Subseries: Whiteside, Paul L.

INTRODUCTION

WHITESIDE'S EMPLOYMENT WITH NEISNER BROTHERS
Scope and Content Note: Dime stores. Worked as stock man, floor man, and then assistant manager. Travelled around quite a bit opening new stores for the chain; involved only in the physical layout, not the hiring of employees for the new stores.

FIRST INVOLVEMENT WITH RETAIL CLERKS UNION
Scope and Content Note: He was president of the Kenosha Trades and Labor Council when Retail Clerks International Association (RCIA) Vice-President Murray Plopper asked for help in Kenosha in 1948. Whiteside agreed and refused payment.

EARLY YEARS WITH KENOSHA RCIA; HIRED BY RACINE CLERKS
Scope and Content Note: Hired part-time at $15 a week. The Executive Board quit at the first meeting because Whiteside told the Board members the union would no longer pay their phone bills, would no longer pay for post-meeting parties, and would move its offices to less expensive quarters at the Union Club. Worked for the Kenosha Clerks local part-time from 1948 to 1951; no checkoff; part of job was collecting dues in the stores. In 1951, Plopper worked out an arrangement whereby Whiteside would work for both the Kenosha and the Racine Clerks locals, with each local contributing $25 a week toward his salary. He could have received more salary by accepting a subsidy from the International, but this he refused because he did not like writing reports.

WHITESIDE BECOMES BUSINESS AGENT FOR MEAT CUTTERS LOCALS
Scope and Content Note: About 1952, the Kenosha local of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America (AMC&BW) hired him. In 1963, the business agent for the Racine AMC&BW local retired, and that local also hired Whiteside, who had been doing much of the local's negotiations since 1951 anyway. From 1951 to 1976, Whiteside was on leave of absence from his own local, a Federal Labor Union at the American Brass Company.

KENOSHA CLERKS LOCAL HAD ABOUT 100 MEMBERS WHEN HE BEGAN WITH IT, MOST OF THEM IN FOOD STORES OF SEVEN OR EIGHT PEOPLE

CLERKS CONTRACTS AT THE TIME WHITESIDE WAS HIRED
Scope and Content Note: No pensions, no health and welfare, maximum two weeks' vacation. The contract in effect at A & P paid $29.25 to $37 for a 45-hour week.

EARLY COST OF LIVING CLAUSE IN PIGGLY WIGGLY CONTRACTS HAD TO BE REMOVED
Scope and Content Note: Piggly Wiggly contract, about 1952, had the first health and welfare provisions. Also had the first cost of living clause, about 1954, until it was removed because it was making Piggly Wiggly non-competitive with A & P, the largest chain in town, and Kroger, the second largest. A & P said it would close if the union struck for a cost of living clause. Piggly Wiggly was new in town and negotiated separately from A & P, National and Kroger. The Piggly Wiggly negotiator was a decent man to deal with; he would sign a contract and then have Whiteside explain it to him.

ORGANIZING KROGER IN 1953
Scope and Content Note: Kroger had five stores in town which operated under the chain's Chicago district, which had better pay and vacation benefits than the organized stores in Kenosha. The union had to convince Kroger employees that protection on the job and job security were sufficient reasons to join. Only four people turned out for a meeting the night before the election, and Plopper was convinced the election was lost. “I said, 'Murray, I don't think so. You got to know these people.'” In the election, only three or four out of 30 or 35 voted against the union.

MEMBERSHIP OF THE RACINE AND KENOSHA CLERKS AND MEAT CUTTERS LOCALS TODAY
Scope and Content Note: Clerks locals each have about 500-600. 130 Meat Cutters in Racine and 100 in Kenosha, the same number as when he became the business agent in 1952. Used to have 30-35 independent supermarkets in Kenosha; now only three or four.

MEAT CUTTER HOURS IN KENOSHA
Scope and Content Note: Had to strike a couple independents when they decided to go non-union and to have evening and Sunday work. About 1953-1954 took the chains to arbitration to prevent work after 6 p.m., except on Fridays. Now get time and a half after 6 p.m. (and must work eight hours before 6 p.m.) and double time on Sundays.

