Around Thanksgiving of 1989, General Motors announced that they would be closing the van plant in Scarborough, Ontario, and awarding the van contract to Flint, Michigan, the subject of the documentary film, "Roger And Me". On May 6, 1993, production ceased, and the process of dismantling the plant began.
Immediately, crews of workers who had previously been employed in production began to dismantle our former workplace. They disassembled, sorted packed, and shipped off the tools and machinery, throwing away what General Motors couldn't use. Workbenches, chairs, cabinets and tables were cut apart with blowtorches and sold as scrap. By the end of July there was almost nothing left to mark the passage of thousands of people, and the history of a vital, caring, community.
The community within the plant was a network, which crossed boundaries of race, culture, gender, and age. From the paint shop garden, to plant gate collections, and the internal phone system, which was as efficient as Reuters or AP, the plant was as tightly knit, and as protective at times, as armour.
To ensure that the passage of this community would not go unmarked, the union, local 303 of the Canadian Auto Workers, along with the Government of the Province of Ontario, sponsored me for the material costs of a photographic documentation of the workforce within the plant, as part of a heritage project. By the time that the plant closed, I had shot about 130 rolls of film and had collected 743 release forms. Since then, another 25 rolls have been shot documenting the dismantling and demolition of the plant. This is an enormously personal document as I was myself a longtime employee at the van plant and was inspired to study photography upon the death of a close friend and co-worker, to create a tribute to my friends.
I started November 23, 1983 in Body shop, in Respot 1, a close knit community somewhat skeptical of the presence of a woman in their midst. There was some doubt expressed that a little girl like me would ever be able to perform the jobs assigned. What was far more striking however, were the good wishes to succeed, and the generosity of those who helped make endurable the grueling, exhausting, and painful period until my muscles and stamina developed.
It was not unusual for co-workers to help in both small and large ways someone who was struggling with a job. Most jobs were designed to fill every second, and if a worker was new, or having a bad day, the pace could be inhumanely brutal. It was common practice for people whose jobs had a more relaxed pace to step in and take over for someone who was struggling, to offer some relief and support. More striking were the people whose jobs were also difficult, who would extend themselves further to help someone else.
The factory was loud, grimy, and chaotic, a hostile and alien landscape, yet thoroughly humanized by the spirit of its inhabitants. Artifacts were abundant, armchairs and couches built from packing crates, murals, caricatures, and the crowning glory, the rooftop patio garden, an oasis created and maintained each year by Barry Mitchell, a tradesman in Paint shop.
In a bleak era seemingly dominated by violence and hatred, my friends and co-workers provided a basis for faith in humanity.
This exhibition is my tribute to that community, to my "Extended Family." Drawing mainly on the van plant photographs, it also includes others, which were shot on earlier occasions, at parties, parades, and events. Its purpose is to give a human face to the jobs that were lost, to present the intangible losses that cannot figure in economist’s charts. Most important to me is that this plant closure be seen not as a displacement of 2800 jobs, but as the displacement of the 2800 people who worked them. It is also important that attention be paid not only to the economic tragedy, but also to the disruption and loss of the community, which was so important and vibrant a part of our lives. As Glen Seidman remarked to me on May 5, 1993 "I keep remembering that a while after I first started here, my girlfriend and I broke up. I was pretty upset about it, and one of the older guys that I worked with said, 'don't worry, after 20 years you might be with your 2nd or 3rd wife, but you'll still have the same co-workers. And I keep thinking, he was right, I've worked here for 19 years, and there are guys that I've worked with all of that time that are with their 2nd or 3rd wives, but they still have the same co-workers, in fact, I still work with that same guy. Tomorrow, it's over."
Our lives still connect, there are union functions, elections, and we remain members until our benefits run out. Lots of people lived near the plant and we run into each other at the mall. We catch up, exchange gossip, touch hands, and move on. There are Christmas cards and phone calls, but our lives are quite different now. It isn't over, exactly, but nothing is the same. The house is gone, and no other roof will ever bring us together. In shooting the photographs for this exhibition, I focused on these themes; the work, which draws everyone together and provides a common purpose, the community, which provides respite from the drudgery, the individuals who give the community its face, their artifacts, and the way in which the work environment is humanized and made into habitat, and both as a sculptural artifact, and as an organic form with its own crude beauty. Underlying all of that is of course, the very subjective theme of my own relationship to all of these parts.
Gayle Hurmuses May 1, 1995
Every summer, right about now, the local union (CAW303) would have a picnic in a Scarborough park. Always well-attended, it brought together people from all three shifts (two production and one maintenance) for a day of fun and bonding. All the usual stuff, 3-legged races, egg races, water-dunking union executives, arm-wrestling competitions. Everyone's children would play together. As a plant with many generations of families working together, drawing on the local community, there were many co-workers, and more than a few spouses that had met this way as children.In a period when you could still grow up in sight of a place like that, which fed the community and where you might know you could find a job as an adult, these picnics both brought together current co-workers and inducted future co-workers into the rich community life within the plant.
