539 - Eight Hours Don't Make a Day, Part 5--Irmgard and Rolf, Germany, 1972. Dir. Werner Rainer Fassbinder.
Werkzeugmacherhalle Westhoven
Westhoven Toolmaker Hall
or, Westhoven Tool Factory
Dr. Betram shows our factory boss Volkmar Gross the model for the new factory.
We are excited to see Dr. Betram, as he is being played by Klaus Lowitsch, who played the leading man in Fassbinder's sci-fi thriller World on a Wire (1973), which we reviewed nearly two years ago. Klaus Lowitsch was strong and active and decisive in that movie, and we went on a ride with him.
https://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/02/047-world-on-wire-1973-germany-dir.html
This is his first time to appear in an episode of Eight Hours Don't Make a Day.
And our factory boss Volkmar Gross, who has been in each episode, is played by Rainer Hauer, which we have mentioned before. Mr. Hauer also had a role in World on a Wire, as Inspector Stuhlfauth.
They are building the new factory across town, on the other side of Cologne, on land that they can acquire more cheaply. This move will increase efficiency for the factory, reduce costs, and increase the bottom line. It will in turn increase the commutes of the workers, including their boss Volkmar Gross himself.
This episode is entitled "Irmgard and Rolf," following the pattern of naming each episode after a couple and focusing on that couple's relationship. However, it hardly looks at Irmgard and Rolf at all. Rather, it is about Jochen and Marion settling in to their new marriage and looking for housing; Monika making her way after her divorce; Manfred pining over Monika; and Jochen and his colleagues fighting to have a say in organizing their own work.
The term organizing is a bit misleading at first, because its use may lead us to expect them to try to form a union. However, the workers are not actually organizing a union, at least not formally. Yes, they are coming together in solidarity, but it is not the whole plant. It is just Jochen's team--21 people who work in one group during one shift--and they are making nine demands on this one occasion that will apply to them alone.
Everyone agrees that the first part of the demands is reasonable and achievable. It involves restrooms and vending machines and things that can be easily supplied to make their workplace better.
But the second part is more challenging. They want assistance with the new commutes--essentially travel pay to offset increased personal expenses for car or bus trips--and the freedom to organize the workflow on the work floor itself. They contend that they know the process better than any manager, because they are physically on the floor doing the work. Therefore, if they could have a say in how the processes are set up, then they can save the company time and money.
We have already seen this concept succeed in the first episode, when Jochen devised a new machine that would do the work of several machines at once.
The men further request that they have a share in the profits that are brought in as a result of the saved costs.
Their boss, Volkmar Gross, thinks that their demands are a joke.
But his boss, Dr. Betram, understands them and finds their requests to be reasonable.
He will give them a trial run here at the current plant, and if they can produce the results they claim, then he will split the costs savings with them in the form of bonus pay, and he will allow them to take the concept with them to the new factory.
The resulting test run will produce new questions concerning division of labor, pay rate categories, profit sharing, and the unmentioned one of adjusted future expectations. Meaning, once the new system is in place, why would management continue to keep the same quotas? Why not adjust the quotas to match the new system so that they are no longer beating their quotas by such a great amount?
Fassbinder does soft-sell his economic politics in this series by focusing on the families and relationships of the people and by resolving conflicts fairly easily.
He was working as a hired hand for a TV channel, with guidelines given to him, with deadlines to meet, and for a mass audience where ratings mattered. It was a new experience for him, who had been used to working on all of his projects on his own terms. Irm Hermann, a member of Fassbinder's stock company who plays Irmgard here, says in a 2017 interview that it was the first time she ever saw him stressed like this.
The results are good. It is like a poet who works in free verse being asked to write a sonnet. Here are the parameters. Work within them. That kind of discipline is good for every artist in every field. Not necessarily for every project, but for some of them. It forces the artist to develop specific skills that he might let go lax, or never develop at all, otherwise.
This series was supposed to run to eight (8) episodes, but it stops here at five (5). Apparently, the TV channel who commissioned it gave in to letters of protest by union workers who were dissatisfied with their portrayal--from both sides. Too left-wing, not left-wing enough. Not realistic. Etc.
It is too bad, too, because we are now invested in these characters and would like to continue with them further on their journeys. The end of this episode leaves us set up for the next one, but the next one does not come.
So in a sense we are stuck in this moment forever.
And yet, we still have these characters' lives to savor.
The members of these two families--the blood family and the work family--who show us that the eight hours of life lived at work do not constitute the whole day.
That the other 16 hours matter as well.
The hours of the hearth.
The hours of the home.
* * * *
Let's say you want to chop wood. Someone comes to you and tells you how to chop the wood and when to chop it. You won't feel like doing it, and you'll do it grudgingly. But if you're allowed to chop the wood how you want and whenever you want, you'll start chopping merrily away and do it faster.
There are things between heaven and earth . . .
Yes, it appears there are.
Twenty-one. Everyone.
Nine demands.
People will bite off more than they can chew, but only a bit more. That's what everyone who wants something does.
The workers are asking for the right to independently organize the work process in relation to a given work contract.
If both sides win, what can be the harm?
Addi Lyon Combo
"Strangers in the Night"
"Only You"
Now you tell me something. Rolf won't be greater than anyone else, because he already is someone. He has a job, he's nice, you like him. Why do you have to make him into something great? Be happy with what you have.
Everyone who's in love has that--the desire to see the one they love attain greatness. But, you know, in principle I think that--in principle, we can be happy that the person we love isn't someone great, that he isn't all high and mighty, because then he's much closer to you. Then you're something great together because you love each other.
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