Ford Rouge Plant ’60s

Unlike most folks here I actually worked in a plant; GM Assembly Division Tarrytown NY. People thought we were working in white coats in some kind of NASA lab setting. We actually worked in a plant built at the turn of the 20th century with metal roofing (brutal in the summer standing air temps of 90+ degrees pushed around by fans) and wood block floors (they sponged up the petroleum products better than other substances). It was so hot in summer the water fountains had salt tablet dispensers next to them. When we had parts deliveries, the freight trains were brought right into the plant work area with the loco spewing smoke everywhere. It was bottom-level unskilled labor at $3.75 an hour until we went on strike and got $4.25 an hour, wow. We worked 9 1/2 month “years” since during model change-over you didn’t get paid. Most of us went on unemployment, which had added to it our “Supplementary Unemployment Benefit”, usually about $25-30 a month. Finally, our UAW contract stated that we built 59 cars an hour. In my 2 1/2 seasons there, and I counted, we NEVER built less than 61 an hour and sometimes as many as 65.
The good part was that it drove me to go back to college.

They are assembling 1962 Ford Fairlanes. They were Falcon based intermediates with unit bodies, so the body on frame Galaxies would be assembled on a different assembly line.