Things That Stick

It might have been because the two were co-incident .

It's more than twenty-years since I attended a Public Works conference in New Orleans. We stayed in a heritage hotel in the French Quarter. We arrived on Sunday . On Monday morning,the air was filled with the sound of police sirens and fire engine horns.

Municipal public servants were parading in protest of city cut-backs.

Police and Firefighters were losing their jobs and pay rates were being cut .

The city was withdrawing maintenance service to public housing projects. In effect, they were abandoning their own property

At the same time, talk on radio and in newspapers was of mega-million dollars City expenditure for a newly built domed stadium, first of its kind in North America.

The Mayor, whose name I do not recall, although for some reason Bone is in my head, was recipient of the criticism.

It might have been then or another time,a news item was about the mechanism of the stadium roof. It didn't work. The roof wouldn't close.

In New Orleans, I saw a tall thin figure in rags, barely recognizable as human, eating out of a restaurant garbage bin on the sidewalk opposite the hotel. It was a sultry day in August.

One of the speakers at the conference talked about labour-management relations and the reason for strikes.

"The problem is" he said. "Management requires labour to hang up their brains with their hats when they punch the time clock in the morning"

Back home, I read an article about the Japanese auto industry in the U.K. It was in the Star Weekend magazine. Long gone now.

The article was about why Japanese auto makers, drawing from the same work force in Britain, never had strikes.

It was full of figures and comparisons. But the gist of it was, the Japanese treat each other with respect.

Workers are invited to share their ideas. If they see something in the course of their work that could lead to improvement, they are not only welcome, they are expected to bring it to the attention of management.

I remember a comment made by a management person in Sterling Drug during a strike.

He was quoted in The Aurora Banner; " We could teach monkeys to do what they do" he said.

He was talking to the community about Aurora working families who are the community.

I thought "Oh My God!! How does a person so obviously lacking in intelligence get to a position of influence. No wonder, employees are on strike"

Sterling Drug was a good employer and corporate citizen. When they came to Aurora from Windsor, key people who came with them, quickly became fully participating citizens. The late Bill Dinsmore is one I remember.

Major Fred Tilston , a Victoria Cross winner , came from Windsor with Sterling. When the new Aurora Legion was built, it proudly bore his name.

Many folk were glad to have long term jobs in the plant in Aurora until retirement. At that time such jobs were scarce on the ground.

But the comment struck a chord I never forgot.