MEAT CUTTER LOCALS WERE IN GOOD SHAPE WHEN WHITESIDE HIRED
Scope and Content Note: The contracts were a little weak, but the membership was solid because, unlike clerks, meat cutters stuck with their jobs and saw the value of the union.

MORE ON MEAT CUTTERS HOURS
Scope and Content Note: Racine opened its contract about 1953 and got a $5-a-week raise. Kenosha did not open because it did not want night work. The following year, Kenosha got the $5 raise and also a guarantee of eight hours' work before 6 p.m., while the Racine local to this day does not have that guarantee. “Once you don't get something or you give an employer something, it's hard to get it back.”

J.C. PENNEY COMPANY
Scope and Content Note: A continual fight to keep it organized. Company calls its employees “associates, but don't do anything wrong, or you won't be an associate very long if you haven't got a union.” Once negotiated a $7.50-per-month raise, and the manager called up the next day to say he couldn't afford it.

ORGANIZING JEWEL TEA, 1958
Scope and Content Note: Had a company union in its stores elsewhere in the country and tried to bring that union into Kenosha, but the company union withdrew the night before the election. That union has recently affiliated with the United Food and Commercial Workers, the RCIA's successor.

STORE TURNOVER IN KENOSHA
Scope and Content Note: Jewel, Kroger (which had 75-100 employees), National (which had two large stores), A & P (which had 72 people at one store and two other stores with about 50 employees each) have all left town. Now have Eagle and Super Valu. Since organizing Kroger in 1953, all chains in Kenosha have been organized.

MORE ON JEWEL
Scope and Content Note: Thinks one of the reasons Jewel left town was because the RCIA had organized it.

UNORGANIZED STORES
Scope and Content Note: About a half-dozen convenience stores are organized. Ma and Pa stores, of which Kenosha seems to have more than its share, are unorganized because “who do you organize” when they are family run. Ma and Pa stores survived in Kenosha by keeping longer hours while the chains' hours were kept down by the unions.

STORE HOURS AND MEAT CUTTER WAGES
Scope and Content Note: If a store is open past 9 p.m. and does not have a meat cutter on duty, the employer must pay all meat cutters a 50 cent per hour premium. Hence, most stores close at 9 p.m. The two Super Valu stores, however, are open 24 hours a day and pay the 50 cent premium. The contract had required that a meat cutter be on duty the entire 24 hours, but the members objected because they did not like night work or the long hours which sometimes were as high as 15 hours per day. Could have been broken into a two-shift operation, but no one wanted to work the evening shift, even though hours after 6 p.m. were at time and a half.

CONVENIENCE STORES
Scope and Content Note: Some are organized. PDQ stores have union meat cutters, but not all of them have union clerks.

END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1

INTRODUCTION

GREATEST CONTRACT IMPROVEMENTS HAVE BEEN PENSIONS AND HEALTH AND WELFARE
Scope and Content Note: First proposed in 1958. In 1963, notified the chains no contract would be settled without pensions and health and welfare benefits. Summary of how meat cutters' benefits have improved since first instituted in 1964 contract. Clerks pensions better than Meat Cutters because normal retirement for Clerks is age 60, while normal retirement for Meat Cutters is age 65. One reason for this difference was the high rate of turnover among clerks at the time the pension plan was set up. “We don't have too much turnover now.”

TURNOVER AND THE DIFFICULTY OF RETAIL CLERKS WORK
Scope and Content Note: Difficult but, except for checkers, not tied to a machine like in a factory. Have computerized machines now which measure checker productivity in many ways. More pleasant than factory work. Despite the difficulty of the work, turnover rate has been markedly reduced because of the improved benefits and pay. Pattern of women going to work in order to buy a specific appliance, then another, then a car, and so on, until suddenly they are permanent workers.

INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY OF MEAT CUTTERS
Scope and Content Note: From $20-$25 per hour when he started with the Meat Cutters to $110-$140 today.

SHIFT FROM SERVICE MARKETS TO SELF-SERVICE
Scope and Content Note: At one time, National had 12 meat cutters in one store. Self-service arrived in Kenosha about 1960, with A & P being the first. Concern over loss of members made the jurisdiction clause important. (Whiteside reads jurisdiction clause.) Did not lose any members, however.

