By: Eddie Glass
Job Problems and Stories:
Piledriving as a trade is affected by many things as is true with any Construction Trade. For instance when the National economy takes a ‘downturn’ for whatever reason, so does the Job market. After the First World War all of the Service Men from the various Military branches returned home to add to the work force. So many Veterans could not find work, unless they were farmers or perhaps had a job that they could return to. The situation that they found themselves in was neither of their fault nor choice. The Jobs that were available during the War was in the Shipyards, munitions factories, etc. for the ‘War Effort’. Of course when ‘hostilities’ ceased so did the War Effort jobs. The returning GI’s (Bonus March) even set up a tent city at the White House and rioted and some got killed in their Homeland, after enduring the hazards of Combat for more than four years. Depending on the accounts given in 1932 most of the fatalities were Women and Children of the Veterans of World War 1.
Of course technology took a leap forward in mechanized machines for warfare that was used later for peaceful purposes in the aftermath. One significant invention developed was for the ‘caterpillar’ track in 1908 in Germany, and WW1 broke out in 1914. These tracks were used worldwide almost exclusively on Cranes and Dozers, etc. for many years and eventually replaced the old skid rigs and roller rigs in Pile Driving that were still in use in the late 1960’s.
The Second World War which lasted six years wasn’t much different. The one change that sticks with me was that more Women joined the so called ‘Home Front’ workforce and many of the jobs were being ‘manned’ by women. I don’t think you could say this was the ‘start’ of Women’s liberation. They still weren’t liberated from housework and rearing kids, etc., they just had more Home Front jobs. As kids my Brother and I went with someone to pick my Mom up from work. The parking lot that we parked in had loudspeakers, turned to full volume to blare the same song over and over during our wait for the shift change. The name of the song was ‘Pistol Packin’ Mama’ by Al Dexter in 1943.
My Dad worked in a Naval Shipyard as a first class welder for ninety-six cents per hour and my Mom worked for less than fifty cents per hour in a Munitions crating Plant, building crates for bombs.
My Dad worked, as did his co-workers twelve hours per shift from twelve to twelve, this gave him twelve hours to farm. Oh, by the way my Dad was neither a ‘draft dodger’ nor ‘4F’; his classification was Head of Household with two sons. When the War ended and the Combat Force returned to the Work Force it caused an overload again. In later years I talked to some ‘old hands’ in Piledriving and one told me, “After a war a man can’t beg a job”, truer words were never spoken, as some wise man said. Personally, I experienced the same thing as a returning GI after the ‘Police Action’ in Korea. The fighting went on for three years, but the War has never officially ended.
My youngest Brother had the same experience when he returned from Viet Nam, in which the United States was involved for more than ten years.
Added to this overload of ‘sources’ of employable people is always, for better or worse, an influx of refugees that get a crack at the Job market before, during and after a war.
Another advanced ‘Invention’ or development, during the Second World War that came from Germany is the diesel impact Pile Hammer along with the Atomic bomb from the United States.
As a side note, use of the Diesel Pile Hammer has recently been banned in Tokyo Japan because of air pollution. The Atomic energy from the development of the ‘bomb’ is used in many Countries for Power Plants to limit the pollutions from fossil fuels. I guess everybody is going ‘green’ in different ways.
I mention these historical facts to put a time frame on the period in which, my Dad became a Piledriver after the Second World War.
After a couple of years of working at different jobs in different Crafts I followed in my Dad’s footsteps. After a short time my two Brothers joined me.
In this day and time it is said that the Construction Trades are suffering because of a downturn in the economy. This downturn has been called, recession, depression, etc., but the fact of the matter is being out of a job with no income is bad, no matter the name or cause.
I would be naïve to suggest that ‘hard times’ or for that matter ‘good times’ have any one particular root cause. When I started in the Piledriving trade I was young and full of (bleep) and vinegar and enjoyed the competition of large Crews on each Piling Rig. Typically, a Crew would have a Fireman, Oiler, Operator, Foreman and two or three Piledrivers on the Rig. In addition to the Rig Crew there would be several Piledrivers to support the Rig Crew by loading, unloading and ‘heading’ pile in the case of wood pile. At first wood pile were ‘headed/trimmed’ at the ‘butt’ end by a Piledriver with an axe, and then along came a ‘power’ header, similar to a chainsaw with a chipper attachment, and did a smoother, faster job than a Piledriver with his ax. Now, wood piling are mechanically headed at the Vendor’s Plant before shipment. The Labor Crew has been replaced by Backhoes, Forklifts, Front loaders, or a combination of all three in one Unit.
