Subseries: Shindel, Mildred

INTRODUCTION

BIOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND
Scope and Content Note: Shindel was born and raised in Milwaukee. Graduated West Allis Central High School, 1936. Father a sheet metal layout man; mother never worked. Oldest of four children.

FIRST FOOD STORE WORK AT MORGAN FOOD STORE, A CORNER GROCERY, WHILE IN HIGH SCHOOL
Scope and Content Note: Owned and run by a widow. Shindel and the widow's children were the only employees. Waited on people. Cut meat. “We had the necessities that they had to have, and that was it.” Carried only one brand of each item. Worked about 30 hours a week--after school, Saturdays and Sunday morning. Made about 30 cents an hour, plus meals. Owner lived behind the store. Owner bought, from Armour, enough meat to last one day. Ground boneless rump roast into hamburger; sliced bacon and sausage. “I learned a lot from her, I'll tell you. Learned how to be with people.” Everything in bulk. Electric refrigeration. Very little produce. Chunk butter; would weigh it and wrap it in waxed paper for customers. People shopped every day. “I think that was one of their outs.” Store open 5 a.m. to 7 p.m.; half day on Sundays--ham and rolls. No deliveries; people took groceries home in coaster wagons. Mostly credit business. People tried to pay on pay day. Cash register, but it did not add; items tallied on a piece of paper or a grocery bag. Price not marked on items and sometimes not even on the shelves. Very clean. Anecdote about getting cockroaches into the store once; called exterminator.

JOB AT PHOENIX PRODUCTS
Scope and Content Note: Factory work. Made coat hangers and shirt-collar cardboard. “I didn't like it there.” Worked there only four or five months; then got married.

WORKED FOR TWO YEARS AT TRIMBORN FOODS PRIOR TO PHOENIX
Scope and Content Note: Much bigger than Morgan's. In Milwaukee. Trimborn grocery, an independent produce market, and Shinner Meat Market all under one roof. Beginnings of a supermarket but still waited on customers. “I can remember getting the cereal down with...a stick with a clamp on the end.... I got real good at that. I could get the cereal down without knocking the whole bunch down.” Customers shopped each department separately. “In those days, when you put in a long day, like say Fridays you maybe would work 12 hours, then when you got through working, you had to bag. They'd come out with a hundred pounds of powdered sugar, a hundred pounds of brown sugar, a hundred pounds of granulated sugar that you packaged in brown bags. I can remember doing that. And you think, 'Oh, I'm going to go home.' Forget it. You had so many hundred pounds of everything for the next day to go.” Worked full-time, whenever the store was open. Did not get paid for the hour or hour and a half spent bagging after hours. No union. “I don't think unions were heard of in those days.” Store was heated, but “you dressed warm.” Still tallied orders on paper. Not much credit extended but did have deliveries. More pre-packaged items than at Morgan Food Store. Got the job through a girl friend working there. Did not make much money after deducting car fare. Made about 45 cents an hour. “I enjoyed it, though. It was fun.”

WENT TO WORK AT HARRER FOODS IN 1947
Scope and Content Note: Did not work, 1940 to 1947, while children young. Got divorced and went back to work. Mother came to live with her. Gus Harrer owned a large grocery and produce store. Separately owned meat market next door. Clerks still waited on customers. Cash registers added. Not much bulk, except cookies. Store hours about 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.; open later on Friday and Saturday; closed Sunday. Worked whenever the store was open.

WORKED AT HARRER FOODS THREE YEARS; THEN REMARRIED; MOVED TO WATERFORD AREA, BUT WORKED FOR FOUR YEARS IN BROTHER-IN-LAW'S TV STORE IN MILWAUKEE

THEN WORKED FOR 20 YEARS AT SENTRY STORE (IGA WHEN SHE STARTED) IN WATERFORD
Scope and Content Note: “I felt like I was a fixture out here. They sold the store three times, and three times I moved along.”

MORE ON EMPLOYMENT IN BROTHER-IN-LAW'S TV STORE
Scope and Content Note: Commuted to Milwaukee from Waterford. Got laid off when business got slow, “which was all right. I didn't mind. I had a husband to take care of me.”