ABSENCE OF CENTRAL MEAT CUTTING IN KENOSHA
Scope and Content Note: Super Valu stores, which have the 50 cent premium, use “block-ready beef,” which is beef which has been broken down into quarters, loins, etc. The productivity on block-ready beef has not increased much. Pre-packaged chickens, made by the non-union Tyson firm. “We don't let them use them here. They got to cut the chickens up in our stores.” Similarly, frozen, pre-sliced liver is not permitted in Kenosha food stores. “For a couple of reasons. One is that we think people like fresh liver better, and fresh chickens. And two is that we think that the work should be done here, where people can see what's going on.” May have it in the future, but not now. Even the Super Valu stores have complete meat departments. Other parts of Wisconsin have pre-packaged chickens and further breakdowns of beef. At one time, Kroger had a central cutting plant in Madison, and the Kenosha local negotiated what could be brought into the Kenosha stores. First thing negotiated was no reduction in hours and no layoffs because of “the institution of a new process.” Some places in the United States have meat brought in ready to go into the counter. The problem with that is the bloom does not stay on the meat very long.

HESS BROTHERS' CENTRAL MEAT CUTTING PLANT IN RACINE
Scope and Content Note: The Meat Cutters organized it and had the same contract as in the retail stores. In fact, some retail meat cutters moved from the stores to the plant. Hess Brothers had problems maintaining constant temperatures from plant to store and suffered many returns.

KROGER CENTRAL MEAT CUTTING, MADISON
Scope and Content Note: Only operated a couple years; not long enough to judge it. Would send down hamburger in tubes which sometimes exploded when there was too much gas in the tubes. In other parts of the country, like Cincinnati, slowly hamburger in tubes has become accepted by customers.

UNION REACTION TO CHANGES IN MEAT CUTTING
Scope and Content Note: Recently permitted Piggly Wiggly to install a meat scraping machine in Racine. However, put conditions on its use. First, no reduction in hours; second, no layoffs; and third, must be removed from the store upon ten days' notice by the union. No reduction in hours and no layoffs were the usual reaction to changes, but attrition, nevertheless, has reduced the number of meat cutters in Wisconsin from 2,100 to 1,700 within the past six or seven years. When self-service first came in, wrapping was done by hand. Today the meat is dropped into one side of a wrapping machine, and it comes out the other side wrapped, weighed and priced. Piggly Wiggly had about 25 wrappers when it first went into self-service and has probably only 15 now. In some cases, the workers have reacted to these changes by slowing up in order to maintain the size of the work force. “But...no matter how much a guy tries to...make off like he's busy, at some time or another you can see that he's not.” When this is seen, stores either do not replace workers or perhaps have a meat cutter work in more than one store.

ALL THE LITTLE MEAT MARKETS HAVE GONE OUT OF BUSINESS
Scope and Content Note: Supermarkets, with better assortment, lower prices, and other grocery items available, have driven the meat markets out of business. The quality might not have been there, “but the people, when they're looking for price, don't always look at quality.” This transition took about 15 years. Now another transition--to central cutting--may be in the offing.

HOW KENOSHA AND RACINE LOCALS GOT PENSION AND HEALTH AND WELFARE PLANS IN 1964
Scope and Content Note: There was a statewide agreement among all the Meat Cutter locals and all the Clerk locals not to settle without pensions and health and welfare clauses. No one broke ranks.

FOOD STORE STRIKES
Scope and Content Note: Had a three-month Clerks strike at one independent. Never had an industry-wide strike.

WAGE RETROACTIVITY
Scope and Content Note: When Whiteside started, the wage increase would begin with the signing of the contract. Then, got retroactivity to expiration of the previous contract, but only for 40 hours per week. Now, full retroactivity for holidays, vacation, overtime, everything except pensions and health and welfare.

FIRST THREE-WEEK VACATION IN WISCONSIN NEGOTIATED IN KENOSHA, ABOUT 1956-1957
Scope and Content Note: National would not agree to it, even though none of its employees in Kenosha would have been eligible. Signed the contract only under threat of strike. Feared that signing would have led to its spreading to areas where it did have employees eligible.