The Piledriving Crew was supported by a large number of Laborers and other Crafts. This Crew size has been reduced considerably by advances in technology with hydraulic Rigs, and Hammers, no Fireman, and no Oiler, only an Operator and sometimes he even has a handheld remote control.
The Fireman and Oiler have been replaced in most instances by a crew of Mechanics that are not charged to the job but are charged to the Equipment department. I wonder which Accountant thought of that one? I know of one mid-sized Contractor that has more than thirty Mechanics and the Equipment still keeps them busy on repairs up to seven days a week to keep the Piledrivers busy five days a week. Maybe it is cheaper to pay wages than it is to replace worn-out Equipment.
I don’t have a ‘beef’ with Mechanics or any other Craft, but I can’t explain to myself why? I guess I can blame every thing on the economy downturn.
In the ‘old days’, of which I am most familiar, almost every man in the Crew could perform and excel on any part of a Piling job, including mechanical repairs.
I guess the ‘catch’ in all this is similar to the reasoning of my Granddad when he bought his first tractor. He said at the time, I can farm more land and I don’t have to feed (off road gas, i.e. no tax, was about ten cents per gallon) any mules, and ‘Bessie’ (my Grandmother) can drive the tractor while I am away on a job (he was a boilermaker), and besides that I can get rid of the mules and farm the mule pasture.
To be continued -
Monday, August 3, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
Job Problems and Stories
A Piledrivers take on progress in the Industry X©
When I first started in the Pile Driving game, I was working for a local Company. I found that by working for a local Company that sometimes you would work one or two days per week, and if that "arrangement" lasted long enough, you would be sitting on the bench more than you were working. This was especially true if you were working for a Company that primarily worked on docks on the ship channel, where ships were loading or unloading. At a very busy dock around Refineries sometimes you would only work one or two days per week. I was fortunate in that I went to work for a local Company for a short job and my second job was for a multinational Company. The advantage of working with a large multinational Company, and if you are willing to travel, is that if work gets slack, you can depend on being sent to another job and/or another locale to get work. After my first job with this Company, I went back to work for a local company for a couple of short jobs. And then I got a call out for the Company that I had worked for once before, for which I worked for about three months on three different jobs in the area.
During this time, I gained a favorable recommendation from the Superintendent and Foreman for future work in the local area. The Superintendent asked me if I would be willing to travel, and I told him any time anywhere, as long as they paid me. For the next year, I worked for 11 different Contractors. I think the cause for this was because as a Welder I worked jobs of short duration. For the next year, I missed three days of work. My next job for a local Company was in Dallas, Texas. The job I was on was for a freshwater inlet for a large Power Plant just outside of Dallas. After about a week on this job, I received a call from my Business Agent in Houston that Raymond Concrete Pile had a small job to do on the weekend, and they needed a Welder/Piledriver for the installation of five "H" pile. I thought at the time that five piling shouldn't take a complete weekend to drive. I found that when I went to work that the five piling would be 40 feet long in the basement of a multistory Doctor’s building, and each pile had to be put together in 5 foot lengths. The piles were for the foundation of a ‘Cooling Tower’ on top of the building. Another new twist to this job for me was that the "Rig" was a huge Oilfield winch truck. There was a square hole cut in the basement floor and excavated out about four or five feet deep. The Superintendent told us that if we finished the job in 20 hours (double time = $3.97 x 2 = $7.94 for me) that he would buy us a steak dinner at the biggest restaurant in Dallas. Oddly enough, the Cattlemen's Restaurant joined the building that we were working in, at 1 PM Sunday, we were sweeping the floor, mission accomplished. The Superintendent was good for his word and went next door and made reservations for the whole crew for the following Monday night.
