July 2, 2019--My East Flatbush Sweatshop

The New York Times reported that Apple is planning to end the manufacture in Austin Texas of its $8,000 a copy high-end desktop Mac Pro. This will mean that soon none of Apple's products will be made in America. The Mac Pro will be made in, of course, China.

Expect to hear cries of outrage from the White House but Apple CEO, Tim Cook, is dug in. 

He also claims that all of Apple's complex products are in effect made in many places, including the United States because they are totally designed and engineered here. Actual parts are made in many countries and in the case of the Mac Pro it will "only" be assembled in China where that is much cheaper than if it were to continue to be fabricated in Austin.

Raise your hand if you believe anything Tim Cook says about this.

I guess I get it. It's all about the bottom line, Always has been, always will be.

I also get it because many years ago, when I was about 10, I put together an assembly line on our dining room table in our apartment in East Flatbush. 

It was to assemble cigarette lighters from parts made in Japan. At that time Japan was our China, the country to which businessmen flocked to get their products made for about 10 percent of what it would have cost if they were made in the USA. "Made in Japan" stamped on a product was almost the equivalent of  labelling it "Junk." 

I am sure you are wondering about how I, just 10, got involved in this.

It was because of my Aunt Fanny and Uncle Jac for whom she worked.

Uncle Jac did business globally and among his many products was a knock-off version of Ronson's most popular pocket lighter. To get around customs and copyright regulations lighters made in Japan could not be imported if fully assembled. The lighter in question (see below) was made up of about a dozen small parts and they arrived disassembled. Thus they needed to be put together in America.

I was sick as I frequently was with the croup and this time I couldn't manage to shake it. I was home and seriously bored. My mother was having difficulty keeping me in bed. Fanny said to her, "Stevie is good with his hands. What if I brought him a dozen lighters to assemble? It will keep him occupied for days while he's recovering and he'll earn 75 cents, which is what it costs us to have a dozen assembled." 

My mother was desperate and agreed to give it a try. 

I too was desperately unhappy and thus quite excited when Fanny came by the next day with a shopping bag full of lighter bodies and the other parts that needed to spark and then flame when a smoker pressed the right button.

While Aunt Fanny joined my mother for a glass of tea in the kitchen I assembled all 12 lighters. Feeling good about myself, I didn't call out to them but rather remained smugly in bed, with my arms folded, waiting patiently for them to "discover" me with the dozen now assembled lighter, wrapped in tissue paper, and placed and in small cardboard boxes. Ready for my Uncle to sell to Gimbels while I was ready to get my hands on the 75 cents. Real money at that time.

"I told you he's a genius," Aunt Fanny said, "Another Einstein."

"Not quite," my mother valued the truth even though it was flattering to have her son compared to the father of the atomic bomb.

So the next day Fanny brought me five dozen lighters and a check for 75 cents. The first money I ever earned and the first check I ever received. Or, as I preferred to think about it, earned.

It took me a couple of hours to assemble them. Though no Einstein I was good at arithmetic and knew as a result I would get a check for $9:00

At the same time Uncle Jac said they were selling like "hotcakes." He couldn't ship them fast enough to Gimbels and the Five-and-Ten to keep up with the demand. He had a supply chain problem.

And so, after finally recovering from the croup, on Monday afternoon when I got home from school, on the front porch there was a huge wooden shipping crate, at least 8-feet-by-8-feet-by-8-feet, covered with Japanese writing.

I felt certain that there were many thousands of lighter bodies and parts there waiting for me to assemble.

When my father got home from work he borrowed a crowbar from a neighbor and pried off a couple of slats. Sure enough, it was completely full of counterfeit Ronson pocket lighters.

I realized immediately that this big a job was beyond my ability to take on on my own, and before I thought through the implications, I asked my father if he would be willing to help.

He indicated that he was but before agreeing I wanted to make sure that this was my project and that he was there to help, not take it over. It was a difficult conversation but he agreed and subsequently we did not have any ownership problems. "In fact," he said a day or two later, "You should keep the money. If we get all these assembled it will amount to quite a lot."

It took a number of evenings after dinner for us to get that first dozen-dozen done. We hardly made a dent in what had been packed in the crate. "We need more help," I said, "Maybe Aunt Fanny and Uncle Harry can come over on the weekend and help with some of the assembling. I can break it down into individuals steps and come up with something they each can handle."

Fanny was a talented knitter and so with her manual dexterity I had her insert wicks and flints, both essential to causing a spark and ignition. Harry, who in truth was quiet clumsy I had adding lighter fluid through the port at the base of the body. My only fear was that with their combustable relationship, as a combative couple, they would literally ignite one weekend night and set fire to our apartment.

Next, Aunt Tanna and Uncle Eli joined the assembly line. My aunt had worked in a women's notions store and was thus skilled at boxing and wrapping things. And so that became her job--to wrap assembled lighters elegantly in tissue paper before nesting them in their boxes.

I had Uncle Eli testing the lighters after they were fully assembled and put aside those that didn't work properly. My father was the self-designated head of the repair department, sometimes stubbornly spending hours on a lighter that resisted fixing. 

"We only get paid for the ones that work," he kept saying when I prodded him to move on since we still had thousands to complete. But he insisted someone needed to do it; and for the most part, since he was an insomniac, he ran his repair operation after midnight.

And my mother served as our bookkeeper. Not that she didn't trust her brother. It was because she wanted to avoid mistakes. At our end as well as his. There were so many lighters it would be easy for things to, as she put it, get "mixed up." And because of her nothing ever was mixed up and every dollar was kept track of.

It took us more than six weeks of day and night work to get all the lighters  assembled. We had a wonderful time. Stories about that time together became part of family lore and legend.

And altogether the final accounting showed that we made more than $1,000 dollars. I gave everyone $50 and with the rest bought myself a set of Sam Snead golf clubs and a new Schwinn Racer. I even had enough left to help pay for my bar mitzvah, which in fact never happened. But that's a story for another day.