Ford Motor Company First Union Contract

[MLKirk]

Growing up here in southeastern Michigan, I've been continuously exposed to, involved in and a student of the automotive industry and the history of it's evolution. Despite the recent years' upheaval in the American automotive industry, I continue to follow & root for it with great interest despite recently being distanced from direct involvement in my career.

 

Over the years, I have read many books and kept close tabs on the history of the industry. I have sometimes been privy to stories and historic information through my father's direct contact with it as a corporate pilot for General Motors for 32 years (retired 1992). Sadly, this department is now history thanks to poor executive decisions, poor public relations at a critical moment and overzealous media reporting by a TV network during the DC hearings in late 2008. Consequently, I have a fair amount of automotive history stored in my cranium.

 

Every so often I encounter a tidbit of automotive information that I have not heard or seen before. There is much of this yet undiscovered or discreet information still out there. Tonight, while watching a CNBC Channel biography on Henry Ford, I discovered yet another tidbit that I would not have caught if not for my interest in Pens over the last decade. I was tickled.

 

It seems that a photograph exists of the first contract signing between the Ford Motor Company and UAW labor leaders on June 20, 1941, a result of a Ford strike. This contract came a full four years after the famous overpass incident at Gate 4 of the Ford Rouge Plant in 1937 between the Ford Security Goons and Walter Reuther with his union organizers. Reuther and his boys were beaten to a pulp.

 

Most of you must now be thinking, correctly I might add, that the pen angle here is in the photograph of the signing. The signer holding the pen in the photograph is the infamous Harry Bennett, Henry Ford's top henchman for many years. In the photo, Harry is holding a Sheaffer Balance. I saw a clearer and closer view of the photo on the biography program and I'm most certain of the model and judging from the size I clearly viewed, it is a black oversized Balance. I will, however, concede that I don't know which clip is on the pen. :roflmho:

 

Harry Bennett was subsequently run out of the company by Henry Ford II after he took over the company late in WWII. Harry owned a mansion near Ann Arbor, Michigan (actually in Ypsilanti) that was equipped with all kinds of secret doors and passageways, one purportedly leading to the Huron River where he could effect a getaway by boat. This was near where I went to college and I recall a visit there at that time. Little did I know about Harry at that time.

 

Another example of one of the most powerful men in the world wielding a most powerful looking pen.

[pen2paper]

ever the motown girl, real every word with interest... we had an interesting labor related exhibit at OPC last summer..

looks like a white dot on the obviously oversized black pen.. not a Sheaffer expert, but is in the Balance shape.

will have to look at the galleries in your link.. Thanks!

the goons, ah, henchmen, um security force had buttons on their uniforms..

edited ack transposed the ae.. the ea force was In discussion earlier; )

ps have a set of Fisher Body blazer buttons.

Edited December 30, 2010 by pen2paper

[MLKirk]

ever the motown girl, real every word with interest... we had an interesting labor related exhibit at OPC last summer..

looks like a white dot on the obviously oversized black pen.. not a Sheaffer expert, but is in the Balance shape.

will have to look at the galleries in your link.. Thanks!

the goons, ah, henchmen, um security force had buttons on their uniforms..

edited ack transposed the ae.. the ea force was In discussion earlier; )

ps have a set of Fisher Body blazer buttons.

 

 

OPC? I am at a disadvantage. Explanation?

 

I worked three summers for GM in between college years. First summer was at Fisher Body plant in Livonia on Plymouth Road where they made interiors for the family room sofa style car seats of 1976. I had a Fisher Body pin that was my ID to get in the gate each day. This pewter looking pin was old, old old; probably from the plant's opening way back when.

 

My second and third summers were spent building automatic transmissions at GM Hydra Matic plant at Willow Run. The same plant they built B-24 bombers during WWII, then owned by Ford. This plant was still in use when I visited it as an equipment salesman 3 or 4 years ago. It changed very little. I felt like I was walking back 30 years instantaneously. I actually found the area where I worked 30 years earlier. Think I recognized a few of the wood blocks in the floor.