While I was on the Power Plant job, there was a sad but Historical event in downtown Dallas. This "event" was the assassination of President Kennedy. The day and the date was Wednesday, November 22, 1963. About 10 o'clock in the morning, the job Superintendent came running up on the levee of the lake, where we were installing sheet piling for the inlet. The Superintendent told the Foreman and me that someone had shot the President and the Governor of Texas. The Foreman and I were stunned, He said, “No, I'm not kidding, I just heard it on my radio." The structure for the addition to the Power Plant on site was almost ready to be topped out by the Ironworkers. Within 30 minutes or so, the Ironworkers had come off the structure and within an hour, the parking lot was empty. Shortly thereafter, we left the job site as well. When we arrived for work the next day on Thursday, the entrance Guard told us that the site had been shut down and wouldn't open again until Monday morning.
I finally obtained the position that I was seeking with a multinational Company in Brownsville Texas. When my Business Agent called me he told me that they would pay me a guaranteed forty hours per week plus Living Allowance of three dollars per day for five days, also I got ten cents per mile to travel (500 miles) from Houston, Texas to the Job-site and ten cents per mile when the job was completed. This meant that I was guaranteed forty hours per week at prevailing scale, plus three dollars per day for five days per week as living allowance plus mileage of ten cents per mile. Boy, I was in hog heaven, that is, until income tax time.
My traveling days had actually just started. As a "Journeyman" with the emphasis on Journey, I began a lifetime of journeying from town to town, and from Country to Country. A while before I retired, I went to the Dentist to have a checkup and the lady asked me, of all the places you've been Mr. Glass, where would you like to retire? I replied with my Home address.
Most of the Piling jobs that I worked on had "interesting" things that happened, either to me or historical events that happened, before, during or after I was on a project. Some of these interesting things were more interesting than others. I went on a job in Panama, to work on the Miraflores Locks on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal. When I got there, it was just after Noriega got "Cuffed & Stuffed" and I had to stay within the Canal Zone limits. As of this writing, he is still in the "Stout House", and I am retired a fashion.
Another interesting aspect of this job was the fact that because of salinity differences in the two Oceans, among other factors, there is almost a twenty foot difference in tide levels. The job I was doing was on the Pacific side, and it got the highest tides. When the Pacific side was say, twenty feet high, the Atlantic side was one or two feet high. This tide difference was the reason that the Canal is not an open "Ditch", but instead has Locks to raise and lower the Ship traffic more than 50 feet from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, or vice versa. Since the job I was working on was to the side and lower end of the Miraflores Locks, this tide change had little if any effect on pulling and driving replacement sheetpile.
The Companies that maintained the Canal right of way some ten miles, either side of the Canal, cut the native grass and weeds. The Crews were called “Macheteros” because they used Machetes to do their job, and then along came the weed eater in the recent past, but the Crews were still called Macheteros. The Macheteros had been cutting the grass and weeds for generations some from the same Families and the Job had been “passed down” from generation to generation by Father to Son. The Macheteros were still raising a “stink” about the transition from Manual to Motor. The stink wasn’t that they liked the backbreaking job of bending over in a stooped position to ply their trade; it was because the Management cut the size of the Crews and there was not that many job offers for Macheteros. The rest of the Country seemed to let the grass and weeds grow.
Another Job I had in Montego Bay, Jamaica the Macheteros used their machetes to “mow” their grass. If you have never seen a Machetero at work, believe me it “ain’t no fun”, I tried it. The Machetero has his machete sharp enough to shave a baby’s bottom and a stick about three or four foot long, depending on the user’s height. He then leans over in a stooped position and adjusts his “stoop” with one hand and then attacks the grass/weeds with his machete in the other hand at ground level. The ‘stoop stick’ is used as a walking cane and sometimes to ward off stray dogs and other animals and would be hoodlums. If the stick is not sufficient they go to their alternate weapon the machete and on a tight situation they will not hesitate to use both weapons in their arsenal, it saves on skinned knuckles. I wonder if AK-47’s will mow grass. This work in both Panama and Jamaica is performed in Tropical weather during hot winters and hotter summers and the Rainey season. For my part the Macheteros have all the job security they need. When I asked the Jamaicans why they didn’t use a weed eater I was told that then the Tourists wouldn’t pay for taking photos, Mon!