END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2

INTRODUCTION

OPERATING STRUCTURE OF RACINE AND KENOSHA CLERKS LOCALS
Scope and Content Note: Stewards in every store who handle first step of grievance procedure, except for serious matters like discharge and pay problems, for which the business agent is called. For bargaining, a survey is mailed to every member, and this is followed by a meeting at which the membership sifts demands. There is no bargaining committee; business agent does the bargaining. Unlike in Milwaukee, the contract is not brought back to the membership until the business agent can recommend final action--acceptance or strike. Whiteside has never had a contract rejected which he had recommended. Members today are more knowledgeable and more discriminating in regard to contracts.

WHITESIDE NEGOTIATED FROM KROGER THE FIRST THREE-YEAR CONTRACT AND THE FIRST REDUCTION OF THE WORK WEEK BELOW 45 HOURS IN WISCONSIN RETAIL

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MILWAUKEE AND RACINE/KENOSHA CONTRACTS
Scope and Content Note: Whiteside usually sat in on Milwaukee Clerks bargaining. Racine and Kenosha have city-wide seniority, Milwaukee area-wide. Racine and Kenosha got rid of part-time rates long before Milwaukee did. Wage rates close to each other, and pension, health and welfare uniform throughout the state.

POSSIBILITY OF KENOSHA AND RACINE LOCALS MERGING WITH MILWAUKEE
Scope and Content Note: Expects someday there will be only one UFCW local for all of Wisconsin, including all clerks and all meat cutters.

LOCAL STRUCTURE OF MEAT CUTTERS
Scope and Content Note: No stewards, because a small group, and conditions and membership are more stable. Racine had a steward system at one time, but it did not work.

DELI CLERKS AND MEAT WRAPPERS
Scope and Content Note: Meat wrappers added to Meat Cutters locals as soon as they appeared in the stores, concurrent with the introduction of self-service. Deli clerks are in the Meat Cutters union if the deli department is attached to the meat department. Deli clerks and meat wrappers are treated as equals, with equal pay rates, except at Kohl's, where they have separate seniority because Kohl's wants a different type of person to work in each department since meat wrapping is much harder work.

WOMEN MEAT CUTTERS
Scope and Content Note: Have clause in the contract which requires management to offer to meat wrappers first chance at any meat cutter openings. Has been in the contract eight or ten years, but no one has ever taken advantage of it. Concern that the meat cutters would give them the job of hauling all the hindquarters into the store discouraged two meat wrappers who had been thinking of taking advantage of this clause. Women meat cutters during World War II, including one who ran a Kroger meat department. “Disappeared” after the war, partly because the work became much more difficult; meat shortages during the war meant much less volume and easier work.

BARGAINING WITH THE VARIOUS CHAINS
Scope and Content Note: Jewel one of the toughest; also Sentry and Kroger. A & P and National were pretty good to do business with.

SMALL TOWNS IN RACINE/KENOSHA JURISDICTION
Scope and Content Note: Piggly Wiggly in Burlington and Red Owl there at one time. As the little country stores turn into supermarkets, the unions try to organize them. Burlington contract the same as Racine/Kenosha, but the organized store in Union Grove, with only 12 employees, gets a little break on wages.

COMPARISON OF RACINE AND KENOSHA CONTRACTS
Scope and Content Note: Clerks contracts the same; Meat Cutters, some differences. All stores in a town have the same contract.

BARGAINING STRATEGY
Scope and Content Note: Pros and cons of having one contract with common expiration date. Do not want to get the contract for one employer too far ahead of the others, or it will become non-competitive like Piggly Wiggly did in the 1950s. If have to strike, prefer to strike all at once, since easier to boycott all stores in a town rather than just one chain; and also it would be easier for one chain to bring in strikebreakers from out of town than for all to do so.

CONTRACT COVERAGE
Scope and Content Note: Everyone in the store is covered except one store manager. Jewel used to have two people outside the bargaining unit, a “Resident Supervisor,” who was really the store manager, and the “Store Manager,” who was really the assistant manager; in addition, had four assistant managers, who were covered by the contract.