END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1

INTRODUCTION

HOW SHE GOT THE FOOD STORE JOB IN WATERFORD
Scope and Content Note: “When I went back to the produce, I went and weighed my own apples, I weighed my own stuff; and Mr. Rockware said to me, 'Well, you seem to know so much about this work,' he said, 'Did you ever work in a grocery store?' And I said, 'Yeah, quite a few years.' He says, 'Well, how would you like a job?' I started May 1, 1955.”

DESCRIPTION OF WATERFORD STORE WHEN SHE FIRST STARTED WORK THERE
Scope and Content Note: Owner had had a small store in town; then built a bigger one on the outskirts of town. “Everybody said, 'You're crazy to build there.'” The new store, an IGA at first, was about the size of six lanes of a bowling alley. Has since been torn down and replaced by a larger store.

IGA STORE BECAME A SENTRY STORE
Scope and Content Note: “He was forced into it, really.” Owner had been getting his groceries through the Godfrey Company and when he got larger, the Godfrey Company expected him to become a Sentry store. (Sentry is Godfrey Company's brand name.) He sold the store shortly after that.

MORE DESCRIPTION OF THE IGA STORE
Scope and Content Note: Four checkouts. Very clean. Each checker had an aisle she was responsible for. Shindel had coffee, cookies and candy aisle. Did ordering and stocking for that aisle.

CHANGES WHEN STORE BECAME A SENTRY STORE
Scope and Content Note: “Sentry would give you an automatic shipment that sometimes you needed and sometimes you didn't need it.... I always said, 'I thought that was a good way of Godfrey's cleaning out their warehouse.'” The warehouse would send more of an item than was needed and soon thereafter, that same item would have a cents-off special. “You'd have to sell it..., but you couldn't take advantage of the one that had the discount on it.... You couldn't send it back; that was your automatic shipment. They did that with a lot of things. I used to get so mad....”

DUTIES OF ASSISTANT MANAGER AND OWNER
Scope and Content Note: Assistant manager was a woman. “She would check out us.... We asked her the questions more so than going to the boss.” She did the books and helped up front. The owner “was one of these old-fashioned grocery store owners. He'd never say, 'Sweep that up.' You'd look, here he is with a broom. Then, you'd say, 'Well, let me do that.' He never would ask you to do nothing.... That's a different type of people. Today now, they say, 'You do this, and you do that.'”

MORE ON THE AFFILIATION WITH THE GODFREY COMPANY
Scope and Content Note: If the merchandise started to get stale, the warehouse would either have to take it back or authorize a sale. Used to be bread vendors would be paid out of the store. Now all bills are paid through the warehouse. “You have to pay that bill by a certain date, but you don't get the discount. Godfrey gets the discount for handling it.” Store had to send a blank check to the warehouse before it could receive any groceries. Godfrey Company paid all the bills, including payroll. After taking the Sentry name, no longer had the option to purchase outside the Godfrey Company. Everything, except meat, which was delivered on Fridays from Iowa, came from the Godfrey Company.

MORE DESCRIPTION OF THE IGA STORE
Scope and Content Note: No conveyor belts at the checkouts. “Old-fashioned” cash registers.

THE CURRENT SENTRY STORE IN WATERFORD
Scope and Content Note: Built about 1970 by the third owner and her third employer at this location. Much larger. Bigger selection of everything. “He was compelled to build this new store...by Godfrey....”

CHANGES IN THE OLD STORE
Scope and Content Note: The second owner, a Mr. Tank, did not permit the checkers to do any ordering. Checkers continued to do stocking, but not of specific aisles.

FIRST OWNER'S WEEKLY BANANA SALE
Scope and Content Note: Big shipment of loose bananas received on Friday and sold at 4 pounds for 25 cents. Clerks would bag them, and they would sell rapidly. “I think now that those bananas go to the zoo.”

HOURS AT IGA
Scope and Content Note: Closed Sunday; open Friday night. Worked 12 hours on Friday and 8 hours all other days. 52-hour week.