I did a Job in Kingston, Jamaica about a year or so before the Job just mentioned. The Equipment was a ‘hand me down’ from a job years before done by the American Company that sent me there. The Rig was vintage 803 Lima that was ‘stored’ for about five or six years which I wasn’t told about until I arrived. It seems the Rig was stored on a property that a couple of Jamaican Entrepreneurs had. They acquired the Rig and driving Equipment for their ‘storage fees’. During the storage period some tropical trees and vines had ‘invaded’ the old Girl. There was one tree in particular that was about eight inches in diameter at the stump that grew up through floor board plate which wasn’t bolted down. This tree couldn’t get through the Cab over the Engine so it sent part of its branches over the Engine out through the back of the Cab. When the branches got free of the Cab it hit the Boiler and went straight up for about ten or fifteen feet. I guess this wasn’t good enough to get sufficient sunlight and moisture so another part of the tree went through a small opening and up through the Draw Works and through the Boom Gantry.
This branch of the tree was about five feet shorter than it’s back exiting counterpart. It was amazing to me that this branch had grown through some small cracks and crevices and fitted itself perfectly to them as needed to get to the rain and sunshine. Added to this hardy sole was probably every vine that grew in Jamaica. The Rig had been stored with the spotter in and more than one hundred foot of Leads with the Hammer at the bottom of the Leads. The whip line had been ‘dogged off’ to a mat that the Hammer was sitting on. The mat was made from East Texas white oak and was solid and had not rotted. Some of the timbers in the other mats had red oak and white oak timbers, the red oak timbers had rotted away. The Leads and Hammer were overgrown with trees and vines and some of the vines went almost to the top of the Leads. It took a Crew seven days, at twelve plus hours a day to just clear all the debris. The fuel and batteries had been ‘scavenged’ which probably was just as well, it hadn’t accumulated a lot of moisture. We drained and flushed everything and replaced all the fluids and filters. With a can of ether, new batteries, crossed fingers and singing a hillbilly love song the old Cummins came to life on the first try. I’m not sure if what I offered helped but something must have been right. Everybody was all smiles.
The next project was to get the Boiler working. Fortunately the cover had been left on the Boiler Stack and the fire box hadn’t suffered too much damage nor had the vines grown up through the Boiler tubes. We repaired the fire box with fire brick and lined them with new Plibricko. The starter air compressor had been scavenged so we had to build a fire the old fashioned way, with firewood. The next thing was the Hammer. The steam hose was replaced and with a head of steam I ‘cracked’ the Hammer Valve and the Hammer slowly came to life. All of the lines needed replacing. One might wonder where all these parts and pieces came together. When I asked the new Owner how they were supplied, He said, ‘Oh, we have some of the same scavengers that borrowed the fuel, batteries and compressor’. I said what about all these lines? He said that ALCOA had a bauxite plant in Jamaica that ‘donated’ things to them once in awhile. I didn’t ask anymore questions.
To be continued -
- Eddie Glass
http://www.pilebuck.com/
When I first started in the Pile Driving game, I was working for a local Company. I found that by working for a local Company that sometimes you would work one or two days per week, and if that "arrangement" lasted long enough, you would be sitting on the bench more than you were working. This was especially true if you were working for a Company that primarily worked on docks on the ship channel, where ships were loading or unloading. At a very busy dock around Refineries sometimes you would only work one or two days per week. I was fortunate in that I went to work for a local Company for a short job and my second job was for a multinational Company. The advantage of working with a large multinational Company, and if you are willing to travel, is that if work gets slack, you can depend on being sent to another job and/or another locale to get work. After my first job with this Company, I went back to work for a local company for a couple of short jobs. And then I got a call out for the Company that I had worked for once before, for which I worked for about three months on three different jobs in the area.