ADVANTAGE OF HAVING DEPARTMENT MANAGERS IN THE UNION
Scope and Content Note: The business agent can get a clerk and a department manager together and sort out problems without bringing the store manager into the picture. Department managers like being in the union because this gives them greater security than the store managers have.

DESCRIPTION OF A PRODUCE MANAGER WHO CAUSED THE UNION TROUBLE
Scope and Content Note: Working off the clock, harassing clerks, etc.

POLICING OF THE MEMBERS BY THE UNION
Scope and Content Note: Twenty years ago, the managers wanted department heads out of the union so they could use them to keep their stores open in the event of a strike. Today, managers appreciate the fact that having department heads in the union prevents many problems from reaching the store manager; corporate managers, however, may not yet have this appreciation. Anecdote about one such policing action which turned out well for all concerned because the employees involved might have been fired if there were no union.

ACCRETION AND SUCCESSOR CLAUSES
Scope and Content Note: In weak union areas, successor clauses are being violated, but not in Racine and Kenosha where a picket line is important.

END OF TAPE 2, SIDE 1

INTRODUCTION

EVOLUTION OF CONTRACTS
Scope and Content Note: Contracts much lengthier today. Compares language of a 1946 contract to a current contract in the areas of hours, seniority, etc. Most important contractual advances began in Racine/Kenosha about 1955, with the bulk of the important changes coming in 1960-1970. Sick leave a late addition because it was not a very big concern.

REASONS FOR THE RAPID CONTRACTUAL CHANGES 1960-1970
Scope and Content Note: Strength of the union. The industry was probably more highly organized then than today. Today, spinoffs, like warehouse stores, if organized, do not accept the existing contract. Economic climate of the 1960-1970 period was good.

BARGAINING TODAY
Scope and Content Note: Economic climate today is the worst Whiteside has seen since beginning union work. “Everything they gave from '60 to '70 they want to take back from '80 to '90.” Furthermore, often dealing with conglomerates today. Kohl's used to be very concerned whether it would have a strike or not. Owned by a cigarette company now (Brown and Williamson) which cares much less about strike possibilities. The Kohl family “knew the problems of the people. I mean, Herbie Kohl and Sidney Kohl were with the people.” Even the negotiators for big chains like A & P and National knew the problems. “Today, they ship some guy in from New York. He don't know a bag of beans from a bag of potatoes. And that's about what he knows about people's feelings, and that's about how much he cares about them. They've gotten tougher, a lot tougher.”

TRAINING FOR CLERKS
Scope and Content Note: Jewel and Kohl's used to put them through a training program. A & P never did. New equipment does require more training. Training varies from a few hours to a couple weeks. Training “to a very small degree how to communicate with customers, but that's not their main interest. Their main interest is getting the money in the register before the merchandise goes out the door.” There was a difference between Kohl's and A & P clerks. Kohl's clerks more friendly. Kohl family kept an eye on their employees. A & P owners were in New York.

TRAINING FOR MEAT CUTTERS
Scope and Content Note: An apprenticeship, mainly on-the-job training, for 30 months. No tests or classroom training required, though union has in the agreement that the employer can send apprentices, at his cost, to school for four hours a week. Some do and some do not. Those who go through the formal apprenticeship program are generally more productive for the first four or five years of employment.

WORK OF WOMEN CLERKS
Scope and Content Note: Twenty years ago, jobs were by sex, but not today. Used to be all cashiers were women and most other positions were held by men. Clerks jobs today are thoroughly sexually integrated. Equal pay for men and women came in about eight or ten years ago. Used to be in the meat department all women, regardless of seniority, had to be laid off before any men were laid off, but that is illegal today. This all changed in the 1970s. Wage differentials used to be based on the theory that men did the heavier work and should get paid for it. When Whiteside started, women would not do the heavy work of carryout or truck unloading. The Equal Pay Act requires that those who use mental abilities (like checkers) should receive pay equal with those who use physical abilities. When that Act was passed, the union negotiated out its wage differentials based on sex. “We got a lot of complaints from the men about it. Oh boy, pretty near tore the places apart when we told them the women are getting a buck and a half an hour raise, and you're getting 50 cents.” This equalization of pay, which was a result of the women's movement, produced the sexual integration of jobs. The men reacted by saying if the women get equal pay, they will have to do the heavy work as well. What the men did not realize was that would require integration of seniority. The sexual integration of jobs was also caused by women now exercising their available hours rights; unloading a truck was preferable to layoff in some instances. “So, the men would demand that they (the women) do it (heavy work), and then the women would demand that they get the hours. So, between the two of them, they caused the integration of the women into the work force.”

