Chapter 15 — The Factory Floor Votes
Jean Morel’s records arrived in a suitcase with one broken wheel.
He brought it to Felicity’s office himself. The case was navy, scuffed white at the corners and heavy enough that he lifted it onto the conference table with both hands.
“Copies,” he said. “The originals are with the factory council.”
Felicity didn’t open it. “Are you represented?”
“Union solicitor downstairs.”
“Does Harcourt dependent workshops joined by video.
Kit was not there. Tom sat with company counsel along the side wall, present as management and denied the microphone unless called.
The council chair began with wages. Harcourt later decisions could not be promised.
Would compensation to her reduce money available for wages? Damages would affect company finances. She would not pretend otherwise or waive claims on behalf of workers whose own pay and credit required separate protection.
A cutter near the back stood. “You worked with us for years. Why didn’t you make them put your name in the system?”
The question contained no malice. Ottilie answered it without making Kit the only force in the room.
“I corrected garment credits and negotiated contracts. I also accepted private assurances when I should have required the public record before work moved. I had more access to the chief executive than any of you, and I mistook that for protection.”
“So what protects us?”
“A system that doesn’t depend on my marriage or your manager’s goodwill.”
The council chair listed proposed demands: verified author records attached to production files; correction of false credits; wage guarantees for the rights stoppage; compensation terms for dependent workshops; no destruction of daybooks; and removal of Kit’s unilateral authority over creative ownership decisions while the investigation continued.
Tom requested the microphone.
“The board has already placed the chief executive under monitoring,” he said. “A production stoppage now risks the liquidity needed to meet the wage guarantee you are demanding.”
Some workers nodded. Others called that they had heard the same warning before the acquisition.
The council chair asked whether management would accept the demands without a stoppage.
Tom requested a private call with the board.
The room waited twenty-six minutes. People opened sandwiches.
A presser asked Ottilie whether natural indigo always rubbed off on white shirts.
Felicity spoke with the union solicitor about preserving daybooks.
Jean stood alone near the pattern table until the junior machinist whose work had appeared in the campaign joined him.
Tom returned with an offer. Harcourt discretionary shifts after that hour would not. Two apprentices asked whether their training days still counted. No one in the room knew.
Ottilie gave the union solicitor the contact for the independent fund discussion and offered no money herself. Paying selected workers from her damages claim would convert solidarity into dependence and leave the structure untouched.
Outside the gate, one employee blamed her to a television camera. Another corrected the number of affected jobs. Jean walked past both and took the bus home with the suitcase copy still in Felicity’s office.