Life on the line : one woman's tale of work, sweat, and survival / by Solange De Santis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

De Santis, Solange.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

De Santis, Solange.

General Motors of Canada.

Women automobile industry workers--Ontario--Scarborough.

Women automobile industry workers.

General Motors of Canada--Employees.

Employees.

Ontario--Toronto--Scarborough.

Physical Description:

272 pages; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Doubleday, 1999.

Summary:

Solange De Santis was raised to occupy the clean world of white-collar work. Her accomplished immigrant father and her glamorous, fashion-writer mother assumed from De Santis's first steps that she would strive to Wive up to their high expectations. And for many years De Santis did, moving from one secure journalism job to another. But just as her career track became thoroughly grooved, De Santis left it all to work on the line at General Motors. in "Life On The Line", De Santis recounts in vivid detail just how and why she undertook this path of seemingly reverse ambition.

Unlike our image of the immigrant daughter dreaming of the elite world of high-powered business, De Santis was always fascinated with the world of truly hard work, with people who sweat and lift and labor to make the things those in the white-collar world take for granted. What De Santis found at the failing GM plant where she worked was at times surprising, even humorous, and at others grim: she found equal measures of competent hard workers, raging alcoholics, mindless bureaucrats, and good friends. In the process she challenged her physical breaking points and her own assumptions about blue-collar life and the people who live it. In "Life On The Line", she offers more than a glimpse into a world that too many of us shy from acknowledging, even as we accept the keys to our new cars. Completely candid, and as unexpectedly poignant as it is funny, "Life On The Line" will change the way you view the man-made products on which we all depend.

ISBN:

0385489773

OCLC:

40395641