MORE ON MEAT CUTTER TRAINING
Scope and Content Note: Thirty-five or forty years ago, most meat cutters were the sons of meat cutters. Not so today. The Meat Cutters, unlike other skilled trade unions, have no control over hiring, “and we don't want it.” Thirty-day probation and then the employer is stuck with all hires. No union control over training unless the employer complains about a person's performance after he has passed probation; then the union asks about the training the individual received. A & P used to be big on fish and would hire a meat cutter who would do nothing for ten years but cut fish. There is a formal apprenticeship program--indentured through the state--but there is so much change in the methods of meat cutting that the union does not insist on formal apprenticeship.

COMPARISON OF CLERKS WORK, 1950 AND 1980
Scope and Content Note: Work force much smaller in 1950; one or two cashiers who would do only that all day long, and two to four stockers who would not touch the cash register. Today, there might be ten cashiers, and, when they are not busy, they will go out into the store to stock, price, etc. “Fact of the matter is, a clerk today has to do everything from the back of the store to the front of the store. And even our men, while a man is not as dextrous at running a cash register, a lot of our men will be used in check stands today.... Where it used to be...you had so many people do this and so many people do this, and maybe they'd have time when they wouldn't be doing something, today they're busy all the time.”

UTILITY CLERKS AND BAGGERS
Scope and Content Note: Do not have utility clerk classification in Racine/Kenosha. Do have a bagger classification, but once that person goes over 24 hours, he automatically goes into a regular clerk classification and gets regular clerk pay for all his hours. Also, a bagger, through seniority, may go over 24 hours by claiming hours. Because of this, there are not many “baggers.”

FOOD STORE WORK HARDER TODAY
Scope and Content Note: Food store productivity has increased “more than in any business I know of.”

SCHEDULING OF CLERKS
Scope and Content Note: Difficult to maintain most efficient staffing at any given time, even though the methods of measuring volume at certain hours today are more sophisticated than in the past. In Kenosha, food store business is 20% greater during the first week of the month than during the last week of the month because Social Security, pensions, and food stamps arrive early in the month.

HOURS OF WORK PER WEEK
Scope and Content Note: Most senior employees are pretty much guaranteed 40 hours a week if they want it. Less senior people can bump down into bagger classification if they want.

MORE ON SCHEDULING
Scope and Content Note: Scheduling becomes confusing in the 12- to 20-hour per week worker range. These people change their schedules from week to week and, because of city-wide seniority, may work in several different stores in a given week in order to make the number of hours they want.

END OF TAPE 2, SIDE 2

INTRODUCTION

MORE ON SCHEDULING OF CLERKS HOURS
Scope and Content Note: Eighty to ninety percent work fairly regular hours; scheduling problems come with the others. While this may sometimes be cumbersome, it is at least objective and to that extent an advantage to the employer as well as the employee.

WHEN WHITESIDE FIRST WENT TO WORK FOR THE CLERKS, NO ONE WAS RECEIVING THE CONTRACT SCALE
Scope and Content Note: Everyone was receiving different rates, and everyone was over the contract rates because a contract had not been negotiated for three years.

OVERTIME
Scope and Content Note: Sunday work (double time) rotated, based on seniority. Head meat cutter can receive four more hours of overtime per week than a journeyman. There is not much overtime among clerks because there is a steady pool of part-timers looking for more hours. People in the store seem to know who needs the extra hours at a particular time.

