The Chain

By James Robb

Work on the mutton chain was not like any other job Frank had ever done. It was the only place he had known where most of the workers were Maori. The knife jobs were hard as hell, but the money was good - at least for now. But it took a while to figure out who you could trust, and who would go running to the boss.

It wouldn't be long before the simmering tensions between the bosses, the farmers and the meat workers, men and women, Maori and pakeha, would spill out into violent conflict.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Robb
• Release date: Oct 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9780473262464

James Robb

James Robb grew up in Wellington, New Zealand. During the 1980s and 1990s he worked in meatworks, car assembly plants, carpet and biscuit factories in Wellington, Hastings, and Auckland. Currently he is a high school teacher in Auckland.

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The Chain

a novel by James Robb

This is a complex, cleverly worked and very readable first novel.

Jane Orchard, Takahe magazine, April 2013

"The Chain is an excellent novel that deserves to be widely read."

Toby Boraman, Labour History Project Bulletin, August 2013.

The Chain

By James Robb

Copyright 2013 James Robb

Smashwords Edition

First published in paperback format by Steele Roberts Aotearoa Ltd, 2012

http://www.steeleroberts.co.nz/

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.

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The Chain

Chapter 1

Frank sensed a change as they came through the gorge. The pelting rain eased off to a drizzle, then petered out. A half moon appeared through breaks in the clouds. It seemed warmer. Winter had passed into spring in the space of half an hour.

Gone was the icy Wellington southerly, the wind that numbed the senses and sterilised the land. Out on the open plain past the gorge there was a new wind, milder, laden with new smells. This wind bore the scent of moistened earth and new grass growth, of watercress in the ditches and cowshit, of quickening processes of growth and decay, of motion, of changes. Change was what Frank was looking for.

Spring was the time of year when dissatisfaction with his circumstances and irritation with the people around him grew, then burst out into the open; it was Frank’s season of discontent. He was sick of the bunch of friends he had hung out with since school and sick of the lousy pay he got at Fords. Now the sudden gust of spring winds fanned his feelings of irritation, and swept them in the direction of Richard, curled up on the back seat.

Frank wound down the window.

Got to let the exhaust fumes out, he called over his shoulder. The noise and the blast of fresh air were bound to make Richard stir.

Richard wasn’t really asleep anyway. He had plumped himself down, with his silly little pillow that he must have had since he was five, only because he didn’t want to talk to Frank any more. He had been that way for the past hour. Richard had wanted to stop for takeaways but Frank wanted to press on, and Frank was driving, and it was Frank’s car, simple as that. So they’d quarrelled. Sulky little prick. With a bit of luck he might have calmed down by now. It wasn’t the best way to begin the journey.

In many ways, things had got off to a bad start.

Frank had wanted to leave straight after work, to get past the gorge before nightfall. It was October and the days were getting longer, but still that wouldn’t have been easy. With all Richard’s fluffing about it was almost six o’clock by the time they hit the road, and darkness had fallen before they even got clear of the city.

It had taken them nearly three hours to get as far as the gorge, and there were maybe another two to go. He’d never driven this road before, the damned car was farting and fuming and carrying on, and the wipers weren’t working properly. They were going to arrive in a town where they knew nobody.

His freezing-worker mate Dennis had given him the name of some uncle or other to look up when he got there, but the connection was pretty tenuous. Anyway, Dennis hadn’t even bothered to show up at Frank’s farewell. Dennis could be a useless prick sometimes.

Frank figured that he and Richard would arrive too late to find a place to stay. They’d have to spend a night in the car, maybe two. He yawned.

The road across the Takapau plains seemed to go on forever. Tiredness was starting to kick in. Somewhere, in the middle of a straight stretch, when it seemed he had been going a long time since the last town and there was no sign of the next, he stopped to have a smoke and a piss. The car was making some nasty overheating smells.

Richard hadn’t moved a muscle. Maybe a break would bring him to life.

It was dead quiet. A long time passed before a car went past in the opposite direction. There were now only a few clouds near the horizon, nothing but the bright moon overhead, and no wind at all. A dew was settling on the grass.

He relieved himself against a telephone pole, like a dog. The night was so still he could see the steam rising. He had to jump out of the way when the puddle of piss came rolling towards his feet, lost his balance, and fell with a thump against the bonnet of the car. The noise startled some sheep that were grazing on the other side of the fence. Lifting their heads, they lurched away a few steps, stared for a minute, then went back to their chewing. Frank looked in to see if his crashing about had made Richard move. Richard was now propped up against the window, staring out blankly. His white face looked like a little round moon appearing over the horizon.

