Dorothy Glinton (DG) and Sonari Glinton (SG)
DG: I had worked in this store for four years, the whole time I was in school. So one of the clerks in the store had quit and got a job at Ford. She brought her check into the store for me to cash and when I saw her check I said, ”Mm. What kind of job you got making this kind of money?”
And I said, ”Is this two weeks?”
She said, ””No. this is one week.”
I said, ’”You gotta be kiddin’!”
I could fill the freezer up and wouldn’t have to worry about the lights, the rent or nothin’.
After I got there work on the assembly line was so hard, and they were so awful to us. I said, ”Lord, I gotta find a job that I can do for 30 years.” So one morning I put my little blue suit on and I went to the corporate office and I asked to see the plant manager. And he gave me an opportunity to work in management. And I thought I just had it made. I thought the guys were gonna welcome, you know, mm mm. They felt like we were taking men’s job.
SG: What did they do?
DG: They put some grease on the phone. And somebody across the aisle would call you and you wouldn’t realize that ball-bearing grease is on the phone. That’s the kinda stuff they’ll do.
I had been there almost 16 years and worked just as hard as I did. I never missed a day. My thing was there was not one white male who was in my position and stayed in the same position with the education that I had.
So that’s why we sued. They thought I was crazy. ”There go, That woman again! She starting some kind of trouble. You can’t go up against one of the big three. You can’t do that.”
SG: Do you think it made a difference?
DG: Mm hm.
SG: How?
DG: Well, we had women superintendents, women area managers, women plant managers, women in overseas operation. Because I, I believed that I can make a difference. And I believed that when I did what I did so that it would be better for the people who come behind me that I did make that difference.