The Goal

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gripping the armrests of his chair with white knuckles, while O'Donnell is talking at the top of his voice.

"What's the problem here?" I ask.

"You know very well what the problem is: your new lunch rules in heat-treat and n/c machining," says O'Donnell. "They're in violation of the contract. I refer you to Section Seven, Para- graph Four..."

I say, "Okay, wait a minute, Mike. It's time we gave the union an update on the situation of the plant."

For the rest of the morning I describe for him the situation the plant is in. Then I tell him some of what we've discovered and explain why the changes are necessary.

Wrapping up, I say, "You understand, don't you, that it's probably only going to affect about twenty people at the most?"

He shakes his head.

"Look, I appreciate you trying to explain all this," he says. "But we got a contract. Now if we look the other way on one thing, what's to say you won't start changing whatever else you don't like?"

I say, "Mike, in all honesty, I can't tell you that down the road aways, we won't need to make other changes. But we're ultimately talking about jobs. I'm not asking for cuts in wages or concessions on benefits. But I am asking for flexibility. We have to have the leeway necessary to make changes that will allow the plant to make money. Or, very simply, there may not be a plant in a few months."

"Sounds like scare tactics to me," he says finally.

"Mike, all I can say is, if you want to wait a couple of months to see if I'm just trying to scare everyone, it'll be too late."

O'Donnell is quiet for a moment.

Finally, he says, "I'll have to think about it, talk it over and all that. We'll get back to you."

By early afternoon, I can't stand it anymore. I'm anxious to find out how the new priority system is working. I try calling Bob Donovan, but he's out in the plant. So I decide to go have a look for myself.

The first place I check is the NCX-10. But when I get to the machine, there's nobody to ask. Being an automated machine, it runs a lot of the time with nobody tending it. The problem is that when I walk up, the damn thing is just sitting there. It isn't run- ning and nobody is doing a set-up. I get mad.