Almost fell in my own pee Frank said, but it brought forth no response.

The only sounds were a quiet ticking under the bonnet as some metal part cooled down, and the tearing sounds as the sheep ripped off tufts of grass. Frank sat on the corner of the car watching them for a while as he finished his smoke. Even in the middle of the night they were still chewing. The place was full of them, crowded in on the flat, scattered up the hillsides, each one of them munching away in the dark. Some of them were the new season’s lambs.

A truck approached from behind, moving at speed. It hurtled past Frank’s car with hardly an inch to spare, the tailwind making the car shake and roll on its springs. It was a big stock truck; in its wake there was the stench of cowshit. Frank watched its tail lights as they disappeared into the distance.

Just as the truck reached the end of the straight stretch, when he could no longer hear any sound from it, its brake lights came on, as it slowed to turn off the main road. It was heading towards a patch of bright lights on the horizon.

See that? he shouted to Richard. That must be one of these new meatworks they’ve just built south of Hastings. They’re bringing in stock for tomorrow’s kill. Maybe we should apply there as well.

Dennis told me about these places, he continued. Richard hadn’t shown the slightest interest. This one’s only been open a couple of years – about’78 or’79 they built it, Dennis says. They put them out here in the sticks on purpose, to break the power of the union. They want to get all the cockies’ sons working in them. That’s their plan. The place was lit up like a sports ground under floodlights, out in the middle of an empty land, with darkness on all sides.

Dennis! Richard snorted. It was the first sign of life from him in over an hour, and Frank wasn’t sure what to make of it. He was quickly losing his patience with Richard.

So you’re still alive! I thought you might’ve died of carbon monoxide poisoning back there.

What the hell would Dennis know? Richard said.

He’s been right about everything so far! There was a lot riding on what Dennis had said.

Dennis was a persuasive man. A mutton butcher, a big, swaggering, loud-mouthed, smart-arsed mutton butcher from the Petone works, he’d worked beside Frank spot-welding in the bodyshop at Fords. During the off-season at Petone the car plants always took on some of the laid-off meatworkers for a few months.

Freezing workers don’t take any shit from anyone, Dennis had told Frank as they drank sugary tea during a smoko break on the assembly line. A few of the other workers lent half an ear. If it gets too hot working on the chain, we just walk, he said, smacking his palm in an ‘out the gate’ gesture. Same if they try to sack someone without good reason. We even went out in protest the day they evicted our people from Bastion Point, and marched through the city. Had to! You should’ve done the same at this place. Your union’s too weak. Dennis had a low opinion of Fords, the foremen, the union delegates, and most of the workers as well.

"No production work in overtime, only clean-up. You’d only be doing another worker out of a job. If you need to go to the toilet, they’ve got relievers to cover for you. It’s all written in the award.

"Work on the mutton chain’s not the cleanest job around. You get the odd splash of blood and shit in your hair. But at least it’s quiet. You don’t have to wear earmuffs.

And the money’s good! Depending on your bonus, a mutton butcher can take home about two hundred and fifty dollars a week, double what you get in most factory jobs. Dennis had brought along a few of his old Petone pay-slips to show Frank. He certainly wasn’t bluffing about the money.

Then you get laid off and get the hell out of the place for a few months in winter. If you’ve saved some money you just go on the dole while you wait for your call-back; if you’re hungry like me you get another job for the off season. To Frank, the prospect of a few months holiday on the dole each year didn’t seem too bad at all.

Dennis pointed to their delegate in the body shop. You look at that clown, he said without bothering to lower his voice. Is that guy ever going to put his own job on the line to defend you? Not in a million years! They’ve just got no idea. To be a union delegate you’ve got to do more than run around sorting out disputes when they flare up. Leave that to the fire brigade!

Most of the other Fords workers had got up and walked away at this point, but Frank wanted to hear more.

You’ve got to put your soul into it, even when you stand to gain nothing from it yourself. Be prepared to make sacrifices. Once everyone knows that no matter what sort of shit the boss throws at you, your workmates will back you up, then you’ve got a union worth talking about. Then you start to feel your strength.

It wasn’t just wind. Dennis took on the bosses head-on one time, when the trigger on his spot-welding gun began sticking, and it made the thing difficult and dangerous to use. He had two foremen and the line manager yelling in his ear that he had to keep working while they fixed the problem and threatening to sack him if he didn’t, but he stood his ground and refused. Sitting calmly with his arms folded, he kept repeating, You give me a safe machine to work with and I’ll start work. Frank and a couple of others backed him up as best they could, and before long the fitter came trotting over with a replacement welding gun.

