The Spiked Heel

“I never looked at it that way,” Gardiner said.

“Maybe he’s got something there,” Hensen said. “What the hell, if a man isn’t doing anything, why keep him on? He’s stealing money from our pockets.”

“Sure. Look, we’re getting a raise already, aren’t we?”

“That stuff he said about Florida,” Karojilian said. “That wouldn’t be bad, you know?”

“And he did stop them from killing themselves down there in the Cutting Room. Hell, nobody else lifted a finger to stop them.”

“What the hell did the Kahns ever give us, anyway, except a lot of headaches? These guys have new ideas, and they’re willing to back up their ideas. That’s what counts.”

“New blood, that’s what.”

“Well, that’s what we’re getting. And the ideas sound good, you know? You can get excited about ideas like that.”

“What I like best is the security. He promised no more firings, didn’t he? That’s the ticket, man.”

“You know, he’s not a bad guy. You just have to understand him.”

“I wouldn’t introduce him to my wife,” Karojilian said, laughing.

“Man, he’d crack her in two!”

The three shop stewards stepped into the elevator, laughing. They took the word back to the workers, and the workers thought about it, and some workers were still unhappy even though they’d been promised security and a pay rise, and they began to grumble, and a good many of them were sure the delegate had been paid off to play ball with the company officials, and they said they didn’t go for these long-range plans, and when would they get a raise, and how did they know Titanic was sincere about not firing anyone any more?

But when the memo came around the next morning, the memo promising that there would be no further firings at Julien Kahn, the workers were sure that Titanic was an all-right outfit, and they began to talk about the new progressive system, and they began thinking of this idea of being able to work wherever they wanted to, even though most of them would never have left their native New Jersey or New York anyway.

And they began discussing profits and losses as if they were stockholders in the company, and they began to be careful with the leather and more careful with the shoes, and they began to go to their supervisors whenever they saw someone goofing off, because anyone goofing off was stealing money from their pockets, and they began to take a certain pride in keeping the building clean, and when the toilet on the eighth floor was completed, they all went up to use it, and they enjoyed the clean white urinals and sinks and drying machines, and then they went down to their own floors and compared the filth-encrusted toilets there with the gleaming white one upstairs, and the comparison was like night and day, and they were forced to admit that Titanic looked after its people all right, and wasn’t it a fine damned place to work for?

But the grumblers still grumbled; there was just no appeasing some people. The grumblers said look at how many men were dropped from Lasting and look at how many men were dropped from Heeling, and look at what happened on the ninth floor, people dropped like flies, the whole IBM Room, here today and gone tomorrow, and how do I know I won’t be next? All this in spite of the promise Titanic had made, because some people just wouldn’t accept anything at face value, they were just that distrustful. And the grumblers said they didn’t care if they had to use a rusted tin can for a toilet, so long as they got a big raise, and where was the raise anyway, all this talk about more money and where was it, and who needed Coke machines on every floor, and wasn’t it dandy when we could do time work when our piecework ran out, and since when is it nice to get a hose in the face, and what’s wrong with stealing anyway, the company makes enough profit, doesn’t it, why shouldn’t we swipe a pair of shoes every now and then, the grumblers asked.

And then, miraculously, and much sooner than anyone had expected, as if to show that the grumblers didn’t know what the hell they were talking about anyway, there was an increase in wages. A small increase, five or six mills per operation, but that added up, friend, and this was where the workers lived, this was right in their pocketbooks, and oh, this was grand, oh, this was money from home, screw everything else, this was positively, absolutely, without a doubt a very fine thing. Long live Julien Kahn, they cheered, long live Titanic!

And one worker was even happy enough and bold enough to scribble that on the big red and white and black sign with the silhouette of a Kahn shoe that hung in the new eighth-floor toilet.

Long Live Titanic!

And all this while, Griff worked like ten men.