Factory/14″/mike1st/mark2nd

By REBECCA KUZINS

Staff Reporter

It’s unusually quiet this morning in the “glassing” section of Tecstar Inc.’s factory in the City of Industry, where solar power cells are made to power orbiting satellites.

Normally, 45 workers are in the section, busily bonding wafer-thin glass filters to the tops of solar cells and making them durable enough to withstand the harshness of outer space.

On this morning, only five “glassers” are on duty, the others having taken the day off after working overtime to get out a large order that was shipped yesterday.

The skeleton crew seems relieved that their big job is behind them and the weekend is close at hand. Gloria Rodriguez, 31, is leaving work early, around noon, so she can pick up her youngest child from a preschool near her home in La Puente.

The mother of four is typical of the armies of assembly workers who comprise L.A.’s manufacturing sector. She used to be a computer data-entry operator before coming to work at Tecstar more than five years ago. Like many assembly workers, glassers carry out repetitive, exacting tasks.

Tecstar’s glassing section operates in a “clean room” with a special ventilation system to ensure that the cells are not contaminated. The walls of the large, windowless room are painted out a pale institutional blue; fluorescent lights hum overhead. Rodriguez and her colleagues are dressed in white plastic smocks and white hairnets.

It’s a scene of quiet, sterile efficiency.

Rodriguez, with reddish-brown bangs poking out from under her hairnet, says she enjoys the meticulous nature of her work, for which she received nine months of training. “It just keeps you busy. The day goes fast. There’s never a dull moment,” she insists.

On this day, Rodriguez and the others are working on a project from Lockheed Martin. Whenever there’s a big order to fill, each glasser typically performs just one task all day long, as part of a rapid assembly-line system.

Rodriguez places rubber cups over her fingers. “This is so I don’t put fingerprints on the cells,” she explains as she prepares to work the adhesive machine. The machine automatically dispenses an equal amount of glue in the center of each cell, a 2-inch square that weighs less than three grams.

Rodriguez punches a key and a spray jet dispenses the glue. Using a tweezers, she lifts the glass filter, sprays it with a nitrogen mixture to clean it, then carefully places it atop the glued cell.

“It’s a time thing. While you’re doing it, the clock is ticking,” explains Donna Ferreira, Rodriguez’s supervisor.

Rock ‘n’ roll oldies warble from a nearby radio as Rodriguez inspects her handiwork through a microscope, making sure the glass fits properly. It doesn’t, so she moves it into place with a large Q-tip.

With the lunch hour approaching, a couple of other glassers discuss the possibility of ordering from a nearby McDonald’s. Someone finally volunteers to make a run, but Rodriguez isn’t staying. She’s off to pick up her daughter at preschool and return home to begin her second shift, as wife and mother.