CLERKS WORK CLAUSE
Scope and Content Note: Used to have problems with salesmen stocking, etc., but not much any more because contract says most senior person not working during such a violation gets four hours' pay. “You still have some chiseling though, but not...like it used to be.” Took about ten years (circa 1955-1965) to solve this problem.

COMPARISON OF MEAT CUTTER WORK, 1950 AND 1980
Scope and Content Note: In 1950, there was more variety to the work in a given day, including waiting on customers. Today, a meat cutter might work at a single task all day. Up until about 1975, made sausage, bratwurst, etc. in the store. Now these are brought in all made up, and meat cutters only tray, package, price and display them. “...When I first came around, you had to be more of a craftsman, really, to be a meat cutter.” More mechanical now, and customers wait on themselves. In a big store, there is usually enough work of each kind to keep each meat cutter busy at one task for a whole day. The head meat cutter assigns the tasks. “The head meat cutter controls it, but he's got to control it right or he'll have rebellion in the meat market.” Meat cutters will look out for each other and see that the fellow with a bad back gets a light job. In 1950, there were two, maybe three, meat cutters in a store, and much of the work was custom. L & M Markets are still custom stores. “But you take a meat cutter who works in an L & M market and put him in a chain store, and he can hardly operate.”

SUNDAY AND EVENING OPENING
Scope and Content Note: Sunday work became common in the mid-1960s. Unions picketed against it but had to give in and permit it because Illinois and Milwaukee stores were open on Sunday. At first, Sunday was treated as part of the basic work week. Evening opening became widespread about 1960. Sunday opening seemed to follow the establishment of shopping centers which got people in the habit of shopping on Sunday. Sunday is now the second biggest day of the week. Originally, the unions thought they could keep the stores closed on Sunday by requiring double-time pay.

AVAILABLE HOURS CLAUSE AND ITS IMPACT: CAREER CLERKS
Scope and Content Note: In Racine/Kenosha for 25 years. In a small town, “you can control it.” Available hours eliminated many part-time positions and, along with improved wages and benefits, made food store clerking a career job. Used to have about 50% turnover per year; now only about 10%. Because of the low turnover, it might take a new employee as much as five years to get up to a 40-hour week. Not all store managers see low turnover as a positive thing; some prefer high turnover because that means more people at the lower end of the wage progression scale.

EXPANSION OF WAGE PROGRESSION SCHEDULES
Scope and Content Note: Meat cutters reach the top of the scale in 30 months now and clerks in 54 months. Clerks progression schedule was down to 24 months at one time, until stores complained that too many people were at the top of the scale. One Sentry store in Kenosha has all 40 employees at the top of the scale. “If we've got 10% of our people on anything but top rate in this city in the grocery industry, it's a lot.” Progression schedules have nothing to do with the level of competency. “You're just as good a clerk after three months as you'll ever be.” To some extent, meat cutter progression schedules do parallel the competency levels of apprentices, but meat wrappers are as good after six months as they will ever be, even though they have 24 more months to go before making the top rate. “We used to argue that it took a lot of experience and so forth, but that's not really the truth.”

WORK RULES
Scope and Content Note: If not negotiated, the union will not recognize them, although some legitimate work rules are accepted. Fought with the stores for 20 years over the issue of requiring white shirts and ties. Union position was if they are required, then store should buy them. “So they did start buying us the ties.” Stores can introduce any rule they want, “but try to make it work.” Work rules are not even discussed at negotiations. Have employee handbooks, but “the managers don't read them, so why should we?” Reasonable rules, like decent appearance, are accepted.

POLYGRAPH TESTS
Scope and Content Note: Union always opposed. Also, have always told employees not to sign anything.

TIME CLOCKS AND WORKING OFF THE CLOCK
Scope and Content Note: Union wanted time clocks because they are the best way to make sure time cards are accurate; to make sure managers are not adjusting them, and employees are not working off the clock. “To both of our benefit really.” Working off the clock is no longer a problem. Never fined violators; “I don't believe too much in fining our own members.”

MOST COMMON GRIEVANCES
Scope and Content Note: Wanting time off and not getting it. Assignment of hours. Most of the meat cutter grievances are by management--meat cutters coming in late or not calling in when absent. Not many grievances from the members. Union will try to straighten out an employee before a problem develops into a suspension or discharge. Management often writes up employees and sends a copy to the union, but the members never sign the write ups.

