by Brian Cain
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Friday the seventh of July. Jason had dragged himself out of bed at six am. He was having trouble looking after his long flowing hair; the last few days had seen little time for him to pay much attention to it. He considered having it cut, then considered what he had considered; it put his mind into overload. After showering, he studied his diary to plan his day, his wet hair dripped onto the page. “Tch, damn.” He was having breakfast with Tammy and Mary, when the doorbell rang. He looked at his watch, seven fifteen. “Could you get that Mary, I don’t know who it could be at this time of the morning.”
Mary returned. “It’s three men to see you Jason, one is Italian and is very upset.”
“Could you fix Tammy while I attend to this, thank you.” Jason found Link Wilson and Graham Potts accompanied by a tall thick set bald man with deep olive complexion, who was obviously Italian by his speech.
“This is a Mr Brinkly?” The Italian directing his question to Wilson.
“Yes.”
The Italian turned to Jason. “Mr a Brinkly, We must a talk a with you straight away.”
“To whom am I speaking?” asked Jason.
Potts spoke. “Sorry to bother you at this hour Jason, this is Mario Benneti. He works at your northern plant, he has worked for the company longer than anyone else, in fact he was your father’s first employee.”
Jason offered his hand. “I am very honoured to meet you Mario, please won’t you all come inside.” Jason escorted them to the lounge table.
Have you had breakfast, I can get some made up if you haven’t.”
“Mr a Brinkly, we no worried about breakfast, we worried about work. Link and a Graham been at my house all a night. We look at all the papers you give a them. We very angry with a union boss, they a ruin everything. When we tell a the workers, they in big a trouble. Mr a Brinkly, we...”
“Please Mario, my name is, Jason.”
“Jason we work a long time at the factories, some a times in the early years for a twelve a hours, seven days. Now we gotta nothing, all because of union crooks tell us a lies. Many workers gotta the families, whata we do now?” Mario broke into tears.
Jason leant across, touching Mario’s arm. “I am well aware of the service some of our workers have given over the years. It will never be forgotten.”
Wilson spoke. “Some of the workers will know what went on yesterday, Marshall, Peterson and Capper have their snouts in the plants. They may be trying to whip up hysteria now for all we know. We looked at the re-planning ideas of Farmer and Nickson in the information you supplied us. Looks really good. No one would be laid off, with the world market being able to take the increased production and top quality merchandise to boot.”
“I’ll get David Kelp our lawyer to look at charges that can be brought against Marshall, Peterson and Capper today. What do you people want to do?”
“We’ll have a meeting of all personnel at one plant, tell them everything we know, then make some suggestions. We’ll need management at the meeting with us. The stirrers will be in there doing what they do at every meeting, causing trouble. With present agreements at the plants, no one can be employed if they are not a member. We know who all these people are, only ten we know of in each plant. If a vote withdraws their membership, we would ask you to put them off. We can then sit down with the management and sort things out. Once the arseholes have gone, people will settle down to real issues that confront us.”
“If you think that’s the best idea, then it’s fine with me. You’ll have to do all your negotiating with Watson, Farmer and Nickson, I don’t want to override their positions. This is all exactly what I thought, I knew someone would come, I didn’t think it would be this time of the morning though. Cheer up Mario, things will work out fine.”
“We have Mario with us; he’s the most respected worker amongst us. When he tells them what has happened, we are ninety-nine percent sure that they will listen,” said Wilson.
“If that’s the case, I will suggest to Watson that Mario become our industrial relations officer. I have only just met him but feel at ease, so he must be the man we are looking for. If you guys sort this out, you must be the workers’ new martyrs. I shall ring Watson now, where do you want to meet him?”
“We were thinking of meeting at one of the plants, now I have a better idea,” stressed Wilson. “You Jason have emerged as our best asset. Leadership, integrity, honesty and an incredible charisma that will rub off on our people. I think we should make the meeting in the parklands opposite the city offices, so you may address them yourself. We’ll need some kind of public address system to cover that.”
Jason rolled his lips in and smiled. “I can arrange that, there will be the biggest PA you’ve ever seen there for you. Make it one pm. Call me over when you need me.”
“The place is a bit public for things we have to discuss, some people may be reluctant to pass comment under those circumstances,” said Potts. “We will have individual meetings at each plant before attending the main one in town. Mario can come with us to each one. That way things may be a little calmer.”
“Fine, if you think that’s the way to go, you guys know more about it than I do.”
Tammy came into the room; she went straight to Mario and sat on his lap. “Hello, I’m Tammy, what’s your name?”
“Tammy, you’re a lovely little a girl, you call a me Mario. Who’s little a girl are you?”
“Jason’s my daddy.”
“My goodness a me Jason, you are a nothing like what I expect. My daughter’s mad about your a music. Bang a bang a bang all day with the flaming jungle a music, but some a times is okay.” With much laughter the meeting dispersed.
Jason informed Watson the morning’s events, Watson took it on board relaying the information down the line. Jason then rang Tom, who had had a late night with a touring band.
“Tom, it’s Jason.”
Tom looked at his alarm clock by the bed, thinking it was eight pm; he flew out of bed. “Jason, great to hear from you. Am I late for something?”
“Not that I know of. I just rang to ask you to take the PA to the south parklands opposite our office block this morning, set it up there. Somewhere seven hundred and fifty people will be able to hear it okay.”
“We’re playing the South Parklands today?”
“No, it’s for a union meeting. Be ready by twelve thirty this afternoon.”
“What! What time is it, come to think of it what day is it?”
“It’s Friday, eight am.”
“Oh what! I’ve only been asleep two hours, will we need a permit or something? What about power?”
“Hire a genset, I don’t know about the permit. I guess we’ll find out about ten minutes after we start using it. Just a couple of vocal mics will be enough.”
“Okay I’ll get onto it, catch you there.” Tom mumbled off into the morning. “Why me, who’d really want to do this for a living, I must be mad. Take the truck down there, unload it, set up. Probably get arrested for doing it. Jesus.”
Jason had just enough time to take Tammy to school before heading to the office. He was listening to fm radio on the way, a “Full On” ballad Jason had written for Malinda filled the air. He could see her face while it played. The song finished, the radio announcer made a statement. “We have it on good advice from Ramrod Records that Jason Brinkly is stepping aside from ‘Full On’. It has been stated Indiana from the ‘Boogie Men’ will take vocals, with Joe Hammer stepping into Brinkly’s guitar role. Vic Evans and Brad Bishop will remain. Brinkly has been forced to make the move due to taking the lead role in his deceased father’s manufacturing empire. Brinkly recently lost his wife too.” It was stated she was a great influence in Brinkly’s music. The statement also quoted that Ramrod had signed four of the world’s biggest rock bands in the last two months. Another surprising quote in the statement was that Jason Brinkly is now the sole owner of Ramrod Records. “Due to his music and guidance, they are the most powerful influ
ence on the world rock scene today. We will keep you informed on any further developments as they come to hand.”
Jason thought as he drove on, “Steven Brooks, getting right on with things.”