Rivethead by Ben Hamper

Introduction by the Blog Author

Rivethead, Tales from the Assembly Line is a collection of articles Ben Hamper wrote for Michael Moore’s alternative newspaper in Flint, Michigan, in the 1980s.  It’s a startlingly funny and shocking overview of blue collar America at that time.  Every American with an MBA should be forced to read and ponder this book.  Here are two readers’ reviews from Amazon.com

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5 Stars

GREAT BOOK! Anyone you gives it less than 5 stars is nuts!
By Leticia Y. Lopez on April 10, 1999

I was forced to read this book...against my better wishes, my hellish American History professor assigned this book to our class. As I read the title I remembered thinking: "how in the world is an assembly line job interesting enough to read about?" About the only thing I thought the book had going for it was the forward by Michael Moore. It looked like I was going have to spend another weekend plodding though a boring book when I could have been spending it at the movies or out with my friends. It turned out to be one of the best weekends of my life. The books was hilarious -- It was real, gritty, sharp and wonderfully written. After reading the introduction, I was hooked: I locked myself in my room, unplugged the telephone and didn't put down the book until I was finished. That was ten minutes ago -- now I am online looking to see if he has written any other books...I was disappointed to see that he hasn't. Ben Hamper -- wherever you are -- I have joined the ranks as your loyal fan. Even though you no longer work for GM, I hope you will find another story out there and tell the world about it.

5 Stars

An Invaluable Personal Account of an Americn Way of Life
ByStacy Heltonon July 2, 2013

Ben Hamper's 1991 memoir RIVETHEAD: TALES FROM THE ASSEMBLY LINE is both a well-written and a vital piece of social commentary, a companion of sorts to Michael Moore's 1989 doc ROGER & ME. Ben Hamper was a fourth-generation GM "shoprat," aka assembly line worker at the Flint, Michigan plant. Hamper, the oldest of eight children in a Catholic household, sketches his childhood as a promising student that inevitably burns out of high school, forcing him to follow in the families' footsteps and enter the Blazer/Suburban assembly line, where he eventually becomes a talented riveter, one of the more thankless and difficult jobs at the factory. The book is a frank look at what life is like on an assembly line and how the above-average wages become a ball and chain that keep the employees from seeking other employment, and anyone who's seen ROGER & ME know that there was never that much alternative work available in Flint. Ben is laid off five separate times and hired back, so he is able to delve into the life of not only an autoworker but an unemployed autoworker and the struggles with the unemployment office. Eventually he meets Michael Moore, the then-editor of the Flint alternative newspaper, where he becomes a star columnist known as the "Rivethead," where he takes on the tedious life on the assembly line, grimy, noisy, unrelenting work that is always overshadowed by the tick of the clock. Colorful characters abound in the various departments and years that Hamper works, and he happily chronicles them for his column. When Moore takes over MOTHER JONES and puts Hamper on the cover he becomes a minor celebrity, appearing in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, on the TODAY SHOW and even vetted, in an unsuccessful but humorous piece, by 60 MINUTES. There is bit of HS Thompson in the prose, and Hamper isn't shy with sharing his alcohol intake and other vices, which only adds to the realism. My dad was a welder for almost twenty years, and on occasion I went to the plant, and the noise and grime Hamper describes is too real. Hamper is the guy in ROGER & ME who describes having a nervous breakdown, which resulted in a series of panic attacks. It's no surprise in the end that Hamper's panic attacks become increasingly frequent, forcing a dependence on pills, eventually checking himself in as a mental health outpatient. A friend gave me this book, a fellow sociologist who read it for a college course. I think it's an invaluable personal account of an American way of life. The only issue is that the book just stops and doesn't really end; but that's a minor quibble. Even though Hamper never published another book, RIVETHEAD is an important artifact of a time and place.

http://www.amazon.com/Rivethead-Tales-Assembly-Ben-Hamper/product-reviews/0446394009/ref=cm_cr_pr_btm_link_next_4?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=recent&reviewerType=all_reviews&formatType=all_formats&filterByStar=all_stars&pageNumber=4