(10 of 11)
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Measured against some of Britain's more leftist labor leaders, Peach is not at all radical. "They tried to get in here," Peach recalls of some extremists. "I crushed the bastards." Nonetheless, Peach sees little ground for "common interest" in a factory that always seems to be divided into "them" and "us." "Management should understand that it is like the Yanks and Russia," he says. "You have enough strength to cancel each other out. If the unions were not as powerful, the clock would go back because I don't think that breed ever alters. We just don't work as partners. When they want something, they talk about common interest. But whenever we've needed anything, we have either had to knock it out of them or almost rape them for it.
"There is no satisfaction in ruining the company. Nobody would have jobs. If the Lord spares me, I hope to finish my working life here at Rubery Owen. But it's no good blaming the unions for the state of the company. Management are there to manage. If I were a part of management, I'd try to find the answers. Since I'm not, I'm not going to do their thinking."
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While pugnacious Doug Peach speaks of labor and management as "the Yanks and Russia," John Owen speaks nostalgically of an elusive "family spirit of generations of people on the shop floor whose fathers and grandfathers came here to work." Peach's is the dominant reality. But once a year the clock seems to move back to a time that John Owen yearns for.
It is Friday night, and the Owen family is assembled at the head table in the upstairs canteen for the "24th Annual Long Service Employees Dinner." Five men who had worked at Darlaston for 50 years receive gold watches, and John Owen gives a report to satisfy the employees' presumed curiosity about farflung members of the Owen family. Elizabeth's stepmother, he confides, has married a horse surgeon and is living in the U.S. Sister Grace and her husband David are down with the mumps. Wife Elizabeth has been let down by the babysitter and is very sorry to be missing the dinner for the first time in years. "Sir Alfred has asked me to pass on his love and best wishes to you all," he concludes.
Board Chairman David Owen then gives a sober report on the state of the company. "Some of our equipment did get very old, and we did manage to find $10 million somewhere and put it in. But the well runs dry and we can't do this again." Still, he says, "we can all work together to solve our problems." Later an organist plays The Good Old, Bad Old Days. A vote of thanks to the Owens is proposed by A. Manning of the supply department, and the entire group joins hands to sing Auld Lang Syne.
* As convenor Doug Peach is senior spokesman for the 54 TGWU shop stewards at Rubery Owen. Although Peach is a full-time union representative, his salary−an estimated $170 a week−is paid by the company. John Owen's salary is estimated at $31.600 a year.
* In fact, Volkswagen never