Fordmates explores, with humour and poignancy, the basic conflict that exists between the demands of mass production technology and the all-too-human instincts, needs, and aspirations of the workers who serve on the assembly line.
The stories in Fordmates ricochet headlong between comedy and tragedy, balancing the tedium and gruelling demands of the automotive assembly line with the workers’ gutsy attempts to preserve spirits and some semblance of sanity. Many of the stories revel in some unexpected small victory extracted from the daily routine, from the giddy foolishness of gloveball fights and improbable practical jokes to the terse satisfaction of outsmarting overbearing foremen. The persistent theme throughout remains the unbreakable spirit of the workers in the face of a relentless machine. In these linked stories, Ivo Moravec, himself a twenty-year veteran of the former St. Thomas Assembly plant, characterizes automotive factories as the source not only of Ford Crown Victorias and Mercury Grand Marquises but also of daydreams and paycheques, of philosophers and drug addicts, and of broken families and best mates.