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Workers Building New Amtrak Trains Think They Own The Place...And They Do
By Allie Holly-Gottlieb
Robert Castillo installing seats in a new Talgo train car. |
The first results of this unusual effort will be seen this Monday, November 9, at King Street station when the first Talgo trains, built by District 160's Pacifica company, are unveiled. They will be put into service December 1 on the new Amtrak Cascade service linking Vancouver B.C., Everett, Seattle, Tacoma, Portland and Eugene. The trains were designed with help from local residents, including train riders, Amtrak staff, artists and community groups. Services and features include laptop outlets, foot rests, fresh local foods and recycling bins.
The idea to form Pacifica Marine came out of a union project to use the skills and experience that union workers had gained building missiles, torpedoes and ships. They put together grants from the Federal Government, Washington State and King County, and some seed money from the Machinists union (International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers).
They found an old 1930s Ford truck plant down on East Marginal Way that had access to a container ship dock and 80,000 square feet of production space. They hired Bill Patz, a union organizer and a former grade school teacher, to get the company running.
While Patz went out rounding up business, a committee of union members took a hard look at their new factory. It was basically a battered shell. It needed a roof, power for lights and machines, heating and ventilation, compressed air and plumbing.
The union members did much of the work themselves.
From the beginning, Pacifica set out to prove that "you can build with low overhead and without layers and layers of management," as Don Hursey, Directing Business Agent for Machinists District Lodge 160, puts it.
"We engineered the compressed air system for the factory," Mechanical Lead David Kenaston said "Talgo wanted to contract it out, but we had a better idea. We designed and built the whole system ourselves," he said proudly.
"We learned as we went," Kenaston said. "My dad helped us put in the piping for the air system. We got someone to come in and teach us how to braze copper pipe. The roof leaked. We had to fix that."
Patz started out looking for shipbuilding contracts, since many of their potential workers were from the Bremerton shipyards. They nearly landed a job with a Russian firm to build hydroplanes.
Then, in 1996, Amtrak and the Washington State Department of Transportation selected Talgo, a Spanish Company, to produce new rail cars for the Northwest corridor. The trains are sleek, light and capable of speeds exceeding 125 mph. They are built with a low center of gravity to handle turns at high speeds, reducing fuel consumption and providing a smoother ride.
In authorizing the deal with Talgo, the Washington legislature put in a 25% domestic content requirement. So just as Pacifica was out scouting for production contracts, Talgo was looking for an American partner.
Pacifica got the contract March 1997 to assemble five trains.
Right away, shop stewards started contacting laid-off workers, looking for the skills they would need to handle their new contract. Many of the members had worked for years building missiles, torpedoes and ships.
Pacifica hired Bill Patz as their CEO, and two years later he is still the only management employee. Everyone else works on the shop floor.
Ten of the new hires were sent to Spain for six months to learn how the trains are built, and to work on preliminary assembly at the Talgo plant in Madrid. The workers lived in a hotel, worked full-time at the factory, and took technical and Spanish classes in their spare time.
The group of ten returned from Spain to see Pacifica grow to a group of about 40. They used what they learned in Spain to teach new employees, design the workspace and to replicate Talgo's operations.
The cars arrive at Pacifica as hollow shells, with the wheels, carriages and other mechanical equipment shipped separately. The job at Pacifica is to assemble all the parts into functioning trains, do all the interior finish work and install seats, windows, electrical, and all the other systems.
The Pacifica company is owned by a non-profit trust with a board of directors that includes workers and District Lodge 160 representatives.
"All of our (previous) training has been the typical top-down management that excludes the workers and we're trying to be more flexible," says Mechanic Brian Turner. The company functions without "the usual corporate hierarchy," according to Business Servicing Representative Leif Jensen.
Today the company employees 80 people. Several worker committees meet weekly to discuss projects and to problem-solve. One committee decided they needed a spray paint booth, rather than contract out some painting jobs. The committee approved it, then it was voted on by the entire plant.
Workers operate in teams, each with a team lead. The teams hold informal meetings daily. Special committees on plant safety and production methods meet on lunch hours or after work. "Everybody carries a little bit of weight of management decisions," said electrical lead Mark Kurras.
Average wages at Pacifica are $17 an hour, with a range between $13 and $20 per hour. Wages and benefits are determined by a vote of the entire work force. "That's something we have to work on," Kurras said. "We're working out the bugs as we go."
Denny London, a worker who was refitting doors for electrical boxes, told The Seattle Press, "This is the first place I've worked where I actually had a say in how we work and what gets done. We have lots of ability to work on our own, lots of individual initiative. This way of working promotes creativity.
Another worker, Bruce Heath, said, "Everybody seems really positive, much more than I've seen anywhere else I've worked. There's a real team concept. Everybody tries to be helpful to everybody else...I've never seen that before in a workplace."
Pacifica carries on a Pacific Northwest tradition of workers taking action to adapt to changes in the market system, according to University of Washington Political Science Professor Dave Olson. "In the '30's," Olson said, "plywood workers bought their bankrupt mills to save their jobs and some of them are running even today."
Olson said Pacifica grew out of a specific set of economic conditions. "Boeing was laying off thousands, and Pacifica was one small effort to try to keep laid off workers in these industries from migrating to other parts of the country in search of work. It has been extremely successful in this effort. Even since the recent resurgence at Boeing, Pacifica has survived in quite healthy shape."
The Pacifica workforce has proved they can run a substantial manufacturing operation, with a unique and creative worker managed company. Now they face the challenge of finding new contracts to keep their employees working and the company growing. They have bids out on Sound Transit rail car work and several other projects. They're eager to get on to the next job.
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