We have a strict policy at Petone: you never work with a faulty machine, he told Frank after they had gone. It’s not the foreman who’s going to lose an eye when the thing stuffs up, it’s you.

But Petone itself was a closed shop. You had to have a union ticket already to get hired there. If you want to get into the industry, you’re better to try in some back-of-beyond place where they’ve got a meatworks, Dennis said. Like Hastings. Then move to Petone later on.

To Frank it all sounded like a plan he could go for, but Frank was not the only one in the car that night.

Dennis! Richard spluttered. "He’s a blow-arse! Everyone knows that. Almost everyone! he bleated. You know what they were saying when you were sitting at Dennis’s feet? Maori myths! Maori myths! Frank’s listening to some more Maori myths and legends! Everyone was laughing at that blow-arse. And at you, too, sitting there lapping it up."

There was silence. Frank tried another tack. Fords’ll have us back, if we can’t get in! You’ve seen what happens. People leave, talking about all the great things they’re going to do, and then they suddenly turn up a few months later back at their old jobs. All you’d lose is your seniority, and you haven’t got much of that anyway. What’s the name of that guy in the paint shop who just came back?

Richard didn’t respond. What the hell would Richard know? Dennis never confided in anyone else at Fords the way he did with Frank. Just about every season, there’s some kind of strike, Dennis told him. When there’s a strike on, especially a long one, that’s when you discover what your workmates are really made of. You find that some of the quiet ones are solid as a rock. And some of the big mouths – he pointed at the delegate again – run for cover as soon as the shit starts to fly.

And you know, he continued in a conspiratorial tone, "it wouldn’t be a bad thing if we got a few of our people into those Hawkes Bay sheds. There are going to be some battles coming down soon. They’re trying to bring in pelting machines and do away with our jobs. We can fight them, but the Hawkes Bay sheds are the weak link in the chain.

A couple of decent unionists, with a few ideas and a backbone, could make a real difference in those sheds. Sometimes all they need is leadership. We tried to send in a couple of our boys when these new sheds opened, but as soon as they let on they’d worked at Petone they were down the road…

Frank had already made up his mind: the meatworks was where he needed to be. The problem was convincing Richard.

Have you got a better idea?

Richard said nothing.

Have you got a better plan, or are you just going to sit there and whine the whole way? He started the car up again and waited.

Still Richard said nothing.

God, you’re as bad as your bloody mother. Mum sulks, just like you, when she runs out of arguments. Frank couldn’t help laughing at his own clever observation, even though it was bound to make Richard even angrier. They were so easy to tease, little brothers. Sometimes Frank couldn’t stop himself. Come on, sulky guts. Cheer up! He reached across to the back seat and tried to pull Richard’s lips into a smile with his fingers. Richard cuffed his hands away angrily.

Then Frank hit on it. Now I know. I know what the problem is. He laughed long and hard. Richard looked alarmed. Angie! Poor sulky can’t bear to be parted from Angie. Of course – I should’ve known from the start. One look at Richard’s face and he knew he’d hit the bull’s-eye.

Fuck you, Richard said quietly. Avoiding Frank’s gaze, he opened the door. Frank tried to stifle his sniggering.

Richard started gathering up his stuff. I’m going back.

Frank couldn’t think what to do. He felt sorry for Richard. Dumpy little Angie must have been more important to him than he realised. Don’t be a pain, he said, still sniggering. She was still at school, for God’s sake.

The more upset Richard became, the more comical he appeared. We’re miles from anywhere. I hope you’re not expecting me to take you back home. Frank turned off the motor again and feebly tried to stop Richard getting out.

You just do what you bloody well want, like you always do, Richard said. There wasn’t much in the car that belonged to Richard, just an old suitcase, a blanket, and his pillow. He didn’t even have a sleeping bag. He put the blanket under one arm, the suitcase under the other, and set off. He looked ridiculous, marching off into the dead of night, and Frank wanted to laugh, but he held back.

Don’t forget your pillow! he yelled as he hurled it at Richard. The pillow hit him on the back of the neck and made him wobble slightly. Frank was hoping he would turn around and throw it back, or just do something, but Richard let it fall to the ground and carried on walking.

Frank couldn’t believe that he was serious. Who in their right mind would up and walk off into the night like that? In the middle of nowhere! He sat in the car for a while, waiting for Richard to realise what an idiot he was. But Richard didn’t come back.

He turned the car around and drove slowly back along the road about a mile. There was no sign of Richard. He couldn’t have got further than that. Either he’d sprouted wings, or he was hiding somewhere. He probably dived into the ditch beside the road when he saw the car turn around. He could have been anywhere.