END OF TAPE 3, SIDE 1

INTRODUCTION

MORE ON GRIEVANCES
Scope and Content Note: Most problems involve scheduling of time off. Labor-management relations are generally good. Problems come when a new manager from another part of the country does not understand the local contract or when the father or husband of a clerk assumes the food store contract is similar to his factory contract. Three or four arbitrations a year, usually involving discipline or discharge cases. Except for clear cut cases of theft, discharge cases are always taken to arbitration.

THEFT
Scope and Content Note: “We walk in and tell the guy, 'Hey, cut it out or you're going to get fired,' because we know when a guy is stealing.” Usually the head meat cutter will inform the union if a meat cutter is stealing. “If you got a fellow who picks up a hot dog or something and eats it, and you get some hot shot supervisor who wants to fire him for that, we tell him, 'No.' That we would take as far as we had to take it.” When a theft is involved, the union tries to work out the best arrangement for the employee, usually a letter of recommendation. Anecdote about a clerk at J.C. Penney who hid quarters in her bra. She bent over to tie her shoe, and all the quarters fell out. Her husband still does not know why she was fired and annually criticizes Whiteside at the Labor Day picnic.

MORE ON WOMEN WORKERS IN FOOD STORES
Scope and Content Note: About 50% of clerks are women; about 25% of people in the meat department. Have had only one case of “sexual harassment.” It involved a meat cutter's language, and the Executive Board straightened him out. No sexual harassment problems between managers and clerks. “Our women are pretty well protected around here.”

PROMOTIONS
Scope and Content Note: Management has the right to select whomever it wants for department head jobs, but the union has the right to grieve it if it feels a more senior person should have been considered. Generally no problem, however, because department head positions are not all that desirable. “A lot of them don't want all the problems that go with the authority for the little bit of money difference.”

CLERK ASPIRATIONS
Scope and Content Note: Generally if they have aspirations, they are outside the grocery business, “because how many store managers can you have?” Also, store managers not always paid all that well; some make less than meat cutters. Some clerks do aspire to become department managers, but the pay is not that much greater for the responsibility involved. A regular clerk with four or five hours' overtime can make as much as a produce manager, for instance.

PRODUCE MANAGERS
Scope and Content Note: Responsibility for ordering, for display, for making sure he is making the proper gross, for maintaining his percent of the volume of business compared to the store as a whole, for the productivity of the clerks working in his department, for rotation of produce, for shrinkage, etc. “He's got a lot of responsibility and not a whole lot more pay.” Has quite a bit of autonomy. In a chain store, however, there is less autonomy, particularly in what is to be featured. Example of the value of good display: one produce manager unable to move citrus slices at 49 cents a jar while another did real well selling them at 69 cents. Generally work a 45-hour week, with five of the hours overtime. Generally, chains do not permit produce managers to buy locally. “Where they can buy locally, a produce manager can make a lot more money for the company, but they are always concerned about the deals between the guy who's selling it to him, and the guy who's buying it.” Has had only one produce manager caught working off the clock. A couple area produce managers have moved up the corporate ladders of their chains, “but generally the better jobs in a company are reserved for guys from the outside.”

SCANNERS
Scope and Content Note: None in Kenosha; two stores in Racine. Have not changed the work much but have potential for hurting the customer if the items are not priced. Kenosha has a law requiring food stores to mark prices on all items; Whiteside was involved in getting the law passed.

THREAT OF A LOWER MINIMUM WAGE BODES ILL FOR RETAIL CLERKS WHO ARE NOT UNIONIZED

UNION INDOCTRINATION FOR NEW MEMBERS
Scope and Content Note: Try to have stewards introduce new clerks to the contract in the break room. Everyone gets a contract at home.

CLERKS ECONOMIC STATUS IN RACINE/KENOSHA
Scope and Content Note: Whiteside has had teachers tell him their children have a better insurance program as a clerk than they have. Also, better wages than some area factories.

END OF INTERVIEW