CHARNWOOD ELASTICS - THE JOB FROM HELL

The top hate of everyone running the continuous dyeing machines was when the elastic got wrapped round a roller in the steamer. You were usually alerted by a loud bang, the arms suddenly moving or a loose end suddenly going through the wash tanks.

To sort out a wrap was horrible and could take anything between a few minutes and an hour depending on how bad it was. First you had to stick your head into a steamer (the sweat absolutely pours out of you) and find it, then you have to try and cut it out while at the same time avoiding burning yourself (which was often) on the scalding hot metal surfaces. It was often at a difficult angle, the elastic was tightly wrapped and very difficult with scissors. Then finally you had to thread the machine back up and get it running again.

You did the job always under the constant threat of this problem. Initially the top cause is inexperience and running the machine too slack, but once you have learned to run the machine the number one problem was knots left in the elastic by the weaving department. Even if they don’t cause wraps the amount of stoppages they caused was very frustrating.

A 6000 meter order running at 100 meters a minute should obviously take an hour but frequently took an hour and a half because of this problem. Once while the machine was down I went through the log book and calculated the amount of downtime the previous week and it came to over 11 hours.

The solution to the problem was obvious, all the management had to do was have a quick meeting with the weavers and tell them all to stop leaving knots in the web. Even if only half of them listened it would have made a massive difference to us and the production figures. What they did was absolutely nothing, despite every operator on every shift complaining about it for years they barely acknowledged the problem let alone do anything about it.

I find it almost impossible to understand why they ignored such an obvious problem that cost so much in downtime, either they were completely incompetent or making so much money anyway that it didn’t matter to them.

Another example of this mentality were the two idiots employed in the stockroom, in theory all I had to do was give them the order tickets and they would bring out the tubs of elastic. What actually happened is that they did only a fraction of the work they were paid to do. I was constantly having to go into the stockroom fetching web they wouldn’t strip from the looms or had told me they didn’t have. By doing this of course I was leaving my machine and risking wraps (see above). I had constant arguments with both them and the management about this but ultimately nothing other than a few words were said about it in seven years.Tony and Roland were both a blatant insult to the countless people who want to work but couldn’t find a job. But then again I blame the management for not doing anything about it rather than them for being bone idle.

The third major problem was other machine operators on the other shifts who left you in a mess. Top of the list by a long margin was Mat Hall, to put it mildly he was an absolute nightmare. Not looking after the threader elastic which we used to put a test piece through the machine was my number one complaint. I probably spent half hour in the steamer a week because of this alone. Then he wouldn’t leave me any dye/finish made up or not take his used tubs back into the weaving. As above I made countless complaints to both him and the management and wrote it in the logbook on a regular basis but nothing was ever done about it.

I could write an entire website on the nightmare of working in the dyehouse but the above 3 examples are enough to illustrate what it was like. It was just a constant stressful ordeal. Other people complained about working at Charnwood but their issue was always money as we went several years without having an annual pay rise.

I was very unusual in the fact that money was a long way down my list of employment priorities. I had a low cost lifestyle, lived at home, no car and no other commitments. I would have been more than happy to have taken a 20 percent pay cut in exchange for not having to go through what I have outlined above. Some people have since commented that they didn’t know how I managed to stick 7 years in that place. Looking back I should have left after around 3 years as I had enough savings to deal with a spell of unemployment.

Memories of the 2 years after leaving school such as being messed about by employment agencies were still fresh in my mind and thats what kept me at Charnwood.

I did everything I possibly could to try and get the management to listen, sometimes if one of the above problems caused 15 minutes of downtime I would deliberately make it take longer (say 30 minutes) but even that didn’t work. I can only conclude that the management were completely incompetent or the company was making so much money they could tolerate massive amounts of downtime.

The only way I could vent my frustration was by refusing to help them whenever they needed it. I told them many times “you help me and I’ll help you”. After 2 years I never did any overtime no matter how desperate they were or how easy the work was. If they sorted out the above problems they wouldn’t have to get people in at the weekend in the first place. A couple of times they offered triple pay to work bank holiday monday……..”not interested”!!!!!!!

I was getting 20 percent more money for 100 percent more stress than when I first started. If I had been less enthusiastic or played the idiot I wouldn’t have been put on the colours machine in the first place………..