During this time, I gained a favorable recommendation from the Superintendent and Foreman for future work in the local area. The Superintendent asked me if I would be willing to travel, and I told him any time anywhere, as long as they paid me. For the next year, I worked for 11 different Contractors. I think the cause for this was because as a Welder I worked jobs of short duration. For the next year, I missed three days of work. My next job for a local Company was in Dallas, Texas. The job I was on was for a freshwater inlet for a large Power Plant just outside of Dallas. After about a week on this job, I received a call from my Business Agent in Houston that Raymond Concrete Pile had a small job to do on the weekend, and they needed a Welder/Piledriver for the installation of five "H" pile. I thought at the time that five piling shouldn't take a complete weekend to drive. I found that when I went to work that the five piling would be 40 feet long in the basement of a multistory Doctor’s building, and each pile had to be put together in 5 foot lengths. The piles were for the foundation of a ‘Cooling Tower’ on top of the building. Another new twist to this job for me was that the "Rig" was a huge Oilfield winch truck. There was a square hole cut in the basement floor and excavated out about four or five feet deep. The Superintendent told us that if we finished the job in 20 hours (double time = $3.97 x 2 = $7.94 for me) that he would buy us a steak dinner at the biggest restaurant in Dallas. Oddly enough, the Cattlemen's Restaurant joined the building that we were working in, at 1 PM Sunday, we were sweeping the floor, mission accomplished. The Superintendent was good for his word and went next door and made reservations for the whole crew for the following Monday night.
While I was on the Power Plant job, there was a sad but Historical event in downtown Dallas. This "event" was the assassination of President Kennedy. The day and the date was Wednesday, November 22, 1963. About 10 o'clock in the morning, the job Superintendent came running up on the levee of the lake, where we were installing sheet piling for the inlet. The Superintendent told the Foreman and me that someone had shot the President and the Governor of Texas. The Foreman and I were stunned, He said, “No, I'm not kidding, I just heard it on my radio." The structure for the addition to the Power Plant on site was almost ready to be topped out by the Ironworkers. Within 30 minutes or so, the Ironworkers had come off the structure and within an hour, the parking lot was empty. Shortly thereafter, we left the job site as well. When we arrived for work the next day on Thursday, the entrance Guard told us that the site had been shut down and wouldn't open again until Monday morning.
I finally obtained the position that I was seeking with a multinational Company in Brownsville Texas. When my Business Agent called me he told me that they would pay me a guaranteed forty hours per week plus Living Allowance of three dollars per day for five days, also I got ten cents per mile to travel (500 miles) from Houston, Texas to the Job-site and ten cents per mile when the job was completed. This meant that I was guaranteed forty hours per week at prevailing scale, plus three dollars per day for five days per week as living allowance plus mileage of ten cents per mile. Boy, I was in hog heaven, that is, until income tax time.
My traveling days had actually just started. As a "Journeyman" with the emphasis on Journey, I began a lifetime of journeying from town to town, and from Country to Country. A while before I retired, I went to the Dentist to have a checkup and the lady asked me, of all the places you've been Mr. Glass, where would you like to retire? I replied with my Home address.
Most of the Piling jobs that I worked on had "interesting" things that happened, either to me or historical events that happened, before, during or after I was on a project. Some of these interesting things were more interesting than others. I went on a job in Panama, to work on the Miraflores Locks on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal. When I got there, it was just after Noriega got "Cuffed & Stuffed" and I had to stay within the Canal Zone limits. As of this writing, he is still in the "Stout House", and I am retired a fashion.
Another interesting aspect of this job was the fact that because of salinity differences in the two Oceans, among other factors, there is almost a twenty foot difference in tide levels. The job I was doing was on the Pacific side, and it got the highest tides. When the Pacific side was say, twenty feet high, the Atlantic side was one or two feet high. This tide difference was the reason that the Canal is not an open "Ditch", but instead has Locks to raise and lower the Ship traffic more than 50 feet from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, or vice versa. Since the job I was working on was to the side and lower end of the Miraflores Locks, this tide change had little if any effect on pulling and driving replacement sheetpile.
The Companies that maintained the Canal right of way some ten miles, either side of the Canal, cut the native grass and weeds. The Crews were called “Macheteros” because they used Machetes to do their job, and then along came the weed eater in the recent past, but the Crews were still called Macheteros. The Macheteros had been cutting the grass and weeds for generations some from the same Families and the Job had been “passed down” from generation to generation by Father to Son. The Macheteros were still raising a “stink” about the transition from Manual to Motor. The stink wasn’t that they liked the backbreaking job of bending over in a stooped position to ply their trade; it was because the Management cut the size of the Crews and there was not that many job offers for Macheteros. The rest of the Country seemed to let the grass and weeds grow.
