my dad's father, Reuben
Cregar. And her relatives, they disowned her when she came to
Germany and married Dad. But they later were friendly. And
then when the Becks bury the head man, Grandma's brother,
whoever it was...some relative of hers; her maiden name was
Beck. When he died, of course, Grandma Beck was dead and dad
got quite a large sum of money.
WEST: But your father was born in the United States, then?
CREGAR: Yes. He was born right after Reuben and Emma came to
this
country, 1885. He would be a hundred years old today, or no,
ninety-five. Ninety-five. Good man, very good man. But dad
was a good worker. They love him; he was one of the best.
WEST: And he was working in...that was Indiana they had auto
production
there in Indiana.
CREGAR: Well, he started in Indiana. He came to Flint in ‘30.
Homer Campbell. I had a brother-in-law that worked at Fisher
Body. Albert Hisson came up from Ohio and got a job in metal
finishing out there where dad was in the thirties. And the
stool pigeon out there...his name was Art Roberts. He lived at
Fenton. His job at lunch hour, you mingle with the men eating
their lunch; you get anything. Art Roberts made the remark
to...something about Homer Campbell was the superintendent who
later came back and was my understudy. I had to teach him to
run my job as foreman. Homer Campbell was the superintendent,
and Rudy Penner. Art Roberts made the statement, "You know,
Homer's a prick." Albert said, "He sure as hell is." Whistle
blew; they went back to work at twelve o'clock. And Homer come
out and said, "I got your money for you; you're done." Hired and
fired. Now that was Roberts' job to see look around and see who
didn't like Homer. And so you know what Albert did. They put
on the relief, so he was unable to finish metal; he was an
excellent metal finisher. Best thing that ever happened to him.
He went to Frigidare. And see, General Motors, they didn't
inquire what your records were in them days like they do today.
If you're blackballed at one plant you're blackballed all over.
He went down to Frigidare, hired in, and they put him on
supervision over the metal finishers on Frigidares,
refrigerators. He got a good job by getting fired there by Rudy
saying... But Albert called him like he saw it. He didn't know
to go back, you know. Went right back the same day.
WEST: Did you take your lunch when you were working? Did you
take your lunch at the work place or did you go to a restaurant?
CREGAR: No, I took my lunch. QT was a great place across the
street. They had meal tickets and they had a dozen different
gimmicks. A lot of 'em went out to eat, but I eat inside.
WEST: Did you talk union much with the men in the period before
the strike?
CREGAR: Not prior to the strike. Oh no, oh no; you'd be fired
if they even heard the word. They uncovered the largest
spies...it was all in the paper there in ‘30, I mean in ‘37.
And they warned...General Motors don't use it anymore. They had
the big spy system throughout the plants in the country. They
were afraid; they knew this was coming. They could read between
the lines. They had men listening. If you even heard the word
union, you would get his name and number and it was out the
door.
WEST: Did they have Pinkertons then, people from outside?
CREGAR: No, well, whoever they had, they had them all in there
working. Homer, you know, Homer Campbell, this man that came
back to Fisher. You know before the union came in, you know he
was one for supervision, only. He would travel around different
plants. He told me; he said, "You know what I used to do, my
first job for General Motors? I was a stool pigeon." Homer
Campbell. He'd go around in the different plants. And at lunch
hour go up in the foreman's room; we had a separate lunchroom.
And he'd listen to everything said. And he reports to the
Detroit, the head office, who he hears speak of union, anything
good about it. There was even spying on their own supervision,
oh, yeah. That was a nasty word.
WEST: Some of the stoolies in Fisher 1 would go to Frankenmuth
and have dinner.
CREGAR: Oh yes. And get your pay of forty-five dollars. And I
never joined; oh, no, dad said, "That's a stool pigeon. Don't
get in that. Do 'em a good job!", which I did! But see, I went
in there, I went on supervision as a foreman and I stayed on
there and I retired as a foreman. I was never promoted. The
only one in there that wasn't.
WEST: What would have been the next step up?
CREGAR: General foreman. They went and got a man from another
department that didn't know beans about the job. And oh, did I
lay 'em on, I said, "How cheap are you birds? I know this job.
Who took care of this job when the superintendent's on vacation?
I did, I've proven myself." He'd go for a month. They'd give
us five weeks; we had five weeks vacation. He'd be gone; I took
care of the department and run it but Ed Reid said, "That man
will be given no consideration," and I never was.
WEST: Must have left you pretty bitter.
CREGAR: Yes, bitter, yeah. "Does your wife work?", Ed Reid said
to me. I said, "No, I support my own family." You know I
retired just three months too early. If I'd only worked three
months. I retired ’72, on October first. My birthday was the
13th; I lacked twelve of getting that other year. They shoved
me out of there on the first. And, boy, everybody said, "You
lucky son of a gun." January first they offered them all one
year's salary in advance and give 'em a full retirement, if
they'd retire. See they had a surplus of manpower and they
wanted to get rid of the old-timers. And boy that was a
wonderful deal; I missed a year's pay in advance by three months
and also a full retirement. Three months; boy all these guys
are out on the streets. Some of them only had twenty-five years
of service. If you had twenty-five years of service, they would
give you a year's pay. So I got my ring; I'd show you, if you
had time.