COMING OF THE UNION
Scope and Content Note: “We never turned union until Mr. Tank (the second owner) came in. And Mr. Tank, every time you asked him for a raise or anything, it was he couldn't afford. That's when we turned union.” Three years without a raise. “You're working, you're working, you're working and not reaping any of the benefits. I mean, you figure you're increasing his business and you're doing a good job, and he could show a little appreciation.” Organized by the Retail Clerks International Association (RCIA), Local 1401, out of Madison. About 15 union-eligible employees at the time, mostly full-time, though only working 35 or 37 hours a week.

THIRD OWNER HAD A LARGE FAMILY, AND ALL THE CHILDREN WORKED IN THE STORE
Scope and Content Note: Had 11 children. Currently there are about 6 or 7 employees, out of 25 or 30, who are not family.

THE STRIKE, ABOUT 1973 OR 1974
Scope and Content Note: The owner wanted the employees to give up their fringe benefits. Contract expired in June; struck for two weeks in October. Owner lost $70,000 in those two weeks. Owner kept the store open, with his family operating it, but Waterford was a good union town, and no one would cross the picket line. The store was the only place in town where people could pay their electric bills. Women would go in to pay their electric bills after informing the pickets they were not going to make purchases. “And then they'd go in and come right back out. They wouldn't shop. Some of the women said, 'If I shopped in there, my husband would disown me. He's a union man himself, and you don't do that.'”

END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2

INTRODUCTION

NEGOTIATIONS WITH WATERFORD SENTRY
Scope and Content Note: Not part of a chain; thus a separate contract. Current employees tell Shindel owner is asking for a wage freeze in upcoming contract.

MORE ON THE STRIKE
Scope and Content Note: “He was trying to break the union is what he was trying to do.” One family member, a son-in-law, went out with the strikers. “And I guess he must have talked to him like a Dutch uncle. I mean, he went back, and he quit the union.” Owner also had a brother-in-law, a meat cutter, who honored the picket line. Harold Breithaupt was the union representative who was in charge of the strike.

EFFECT OF UNIONIZATION ON THE WATERFORD SENTRY
Scope and Content Note: “Oh, did it make a difference! Our wages went up terrific.... And, of course, then we got more benefits.” Had had no fringe benefits prior to unionization. “Our hours were cut because he was paying us more. We all got cut maybe four or five hours, but outside of that, things were better, a lot better for everybody.” The first raise was 75 cents or $1 an hour or more. The owner “got used to it. At first he didn't like it, but then our store was 100% union except for the one butcher-manager.” That head meat cutter was the only one to vote against the union (the Milwaukee meat cutters' union organized this store at the same time as the Madison clerks' union), and he benefited most, having his hours cut from 60 to 40. Wages never got as high as the Milwaukee level but did get up to the Madison level.

WATERFORD SENTRY EMPLOYEES AND UNION MEETINGS
Scope and Content Note: Would usually have 100% turnout at informational meetings held in Waterford.

GRIEVANCES
Scope and Content Note: The meat cutters' union had a couple, but Shindel remembers no grievances by clerks.

MYSTERY SHOPPERS
Scope and Content Note: Had no idea who they were. Looked for cleanliness, appearance, customer treatment. “I remember this one time this here woman gave this girl such a hard time, and she was a shopper. Just to see how she could aggravate the clerk.”

SENTRY IS THE ONLY SUPERMARKET IN WATERFORD
Scope and Content Note: Big sunnier business, though not as much as in the past because there are now more year-round people. Put on many high school students in the summer.

STILL NOT MANY PART-TIMERS IN WATERFORD SENTRY

COMPARISON OF WORKING IN A SMALL TOWN AND WORKING IN MILWAUKEE
Scope and Content Note: “I like the small town better. You get to know the people.”

CUSTOMER RELATIONS
Scope and Content Note: Still runs into customers from her Milwaukee work who remember her. “I've always tried to be nice to the customers.... They're paying your paycheck. The nicer you treat them, the better they'll be to you. And they'll come back. But today...they ignore the customer.” Checkers carry on private conversations today while they are waiting on a customer. Stores used to be stricter. Checkers used to handle many customer complaints, but now everything has to go to the manager.

