Rat Gang!

I was working with as good a group of men as I have ever in my life. I had moved back to LA, about seven or eight months before. My old Business Agent, at Local #25, got me working quick, sent me out as a steward. I had told him, I had come back to town, with only an indian blanket, and a new pair of moccasins. We had a good laugh over that, he was sad to see I didn’t have my bike. I got that bike, an “83″ Harley XLS, at the end of my marriage. I did a lot of work on that bike, it was a fast machine. The Building Trades in Los Angeles, at that time, were going through changes. My old Union, Local#25 was the Downtown Local, we had most of the work. A movement began, I believe at the District Counsel, to merge several Local Unions into one. The reason, was to make work available to more Carpenters. At that time, out here, you worked in the area of your Local Union. Local #25 wanted nothing to do with this merger, not a lot of thinking about the good of the brotherhood. It was our turn, we had waited for this for a while, finely it came to us. Two Locals were dispatching in the downtown area, the newly merged Local#409, and my old Local#25. Kenny took care of me, dispatching me as steward, sending me out on that pre cast job. The job was Home Savings, a 26 story structure, wrapped with 8″ pre cast panels. This outfit had just gotten on site, a day or two before. I started first thing, and got the day in. This work was new to me, like most of the jobs out of the hall. The boss put me with an old timer, John Villa Senior, a man who had retired, then come back, out of boredom. This was a very nice guy, serious about his work, and real smart. We had two operations going, one, to align the panels, that had been placed on the structure, by the raising gang. The weight of these panels rested, on two 1 1/4″ bolts, threaded through 3/4″ steele angle, an L shaped piece of steele, about 12″ wide embedded in the pre cast panel, the horizontal leg, projecting out from the panel, about 5″. Steele embeds are placed at the perimeter, corresponding to the embed layout of the panels, at the time the deck is poured. The 1 1/4″bolt, comes to rest, on top of the steele in the deck. By running them up or down, you are able set the panel at elevation. The other task John was charged with was the lay out of the panels. John was quick to pull me over to the side, and fill me in, on this monster we were about to tame. This is not a simple thing, these panels have to stack up 26 floors, they have to be level and at elevation across the deck, and they have to wrap around. The first part of this was to shoot a grade, on each embed poured into the deck, to determine if that embed was plus or minus, the intended elevation of the deck. We would paint that information on each embed. By that number, the raising gang would do the math, adjust the 1 1/4″ bolt, and get it pretty close, as they set the panel with the crane. Step two of this operation, was to lay out the location of each panel on the floor. John wanted this perfect, John expected everything perfect, he got touchy over 1/16″. Now I’m gonna tell you about my first shop teacher, Mr Hoot. First day of shop class ever, were all 7th graders. We sit down right away, teacher is controlling this situation. He stood in front of us, and with his index fingers, both hands, began to point. He moved his index fingers above, below, to the side of, around, behind, of an imaginary point. He must have been up there, pointing his fingers, for five minutes. Were all getting a little rammy, some wise cracking going on. Remember now, we had all just started at this school, all coming from different schools, we were shaking out the pecking order. Well Mr Hoot shut this down, I guess he made his point, and he began to explain. It was really basic stuff, that any point, is infinitely small. He wanted us to visualize that point. This had an impact on me. This took place 44 years ago, and as I rock, in my chair, I see him clear as day. I guess where I was going with all this, was that John didn’t have to fight me, over any sixteenth of an inch. He sure barked a lot, he would never trust me, always check me. I had already got it, I understood, I learned this, that first day of shop in the 7th grade. John stood behind his work, if he put his name on it, it was right, no excuses. So it was a good day, it was working out with John, I was feeling like I might hang out with these guys for a while. John was a Carpenter, as am I. This job worked a composite crew, Iron Workers and Carpenters. The man running the job was an Iron Worker. I was dispatched to this job with one other Carpenter from my Local, Local 409 had dispatched a couple guys as well. The man running this job is a Strong Union Man. Rather than getting all mixed up in our Carpenter stuff, he just took two from each. I hadn’t seen any of those guys all day, and not until at the end of the day, when the foreman came by, and told me to grab my tools, head down to the trailer, did I run into them again. The big boss comes out of the trailer, this is not looking good. John and I spoke as I was heading down, telling me he didn’t know what was going on, that he was glad to be working with me, that he saw I was picking this stuff up. The Boss Man, the Old Iron Worker, with the Old Bethlehem Steele Hard Hat, gathers the four of us, and tell us, we’re getting laded off. He tells us that there were some problems with the job, that they were waiting for answers. He starts handing out checks, before handing them off, looking them over good. He has our dispatch slips, the slip from the local, that we hand off when were put on. He gets to me last, he is studying it, he’s making sure the moneys right. His eyes come up off the papers, looking at me, he says, you were dispatched as a steward,———–you stay, get your tools back up on the floor, see you in the morning