| Description | Track 1 [01:18:19][Session One: 15 Oct 2013] David Thomas[DT], born 2 November 1937, Corporation Road, Port Talbot where lived until 3-4 years old. Mentions road bombed during the Second World War. Remarks Port Talbot wasn’t the target for the bombing but was caught by bombers trying to hit Swansea Docks. Mentions the air raid shelter was in the local pub’s cellar. [00:01:49] Mentions his Father’s job was a miner, exempt from military service due to working underground – Bevan boy, whilst Mother was a housewife. [0:02:00] Comments attended the mountain school as a child, so named because of its location on the side of the mountain, located where the M4 motorway is now. Mentions the school was knocked down to build the motorway. [00:02:35] Mentions left school at 15 years old. Mentions was unable to sit his exams (eleven plus?) due to contracting Scarlett Fever at 12 years old. Describes his isolation due to the contagiousness of Scarlett Fever and how the windows were taped down in his house and rooms sprayed. Describes how he had a chance to go to art school when he left school at fifteen years old and mentions how he had a talent, being one of a few who had completed a mural in Trefelyn school (the school he attended after mountain school) however he wanted to earn money and chose to work instead. [00:04:00] Describes how he joined British Steel in 1951/52 as a junior operator. Describes being allocated somewhere to work and mentions how many ended up in the postal department as communication was key in a big factory with buses laid on for boys to distribute messages. [0:05:34] Describes job in the factory as a dangerous place to work and mentions he was regarded as a glorified errand boy under manager Mr MacKay based at Margam melting shop. [0:06:33] Comments when crossing the furnace area had to be aware of the large machinery -cranes loading material into the furnaces. Comments on a fatal accident made his first day memorable. [0:07:37] Remarks on frequency of accidents within the works, with accidents highest amongst contractors and electrical workers. Mentions moved to drawing office after six months and remarks on large number of draughtsmen in the workforce. Mentions moved to gain experience in different areas of factory. Remembers company continued to give new starters a basic education twice a week until eighteen years of age. [00:11:45] Mentions wages pre- eighteen years old were a lot less compared with other factory workers. Mentions did two years National Service and on return went to work in hot sheet finishing which employed young people to do basic tasks. Mentions this was in the Abbey which was noisier than at Margam. Described tasks at the Abbey carried out by a work pool of ten or twelve. Describes a Ross carrier as a machine which would pick up bundles of steel that weighed two or three tonnes and stack it in piles and mentions his job (as a Ross car follower) and his work behind the shears, cutting the rolls of steel and trimming end of steel sheets. Comments on how manual the work was, lasting for eight hours. [00:15:35] Comments on weekly working hours at the plant, three shifts: six until two, two until ten and ten until six. Mentions continental shift came in later which included this three-way shift over seven days as oppose to five as it had been. Comments on shift work and its impact on your body but adapted. Comments on worked in cold roll products: more pay and better conditions. Mentions how the unions had little power influencing workers’ wages. [00:19:40] Mentions working in the cold roll products plant in the inspection department and describes its highlights. Mentions as an inspector he would assess the quality control aspect of the steel and tolerances that had to be met as part of customer requirements. Describes the types of sheet steel, with full finish being better quality than general purpose steel and then a lower standard that was up for purchase more cheaply and how this depended on the customer’s requirements. Mentions metallurgical side would check the ductility of the steel with there being fifty-two reasons for the inspector to reject the product. Mentions the high rejection rate and blames the process for this. Describes what issues during production could affect the quality of the roll. Mentions promotion to management in 1985 and how being a temporary foreman in the past had prepared him for this. [00:28:23] Describes how he implemented a new system of payment for the steel in this new role. [00:29:35] Describes many changes going on in the plant in the 1980’s and gives example of Japanese influence on the market whereby steel was produced by a small work force. Mentions to compete with the Japanese and others in the World market, redundancies resulted. Remarks men had to take on more duties. Mentions these changes came in the aftermath of the 1980’s strike. [00:31:36] Comments on bonus pay as being up to a quarter of your wages so this was a good incentive to work hard. Comments on the hierarchy within the plant: with a foreman and then management above him. Remarks on big changes at the plant brought on by what the customer wanted and gives example of British Leyland and how were happy with the steel under British management. Mentions rust being an issue with trips to Honda. Mentions took the job in management due to money and security. Describes