Lawrence sent a message to Mark Fields – President and Chief Executive Officer of Ford Motor Company email address that said:
Hello there,
I thought you would like to know about one of your life long workers, my father, William. He has worked at the same location (though the dealership changed hands once) for over 46 years. He started on the wash rack at the age of 15 in 1969. He advanced to the position of auto tech and has long been an ACE Certified Master Mechanic. He once tried his hand at service writing, but wanted to stay abreast of all of the technological advancements, so he spent the vast majority of his long career elbow deep in engines.
When my father was 19, he lost one of his legs in a motorcycle accident. He has worked full time since his recovery. He shied away from opportunities to collect disability (when I asked he said that there are people out there who need it more). He was determined to keep working, no matter how much pain, to prove that he didn't need any help. He didn't want to be labeled handicapped. In fact, I remember a time when I was quite young when my father got choked up. It was because I had told him that I didn't think he was handicapped. My logic back then was based upon the fact that he had never gotten a handicapped placard or license plate (still true to date). But looking back, there were lots of activities that he had to refrain from because of his injury. I know it really pained him to not be able to help me learn how to ride my bike. Over the years he was able to add a few more activities because of advancements in prosthesis. I remember in the early days, he had little more than a wooden block, basically a pirate's peg leg. He went through a series of prosthesis and had developed a very tight relationship with his prosthetist. Unfortunately his prosthetist recently passed away, so my father now has the arduous task of finding a new one before his current prosthetic falls apart.
I recently came to visit my parents and am alarmed by the condition of my father. The heat is really tearing him up. He has always had a lot of pain from his injury, but you know how the leg bone is connected to the hip bone and the hip bone is connected to the back bone and on and on. Unfortunately, my father has worked his body into really bad shape. He also suffers from hearing loss, no doubt from the incredibly loud working conditions he has always endured (when I asked him why he didn't wear ear protection, he told me that it was incredibly important to be able to hear what was going on in the shop so that he was never surprised by heavy machinery). Now he is ten working days from retirement and I am afraid he is like Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon. He can barely get out of his truck after work, and yet he keeps pushing himself to go in day after day. Both my mother and I keep imploring him to just retire now, but he says that it would be his luck that he would get fired for it and doesn't want things to end like that. He has always instilled in me how important it is to go in to work every day, no matter what. I can't imagine a more loyal employee. He's definitely taking it to the extreme.
My mother just intimated to me that after 46 years of service, my father is only making twenty something dollars an hour. That really horrified me, but it got worse. Evidently, his pension was most likely embezzled from, and at the very least was grossly mismanaged. In 3 years, when he becomes 65, my father will begin receiving less than $500 a month as his pension. I always thought that a pension was used to pay for a retired person's living expenses. I can't imagine what kind of living situation that less than $500 a month pays for.
My father doesn't know that I am writing this and might be a little mortified if he did know. I was just so surprised that someone could put in so many years and get so little out of it, both in the short term and in the long. My father has a distrust of lawyers so would never want to pursue anything, but I have noticed a great injustice and figured that there must be a mistake and that I would bring it to your attention. I'll also be sending it to other Ford offices that I think might be interested.
Thank you for your time,
Lawrence
