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by Ben Hamper
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Product Description
A former "shoprat" in a Michigan auto plant offers a gritty account of life in the world of manufacturing, on and off the assembly line. Reprint. NYT. PW.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 this book was a request from my husband, 2010-08-02
my huaband was very pleased i found this book. the timeing of the arrival was prompt. the condition of the book was great and he is excited to read it.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 So What?, 2010-06-07
So Detroit guys drink beer? Or cheat on their timecards? Or blame all their problems on their jobs?
Nothing new here, not worth reading.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Hamper writes good book. Yea Flint, 2010-04-20
The book being reviewed Rivethead was written piecemeal by an automotive assembly line worker named Ben Hamper and put into print as a book in 1992 by Warner books. Before this, Rivethead grew as a collection of articles with copyrights in the years, 1986, 1987, 1988, and 1991.The articles appeared in print in The Michigan Voice, The Detroit Free Press,and Mother Jones.
Rivethead is the biographical work of an unlikely Author from the automotive boomtown of Flint, MI. This city is the once great Mecca of GM assembly factories. Hamper chronicles the rise, hopefulness and fall of his own career and parallels it to the city and corporation that dominate the lives of its denizens. Anyone interested in the reality of life inside of and surrounding a classic rustbelt factory town will enjoy this work written not by an outside observer but, one of its own, an author that was not just embedded but actually lived in the belly of the beast.
Hamper effectively ties together basic human conditioning and shows in his work why people toiled in the factories for generations. It's the "Golden handcuffs" syndrome as he shows. When he was a younger man Hamper did have thoughts and dreams of leaving Flint, but the lure of a steady paycheck with no advanced education was to great. A steady good paying job until death do you part. Cursed and blessed at the same time.
Hamper portrays himself consistently as a simple man, uncomfortable with the relative fame his work brought him. Rubbing shoulders and eventually collaborating with fellow Townie Michael Moore brought Hamper to an unfamiliar place. This was one of authoring for money and the industry of publishing introduced to him briefly. In Rivethead Hamper speaks of this secondary industry even though embracing of him, also not understanding that he needs to remain in the heart of darkness in order to develop his characters. This is not fiction. Hamper cannot create fiction. What Hamper does create in Rivethead is vivid scenery inside the stereotypical American assembly plant of the 1970s and 80s.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Hard to feel any sympathy, 2009-12-21
As a fellow autoworker, I thought I'd read this to get some of the funny stories he no doubt had. Instead we get a whiney tale about how trapped he is in his job. THe complaints he has are amazing considering how little he was actually at work due to layoffs and medical leaves. Although there are some comical moments and as a whole it is well written, the guy represents that stereotype that helped bring the companies down. Wow, drinking on the job not to mention being so far gone and then DRIVING HOME! Sorry, I know exactly how it was for you and you're a bad representative, so glad you could be published.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Stellar viewpoint into the GM assembly line in the 70s & 80s, 2009-08-10
Ben Hamper brings a gift that few have ever delivered - a straightforward account of life on a GM assembly line, written by an assembly line worker (the aptly monikered "Rivethead"). Be warned, Hamper does not pull any punches with his language, descriptions of events, and the goings-on at GM. There are plenty of four letter words, vulgar descriptions, and so on - all of which contribute intimately to the pace and style of the book. Hamper doesn't use these only for crude reasons, no, he is painting the picture of the assembly line workers.
I admit, coming from a manufacturing company, I was shocked to read of the constant substance abuse, heavy drinking before, during, and after shifts, and overall terrible behavior of these grown men, or, as Hamper refers to them, kids who never grew up. The latter description is probably more accurate. It would be easy to paint GM as a no-doubt failure based on this book, but that's too one-sided. The dreary conditions, lack of concern for its workers, dull work, and constant poor conditions contributed to the need to numb the minutes away and make the clock tick a little faster.
In the world of the New GM, one could go back and start to identify many of the reasons this once mighty company failed. Rivethead takes on a new life given the events of the recent years.
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