This is Bill Christmas. I hope you'll pardon the raspiness (?) of my voice, which is due to a head cold. You have received several letters from me outlining AMF's contract offer, and other in dollars and cents information. Using this rather unusual means of contacting you, I would like to now discuss with you an entirely different subject. Labor contracts are pretty cut-and-dried kind of thing. They tell you in words and figures what dollars will be paid and what benefits will be included. That's the tangible part of employment at AMF. But what about the gray areas? The intangible areas? Of equal importance to the contract is the place, the atmosphere where you work. These are the gray areas which make one place good to work at and another not so good. You and your fellow members have made an outstanding and vital contribution to the team effort. They've made the AMF adventure in York such a success for all of us. (page turns) I have always felt, and still feel, only the greatest respect for your invaluable contributions. I feel I've always tried to show this, and I believe these contributions have been equally appreciated by your supervisors and forum. However, human relationships and communications between people will never be perfect. I wish it were not so. We all make mistakes. Uppermost in my mind during the recent long hard look I took at the reorganization of the structure of supervision announced in January was a selection of people I felt were capable of communicating with having a real interest in the workers - union and nonunion aligned. People who would note your efforts and contributions without regard to favoritism or fear. People who would be aware of your part in AMF success both present and future.

I have in my daily activities approached decisions and communications involving people with only one thought: that is, how would I react? What could be done to improve my understanding of the situation? What would be my feeling if I were in the other person's shoes? This I believe is the key to good management and human relations. It is an approach that I have used in delegation of authority to our superintendents and forum, and one which I am determined will guarantee the dignity to all members of the AMF York team. Through your efforts as part of this team, our plan has become the best unit in the continent. This I elaborated on in my Christmas party message, and I still believe we have a team that is second to none. We've all worked very hard to build something good and worthwhile here, and it is now in serious danger. It would be an injustice to you if I did not stress that point. I would ask you to think about our customers for a moment. These are the people who order from us and pay us for our goods and services. These customers are the people who ensure our jobs. If we cannot meet our customer's needs, we run the risk of a seeing a good part of AMF York destroyed through cancellation of contracts and diversion of work to other present producers. Destroyed and perhaps beyond the point of rebuilding. Lost customers are seldom regained. Lost jobs are seldom regained.

If you will go back with me in time, several months, I think I can explain this point more clearly. If the wages we are offering now were in being there, we would not have been able to bid successfully and obtain most of the large contracts we now have. We must now implement more effective cost-control programs to assure our competitive posture in the marketplace. If we had been unable to obtain this work, a considerable number of our jobs would not now exist. This is a fact. It's one of those gray areas that fail to show up in any labor contract. In an effort to fill in these gray areas, we must all work together to make AMF a better place to work. A place where dignity and pride should certainly be a part of each man's working environment. The new organization I just mentioned is a vital first step toward assuring for each and every working man at AMF York the dignity due an American working man. And maybe this word "dignity" is the most important word of all. Benefits, insurance, upgradings, but all the rest are negotiable. There is something you can see and feel and change. But what about the dignity of man? After all, the working man is the person who built America and supports America and when all is said and done, the working man is America. Is it possible for the working man to have all the items the company offers and not have a freedom of choice, a voice in what is being done to him and with him? I don't think so.

I pledge to you now, to each of you, that I will exercise every means within my power to see that every employee of AMF York will be always accorded the dignity and respect due him as a most important man in our American way of life. More than this no one can offer. However, if we collectively are going to continue the growth and prosperity of our great York plant, and ourselves individually, we must get it going again before it is too late. And we have lost our valued customers to make all of our jobs possible.

Thank you very much for giving me this time in your home. I hope with you and your families, I truly hope you take this message most seriously. Thank you.