 

At that time I probably had a Parker Jotter in my pocket like always. I had not caught the fountain pen bug until my first Imperial Brass Targa 10 years later.

[Wolverine1]

Mike, thanks for the history lesson. As an Ann arbor resident, I find it fascinating. I went to school at U-M, and one of my classmates was either the grandson or great-grandson of Walter Reuther.

[corniche]

Greetings Mike,

 

Interesting post- I see you live in Wixom; that place has a special fondness to me- that is where Ford built their Lincoln plant. It was unique in that only Ford built their prestige marque in a completely separate facility; GM and Chrysler built Cadillacs and Chryslers/Imperials almost side by side with "lesser" marques.

 

Excellent observation on the Sheaffer- I own a full-size Balance as well... I wonder if that makes me a "bad guy" too???

 

All the best,

 

Sean

Edited January 1, 2011 by S. P. Colfer

[MLKirk]

Mike, thanks for the history lesson. As an Ann arbor resident, I find it fascinating. I went to school at U-M, and one of my classmates was either the grandson or great-grandson of Walter Reuther.

 

Hi Wolverine1

I am alumni of EMU and lived about 1/2 mile from the Bennet "Castle" as they called it. It's located behind (to the North) St. Joe's Hospital across the Huron River. I used to play on the Huron Ambulance softball team back in 1980 on the hospital fields. You could almost see the Bennett place from there.

 

Pretty cool history here. Its also interesting that you were classmates with Reuther's grandson. My only connection to anyone famous is that I was a caddy at Franklin Hills Country Club in the summer of 1972 (when the PGA came to Oakland Hills). There was a tall skinny guy that sat on the end of the caddy bench by himself, frequently talking to himself. He bragged about going to Harvard. We all pooh-poohed him thinking he was full of it. You might know his name. Steve Ballmer. Now the CEO of Microsoft. Billionaire. Whooda thought. He did end up going to Harvard where he met Bill Gates a couple of years later. Ballmer was the classic, stereotypical nerd.

 

Greetings Mike,

 

Interesting post- I see you live in Wixom; that place has a special fondness to me- that is where Ford built their Lincoln plant. It was unique in that only Ford built their prestige marque in a completely separate facility; GM and Chrysler built Cadillac’s and Chryslers/Imperials almost side by side with "lesser" marque’s.

 

Excellent observation on the Sheaffer- I own a full-size Balance as well... I wonder if that makes me a "bad guy" too???

 

All the best,

 

Sean

 

 

Hi Sean

 

I have a couple of black OS Balances as well. I think you have a long way to go before being a "bad guy" like Harry Bennett. He's a tough act to follow.

 

I've been working and/or living in Wixom since '84. The city was incorporated by Ford back in '58 and very well laid out with industrial in the southern half (south of Pontiac Trail) and primarily residential in the northern half. You may or may not know that the plant was built in '57 and made the Thunderbird before the Lincoln's came in. The later Thunderbird, made a few years ago, was also made there while the Lincolns came off the line. They built a "bump-out" addition to the plant (in the front next to the paint shop) where they assembled the T-birds until it was discontinued. They also assembled the Ford GT sports car, a reincarnated version of the F-1 from the 1960s, in the back of the plant. It made all the Lincolns for many years until Ford moved the Town Car to Ford's St. Thomas, Ontario plant side-by-side with the Grand Marquis and Crown Victoria, subsequently closing in 2007. Part of the plant is now being leased to two companies who are reputedly setting a portion of it up for producing storage batteries and solar panels for alternative energy. They are supposed to begin production some time in 2011 or 2012 (but may be delayed).

 

Best to both of you! Look up the Michigan Pen Club if you get a chance.

[corniche]

Hello Mike,

 

I had heard about the twin seat Thunderbird being built there in the real early days before they dedicated the plant to Lincolns, (and changed to the T-Bird to a four seater in '58); however, I had not known about the GT or the new T-Birds being built there. However, considering the MSRPs for the latter two, it makes sense. Thanks for the dope.

 

All the best,

 

Sean

Edited January 2, 2011 by S. P. Colfer