Better Wire

I started working at Better Wire Products on Niagara Street in June 1979 about a month after moving to Buffalo. That would be 40 years ago now.

I was hired as a shipping & receiving clerk. It was a small metal fabricating operation that was family owned and employed about 20 to 30 people depending on current jobs. The company hired a lot of temporary employees through a third party for times when they had a lot of work orders that wouldn't last.

There always seemed to be people coming and going but there was a core of regular employees that I saw every day and they was often two shifts. I really don't remember anyone's names anymore. I do remember lots of faces.

I was usually busy in shipping and receiving. I drove around the plant in a fork truck picking up product and taking it to the shipping dock for loading on to trucks. After about a year the company expanded my duties and I became a de facto assistant plant manager involved with quality control. I still did the shipping work but would monitor the work of other employees.

The plant was a small building on Niagara Street near Lafayette Ave in an industrial neighborhood. There were little bars and restaurants nearby where I would sometimes go for lunch. I would mostly walk to work from our apartment on Putnam Street. During the winter I wore long johns to work for not only the walk but because I often had the garage door opened for shipping. I had a desk and work area near that opened door.

There were a lot of characters working at that place and even working through the neighborhood to work everyday was an interesting experience. I got a good idea of what it was like to be a working class Buffalonian. 

In 1980 there was an attempt to recruit the employees of Better Wire Products into the Machinists Union over the course of a few months. There were meetings after work at a bar down the street with union organizers that bought lots of rounds of beer. After a few months there was an election and the union won representation much to the chagrin of the company. I voted for the union but shortly after the election was when I was moved to management.

Becky and I got married in June of 1980 and when to Toronto for a few days after the wedding. It was later in the early summer of 1981 that we took a more serious honeymoon like vacation out West for three weeks. The company let me take that long vacation and one of the other guys took care of the shipping and receiving while I was gone.

This was also the time of the Reagan recession and the company was not doing well which was partly why I was able to take three weeks off. Business was way off and there were a lot of layoffs at the plant which was somewhat harder to do because they were now  a union shop. Well, I guess they realized they really didn't need me and a couple of weeks after I got back they laid me off which was easy to do because I was management and also was paid more than some of the other guys.

So I go laid off and spent the rest of the summer collecting unemployment checks and also working off the books for a friend who had landscaping business. 

I spend two years at Better Wire Products. Approximately June 1979 to June 1981. 

The company moved to the East Side in the 1990's and the old building was empty for many years. Recently a developer has begun making renovations with big plans as part of the renewal of Niagara Street. 

Better Wire Moment:

March 30, 1981 (I looked it up) the owner of the company gathered a group of employees from the plant floor and tearfully announced that President Reagan had been shot. Some of the workers cheered and clapped their hands. The stunned owner walked away.