Huffington Magazine Issue 70 | Page 50

FOR NEARLY TWO YEARS, TOM ALLEN CLOCKED INTO HIS JOB AT A DEFENSE HARDWARE PLANT IN LANSING, MICH., in the afternoon to start a 12-hour shift, usually operating a metal lathe machine. The hours were long, but the overtime pay was welcome. Still, at the end of the week, Allen said, he’d get home Saturday morning at 5:30 a.m. so tired he’d sleep until dinnertime. “By Sunday night you felt pretty good,” Allen, 63, said in an interview. “Then it started all over again.” But when the company, Demmer Corporation, told him he had to work on Saturdays and Sundays as well, Allen refused. “I literally told them, ‘I’m not going to have a heart attack and die in the traces just so you guys can make a little extra money.’” COURTESY OF TOM ALLEN Defense hardware plant worker Tom Allen.