DURING THE THREE TRANSFERS OF OWNERSHIP, NO JOBS WERE LOST

MORE ON CURRENT OWNER'S “FAMILY” EMPLOYEES
Scope and Content Note: Even has grandchildren working in the store now. “It isn't fun to work in a family store.... I'm happy I'm out. Because they all want to be boss. Did you ever have 19 bosses? And I've already told a few of them off, when I was there. I said, 'When you sign my paycheck, you can tell me what to do.'” Missed only three days of work due to snow in her 20 years there.

PRE-PACKAGED MEAT WAS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGES IN FOOD STORES SHE WITNESSED
Scope and Content Note: “Nobody liked that.... It always seems like you're buying more than what you really want.” Many people get everything else at the supermarket and then go to a meat market for their meat.

CHANGES IN CASH REGISTERS
Scope and Content Note: Eventually got conveyor belts. Store still using electric, not electronic, cash registers.

VOLUME OF CUSTOMERS HAS NOT INCREASED, BUT VOLUME OF SALES HAS BECAUSE OF INFLATION
Scope and Content Note: Used to be proud of a $20,000 week. Now $70,000 to $80,000 is considered a normal week, and there are fewer employee hours of work.

SHINDEL'S HOURS WERE GOOD
Scope and Content Note: After the union came in, never worked weekends and worked only one evening a week. She and the boss would be the only ones in the store on that night. “They gave me Saturdays off because I was the oldest one there. And that was the only compensation I got.... And the girls used to get so mad.... Then John, that's the assistant manager, had to say, 'Well, if you were here that many years, you'd have Saturday off, too.'”

MECHANIZATION MADE THE WORK EASIER
Scope and Content Note: Preferable to chasing after items for customers. After introduction of self-service, however, there was pressure from customers to get through the checkout quickly.

PHYSICAL TOLL OF THE WORK
Scope and Content Note: “It's hard, especially when you stand in one spot.... You do an awful lot of lifting....” Often would cut bagger hours when hours were cut. Without a bagger, checker has to lift the purchase three times; otherwise only once. Arms and feet sore at the end of the day. “You're tired at the end of the day. Your eyes are tired.”

MORE ON CUSTOMER RELATIONS
Scope and Content Note: For some older people, shopping was their only out. “I miss the customers, but I don't miss the work.”

MORE ON THE PHYSICAL TOLL
Scope and Content Note: “There could be a lot of stress.... And I think years come on you.”

END OF TAPE 2, SIDE 1

INTRODUCTION

MORE ON STRESS
Scope and Content Note: Days when things do not go right. Complaints, etc. More stress as you get older.

MORE ON CUSTOMER RELATIONS
Scope and Content Note: Only once did the boss get on her for talking to a customer, and she was not at fault then. Customer was trying to make up her mind on an item, and the boss was mad because the front end--Shindel's responsibility--was not cleaned up. Even that was not her fault, since she had just returned from vacation, and no one had cleaned while she was gone.

WHAT SHE LIKED MOST ABOUT THE WORK WAS THE PEOPLE
Scope and Content Note: The customers and the co-workers. Employees, outside of the owner's family, were very close.

COUNTING CASH REGISTER DRAWERS
Scope and Content Note: Checkers never counted out their own drawers. She was never called on a shortage or overage, “unless it was an odd amount,” and then she usually could recall a check written for that amount. Never heard of a checker being disciplined for a drawer that did not balance.

ANECDOTE ABOUT A ROBBERY WHEN SHE WAS WORKING
Scope and Content Note: Two men. Timed it so one punched an unattended register at the same time the checker punched hers; emptied the drawer of all the big bills. Never caught.

SHOPLIFTING
Scope and Content Note: “They never did much about shoplifting in our day.” Caught some, usually children; would be reprimanded, but never went to court.

MORE ON BIG CITY VERSUS SMALL TOWN WORK
Scope and Content Note: Compared to her previous experiences, the Waterford store was modern. Thus the difference was more in the store than the community.

MORE ON SHOPLIFTING
Scope and Content Note: Self-service invites it.

END OF INTERVIEW