Another Job I had in Montego Bay, Jamaica the Macheteros used their machetes to “mow” their grass. If you have never seen a Machetero at work, believe me it “ain’t no fun”, I tried it. The Machetero has his machete sharp enough to shave a baby’s bottom and a stick about three or four foot long, depending on the user’s height. He then leans over in a stooped position and adjusts his “stoop” with one hand and then attacks the grass/weeds with his machete in the other hand at ground level. The ‘stoop stick’ is used as a walking cane and sometimes to ward off stray dogs and other animals and would be hoodlums. If the stick is not sufficient they go to their alternate weapon the machete and on a tight situation they will not hesitate to use both weapons in their arsenal, it saves on skinned knuckles. I wonder if AK-47’s will mow grass. This work in both Panama and Jamaica is performed in Tropical weather during hot winters and hotter summers and the Rainey season. For my part the Macheteros have all the job security they need. When I asked the Jamaicans why they didn’t use a weed eater I was told that then the Tourists wouldn’t pay for taking photos, Mon!
I did a Job in Kingston, Jamaica about a year or so before the Job just mentioned. The Equipment was a ‘hand me down’ from a job years before done by the American Company that sent me there. The Rig was vintage 803 Lima that was ‘stored’ for about five or six years which I wasn’t told about until I arrived. It seems the Rig was stored on a property that a couple of Jamaican Entrepreneurs had. They acquired the Rig and driving Equipment for their ‘storage fees’. During the storage period some tropical trees and vines had ‘invaded’ the old Girl. There was one tree in particular that was about eight inches in diameter at the stump that grew up through floor board plate which wasn’t bolted down. This tree couldn’t get through the Cab over the Engine so it sent part of its branches over the Engine out through the back of the Cab. When the branches got free of the Cab it hit the Boiler and went straight up for about ten or fifteen feet. I guess this wasn’t good enough to get sufficient sunlight and moisture so another part of the tree went through a small opening and up through the Draw Works and through the Boom Gantry.
This branch of the tree was about five feet shorter than it’s back exiting counterpart. It was amazing to me that this branch had grown through some small cracks and crevices and fitted itself perfectly to them as needed to get to the rain and sunshine. Added to this hardy sole was probably every vine that grew in Jamaica. The Rig had been stored with the spotter in and more than one hundred foot of Leads with the Hammer at the bottom of the Leads. The whip line had been ‘dogged off’ to a mat that the Hammer was sitting on. The mat was made from East Texas white oak and was solid and had not rotted. Some of the timbers in the other mats had red oak and white oak timbers, the red oak timbers had rotted away. The Leads and Hammer were overgrown with trees and vines and some of the vines went almost to the top of the Leads. It took a Crew seven days, at twelve plus hours a day to just clear all the debris. The fuel and batteries had been ‘scavenged’ which probably was just as well, it hadn’t accumulated a lot of moisture. We drained and flushed everything and replaced all the fluids and filters. With a can of ether, new batteries, crossed fingers and singing a hillbilly love song the old Cummins came to life on the first try. I’m not sure if what I offered helped but something must have been right. Everybody was all smiles.
The next project was to get the Boiler working. Fortunately the cover had been left on the Boiler Stack and the fire box hadn’t suffered too much damage nor had the vines grown up through the Boiler tubes. We repaired the fire box with fire brick and lined them with new Plibricko. The starter air compressor had been scavenged so we had to build a fire the old fashioned way, with firewood. The next thing was the Hammer. The steam hose was replaced and with a head of steam I ‘cracked’ the Hammer Valve and the Hammer slowly came to life. All of the lines needed replacing. One might wonder where all these parts and pieces came together. When I asked the new Owner how they were supplied, He said, ‘Oh, we have some of the same scavengers that borrowed the fuel, batteries and compressor’. I said what about all these lines? He said that ALCOA had a bauxite plant in Jamaica that ‘donated’ things to them once in awhile. I didn’t ask anymore questions.
To be continued -
- Eddie Glass
http://www.pilebuck.com/
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
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