Chrysler assembly line workers!

In 70-71 I knew some people that worked at the Chrysler parts warehouse in Northlake, IL. From the sound of things there was a lot of pilfering going on there. There was also a high employee turnover rate, one of the guys I knew worked there 9 months and was number two on the seniority list. He moved into the shipping dept. and started sending stuff out of there by UPS. A bare hemi head weighs 69 lb. and UPS had a 75 lb. limit, he mailed out quite a few to people he knew.

As mentioned above, the forklift drivers were in on things. He would arrange with them to deliver certain part number items to the loading dock at a certain time and load them on a certain truck. The items were hemi shortblocks. He was selling them for $500 each.

Someone else I knew that worked there worked the night shift. He said that most of the night shift people spent most of their time looking up part numbers for desirable stuff, figuring out where it was and stealing it.

The first guy got caught eventually. There was a special order of two large batteries and they both got stolen. The plant manager was hopping mad about it. The guy selling the hemi stuff was building a hemi Dart racecar and wanted one of these batteries for it. He took one of them and put it in his Corvette on the floor on the passenger side of the car. The plant manager happened to walk by his car in the parking lot and saw it. So he got fired, but not prosecuted. Heard a lot of stories about stuff walking out of that place.