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plant manager, with Illas and Parkland, continued down the line. There were a few greetings, though not many, and Zaleski was aware of sour looks from most workers whom they passed, white as well as black. He sensed a mood of resentment and unrest. It happened occasionally in plants, sometimes without reason, at other times through a minor cause, a s if an eruption would have hap pened anyway and was merely seeking the nearest outlet. Sociologists, he knew, called it a reaction to unnatural monotony. The union committeeman had his face set in a stern expression, perhaps to indicate that he hobnobbed with management only through duty, but did not enjoy it. "How's it feel," Matt Zaleski asked him, "now you don't work on the line anymore .”
    Illas said curtly, "Good .”
    Zaleski believed him. Outsiders who toured auto plants often assumed that workers there became reconciled, in time, to the noise, smell, heat, unrelenting pressure, and endless repetition of their jobs. Matt Zaleski had heard touring visitors tell their children, as if speaking of inmates of a zoo: 'They all get used to it. Most of them are happy at that kind of work. They wouldn't want to do anything else .”
    When he h eard it, he always wanted to cry out: "Kids, don't believe it! It's a lie .”
    Zaleski knew, as did most others who were close to auto plants, that few people who worked on factory production lines for long periods had ever intended to make that work a lifetime's occupation. Usually, when hired, they looked on the job as temporary until something better came along. But to many-especially those with little education-the better job was always out of reach, forever a delusive dream. Eventually a trap was sprung. It was a two-pronged trap, with a worker's own commitments on one side-marriage, children, rent, instalment payments-and on the other, the fact that pay in the auto industry was high compared with jobs elsewhere. But neither pay nor good fringe benefits could change the, grim, dispiriting nature of the work. Much of it was physically hard, but the greatest toll was mental-hour after hour, day after day of deadening monotony. And the nature of their jobs robbed individuals of pride. A man on a production line lacked a sense of achievement; he never made a car; he merely made, or put to gether, pieces-addin g a washer to a bolt, fa stening a metal strip, inserting screws. And always it was the identical washer or strip or screws, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, while working conditions-including an overlay of noise-made communication difficult, friendly association between individuals impossible. As years went by, many, while hating, endured. Some had mental breakdowns. Almost no one liked his work. Thus, a production line worker's ambition, like that of a prisoner, was centered on escape. Absenteeism was a way of partial escape; so was a strike. Both brought excitement, a break in monotony-for the time being the dominating drive. Even now, the assistant plant manager realized, that drive might be impossible to turn back. He told Illas, "Remember, we made an agreement. Now, I want this thing cleaned up fast .”
    The union man didn't answer, and Zaleski added, 'Today should do you some good. You got what you wanted .”
    "Not all of it .”
    "All that mattered .”
    Behind their words was a f act of life which both men knew: An escape route from the production line which some workers chose was through election to a full-time union post, with a chance of moving upward in UAW ranks. Illas, recently, had gone that way himself. But once elected, a union man became a political creature; to survive he must be re-elected, and between elections he maneuvered like a politician courting f avor with constituents. The workers around a union committeeman were his voters, and he strove to please them. Illas had that problem now. Zaleski asked him, "Where's this character Newkirk .”
    They had come to the point on the