Look, be fair! Frank yelled into the night. I’ll tell you what. We go up there tonight, put our names down at the works tomorrow, and I’ll take you back this weekend. Nothing stirred. He had no idea if Richard could even hear him. This is your last chance. Still nothing.

Frank got back in the car, revved hard and turned north again. It didn’t seem right, leaving his younger brother out there, miles from anywhere, but what more could he do? Richard would be able to hitch a ride back to Wellington easily enough in the morning.

Now he really was in a tight spot. Going back to Fords was out of the question now, not with Richard there, smirking behind his back. Dennis had better bloody well be right about getting into the works in Hastings. Maybe he was just a big blow-arse after all.

*****

Frank woke with a stiff neck from leaning up against the door pillar all night. He had been so tired when he got to Hastings, he’d fallen asleep without bothering to stretch out on the back seat. He desperately needed something to drink, but there was nothing open at 7 o’clock.

It didn’t take him long to find out where the works was; Hastings was a small place. All he had to do was to follow a loaded stock truck. The Heretaunga works occupied a vast site down the end of a long street. It was a lot bigger than Fords.

The streets were still more or less deserted when he pulled up outside the works, but there were already some people hanging around outside the employment office. Frank’s heart jumped. Dennis was right about one thing at least: this was when they did their hiring. Word must be out that they were taking on new people.

When Frank joined them outside the office, it turned out that these were butchers from last season who had got their call-back telegrams. They were friendly enough. Any day now the company would be taking on new workers, they said, so it was worth waiting around. Frank sat down, fourth in line, and decided to put off going for breakfast until later. He could see other people approaching and didn’t want to lose his place in the queue. Feeling slightly sick from hunger and dazed from lack of sleep, he leaned against the wall of the office and watched the sun rise over the stockyards. The old guys told him that the employment officer would be in about seven-thirty, and that’s when he’d be able to put his name down.

More people arrived. The neat line he had hoped for, with himself near the head of it, never formed. People started milling around in groups, chatting, unconcerned about the order in which they had arrived. Frank decided to hold his place.

Everything got reshuffled when the employment officer arrived, anyway. A middle-aged man with a perfectly round bald head and a thin beaky nose, he got there not at half-past-seven but after nine, and by that time everyone’s patience had long run out. There were about thirty people waiting. They surged forward as he walked into the office, but he brushed them aside with a wave of his hand. No new hiring today, he said without looking up from his path. Only those with telegrams.

Frank was about to leave to go and get some breakfast, but one of the butchers grabbed his arm. You never listen to what that turkey says, he said. He doesn’t know shit. The ones who decide are the foremen. Wait around, there might be something yet.

One by one the workers with telegrams got called in to the office and emerged a few minutes later, grinning, and headed across to the main building. They’re starting another half a chain today, and another one by the end of the week. By the time they fill this chain, I bet you they’ll have to hire some new ones, the butcher told Frank, then he too was called in. Frank saw he wasn’t the only one without a telegram.

The employment officer came to the door of his office once again. I assure you, there is no point waiting around.

Frank approached him. I wonder if I could put my name down. I haven’t filled out an application form yet.

The man looked him up and down, like a buyer looking over a breeding cow. I don’t have your name? Very well then, come in and I’ll give you a form. Frank quickly tried to think of a local address to put down on the form. He used Dennis’s uncle’s address, scrawled on a payslip in his back pocket.

That afternoon Frank tried his luck at the Wakaroa works further out of town. It was much the same set-up, but the prospects seemed better at Heretaunga so he made his way back there the following morning. By now most of the people waiting around were new hopefuls. The crowd was more subdued.

A man in whites and gumboots appeared from the main building and walked across the grass to the employment office. He had a clipboard in his hands and a red hard-hat. One of the butchers gave him a cautious wave, calling him Wayne. He went up to the employment officer and the two of them had a conversation in low voices. Frank tried to edge close enough to overhear what they were saying; others were trying to do the same. This was obviously the man who made the decisions.

Tall, with a red face, thin features, and black hair brushed back and slicked down, Wayne had the look of a country and western singer with an alcohol problem. His lips slanted down in a permanent scowl. People seemed to get nervous when they spoke to him.

Frank heard him say to the employment officer: Now, I need a couple of good strong lifters, and then the two of them looked over the waiting crowd. They picked two from among the hopefuls and called them into the office; the first new hires of the season.

Another hour passed and more people joined the queue. A young woman arrived, the first woman he had seen come to apply. She was being shepherded by an older man in whites and gumboots, with smears of blood and sheep shit on his pants. Her father, by the look of it. As he ushered her into the office her gaze remained fixed on the ground. Her hair came down so