Monday, September 6, 2010

Labor Day 2010


6 comments:

Loren said...

I particularly like the last image, am.

am said...

Me, too. My first job in Bellingham in 1975 was working as an industrial sewing machine operator. I worked in a warehouse in downtown Bellingham with about 25 women of all ages, including the first of the refugees after the fall of Saigon. Most of us made minimum wage. All those sewing machines made a lot of noise and everyone, including me, had a radio turned up loud at their work station. Imagine the combination of sounds! The only man who worked there was the sewing machine mechanic, a young man who said he played the guitar and come from the East Coast.

It was during my breaks at that job that I read Moby Dick

Glad you like the image. Jacob Lawrence's art work continues to inspire me.

Anonymous said...

AM, your story reminds me of the first job I had during summer vacation between junior and senior year of high school. I filled in for the bookkeeper at a tie-making factory in an industrial area of New Jersey. My high school friend's father owned the company. This was in 1969. I had to calculate each employee's weekly pay by counting up the tickets of ties they made and fabrics they used. Each employee was paid in cash, so I also had to calculate how many $20s, $10s, $5s, $1s, etc we needed from the bank. Years later it occurred to me that the employees were probably illegals, hence the need for cash only. I left the job early and went to Woodstock.

am said...

robin, I had forgotten about the tickets that went with each pair of ski pants whose leg seams I sewed. So you've got the picture of that scene in your mind, too, as well as Woodstock. The place I worked was a union shop. I still have my union card somewhere, but it puzzled me that we had to pay union dues when our pay was so low.

There are still some industrial sewing jobs in Bellingham, mostly related to sailmaking and boat covers. It's hard work.

bev said...

I found both images to be very powerful.

Enjoyed reading both yours and robin's comments about working in garment industry jobs. When I was growing up in Montreal, there was a part of the city that was the base for a large garment industry. My uncles owned a sporting goods company and would visit the factories to see wares, etc.. My mom used to go along and I went along once too. What I remember best is the smell of so much fabric. I guess that there must be so much dust from fibers in the air that there's a very distinct smell that I associate with it. Also the odor of cloth being pressed as there were usually big steam presses in the same factories. Years later, when I would walk through that section of the city, I noticed that one could smell it even in the air around the big buildings.

Anonymous said...

late to comment but so glad to see this artist, JL, used for labor day. Thought it interesting google did nothing to their logo for the laborers of the world. says a good deal to me. kjm