this new management role and the draw backs of telling people what to do and how he was able to succeed in this role by using his experience of starting at the bottom, at the cost of losing the camaraderie that he had with his team. Mentions computers were just starting to be used at this time. [00:37:35] Describes a near fatal accident which occurred in his role as quality control inspector. [00:39:14] Describes his adaptation to new technological changes during his working life and mentions how time-consuming computers were when they first were introduced to the plant and how it was quicker to write. Mentions that the steel industry was quick to embrace computers and explains that the work force became more proficient at using them to the point that computers were essential to working procedures. Mentions that he had risen to assistant chief inspector by the time he finished. Describes why he finished at the plant and mentions a main reason was that they were shedding numbers. Mentions retired at fifty-five years old. [00:41:29] Describes his lack of qualifications let him down in going for any further higher positions and mentions a degree in Metallurgy stood between him and the chief inspector role that combined with more travelling to resolve problems with steel customer orders added to his desire to leave. [00:43:00] Describes travelled to Germany and Belgium for weeks at a time, to sort out problems with customer orders and gives example whereby Germany wanted to return six thousand tonnes of material so instead he went investigate. Mentions too much oil on the steel strip as being the problem so by finding a local company in Germany to take oil off strip saved the steel industry millions of pounds. [00:44:40] Describes the most enjoyable part of his career in the steel industry as having good money and job security locally although remarks on having two redundancy notices in his time there after the strike which the unions sorted out. Mentions British Steel as being a good employer: interesting work, job satisfaction, ever increasing skill set and was looked after. Mentions the cutbacks in the workforce and subsequent changes in the way they worked. Remarks on how over-manning was a problem. Mentions his job was to stand up for the workers and fight their corner not to create redundancies. Describes how the clocking in system worked. [00:53:30] Describes that security to the site increased over the years with identity cards introduced. [00:53:54] Describes the changes in living quarters at home: from sharing his aunt’s house in Gladys Street in old Aberavon which had an outside toilet and gas lights, to getting a new build in Swn-y-Mor, Sandfields estate with an upstairs toilet. Remarks better living accommodation was at the cost of losing a community. Mentions famous comedian Ossie Morris living in Gladys Street, the only person with a car. Mentions it took three buses to transport workers from Sandfields to the works. Mentions stayed in Sandfields until he got married in the early 1960’s, first marriage, being married twice. Mentions dad died of pneumoconiosis and mentions that notification of this was during his National Service. Mentions was in Salisbury plain with Army doing National Service but was relocated to Tenby after his dad’s death. Ironically mentions harder to get to Tenby than Salisbury Plain. [01:01:11] Comments on changes in Port Talbot town centre and mentions some of these changes were the consequence of the expanding Abbey works. Mentions some of the workers came from Newport to work at the Abbey works. [01:02:30] Mentions Leisure time: football, socialising with work colleagues in the Steel Company Royals Club and remembers photographing the steel football and cricket team. Describes belonged to the Transport and General Workers Union. Mentions there were other unions for other members of staff. Mentions had to be part of a union in the past. Mentions attending meetings when redundancies were looming or changes in working practice and gives example. Mentions knowing union officials and felt they did a good job in representing the work force but never wanted to get involved with unions further. Comments on the Transport and General Workers Union more pro-active than the later staff union that he joined. [01:10:00] Describes the strikes as being more protests and mentions had to do what the unions told you to do. Mentions supporting the steel strike of 1980 and was involved with the picketing at sites that used the steel made at the plant. Mentions blockading the road into a small factory in Gorseinon and Llanelli, with mixed responses. Remarks that management tried to test the response of the unions- it was a power struggle. Mentions the iron and steel trade union and comments although people were in different unions they weren’t thought of as opponents. Mentions structure of managing directors being the only change in the Steel industry during Nationalisation in 1968. Mentions Nationalisation was felt to be a good thing by all at the time as it meant greater job security. Describes insecurities in 1988 when the company was privatised and sold off. Mentions today TATA could sell off the company however it would lose its government subsidies. Mentions having a broader customer base in the past with a higher export rate abroad.
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