As the new year dawned, working conditions continued to deteriorate. I am fortunate to have quite a few UE newsletters from 1986, into 1987 (thanks Bob Porter), and it appears that there were many issues that needed to be addressed; but at the same time, the new owners did not seem to be interested in living up to the union contract. We in the office only had a sideline seat to these events, as we were not unionized. The main issue (which affected us all), was the health insurance. There appears to be several instances thru out the year where the insurance policy lapsed. due to non-payment of premiums; and there were many cases of employees not being reimbursed for doctors visits. The union contract was due to be renewed in the fall, and negotiations were not going well. Of course, the insurance problems, including non-reimbursement, applied to the office workers as well.

Then there were other issues that the union brought up to management, beyond the health insurance (the status of the union pension plan was one). Another item that they were trying to understand was some sort of “secret” comparator project that appeared in Plant 2. Donald Hoodes had said that he would try to get the comparator product back in town, but this seemed to be a new “startup” product. The company claimed that this project did not fall under the union contract, which didn’t sit well at all. In the end, I believe this project died due to lack of funding.

None of these problems seemed to affect our participating in the NMTBA machine tool show in September, however. Quite a few of us were sent out, and we stayed in town, at a place called The Palmer House. I’m sure it was expensive, the nicest place I had stayed during a show. I really don’t remember just how many machines we sent, but they couldn’t have been anything special, as we weren’t developing any. They were probably some fancied-up lathes with some sort of special tooling, as we were working with some tool manufacturers to showcase their product. Rumor had it that Donald Hoodes had rented a yacht on Lake Michigan to entertain perspective customers.

Back home, the office staff continued to work on what orders we had; during the fall a new payroll policy was instituted; I do not remember the exact date, but we began being paid in cash, probably because the company checks were not trustworthy. We would line up out in the shop, across from the Shop Office for our pay.

At this point, many of us were working split-shifts, that is, one week on, one week off, coordinated with our co-workers so full coverage would be in place for customer service. As work continued to decline, more layoffs occurred. It was becoming difficult to do a satisfactory job with those of us who were left.