Interview
I [interviewer James Cavanaugh] interviewed Suffridge for a little over seven hours on September 22 and 23, 1980, in his home in Fort Myers, Florida. While Suffridge gave intelligent, cooperative, and thoughtful attention to the discussion and while he provided information about the union's history, which is available nowhere else, he was always conscious of the union's image and was at all times cautious, not to second-guess decisions made either while he was President or since.
The interview covered the entire range of RCIA's modern history. Discussion included the development of RCIA's structure, RCIA's innovative public relations techniques, reasons for RCIA organizing successes, analyses of retail store employees, the cleansing of various pockets of corruption in the RCIA, relations with other unions, and Suffridge's relationships with important United States political figures, particularly President Lyndon Johnson. The discussion on the earlier years of Suffridge's involvement with the RCIA, the 1930s and 1940s, offers more new information than on the later years. Indeed, as the discussion drew closer and closer to the present day, Suffridge's comments became less and less penetrating. Perhaps the greatest value of the interview comes out only when one takes it as a whole, because it is then that one is able to decipher the trade union philosophy of Suffridge and his union, a pragmatic and fairly conservative philosophy at its core, but one which nevertheless proved bold for its time and unquestionably successful.
Abstract to the Interview
The tapes for this interview have two tracks: a voice track containing the discussion, and a time track containing time announcements at intervals of approximately five seconds. The abstract lists, in order of discussion, the topics covered on each tape and indicates the time-marking at which point the beginning of the particular discussion appears.
Thus, the researcher, by using a tape recorder's fast-forward button, may find expeditiously and listen to discrete segments without listening to all of the taped discussion. For instance, the user who wishes to listen to the topic on “JOINED RETAIL CLERKS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION (RCIA) IN 1934” should locate, the place on the second track of tape one, side one, where the voice announces the 02:00 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “Two minutes”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “JOINED RETAIL CLERKS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION (RCIA) IN 1934” continues until approximately 03:20, at which point, discussion of the next topic (“HIRED AS SECRETARY-TREASURER OF LOCAL 870”) begins.
Notice that in most cases, sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the sentences underneath “JOINED RETAIL CLERKS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION (RCIA) IN 1934” give further details on what appears, on the tape, between 02:00 and 03:20.
The abstract is designed to provide only a brief outline of the content of the tapes and cannot serve as a substitute for listening to them. However, the abstract when used with the index will help the researcher easily locate distinct topics, and discussions among the many minutes of commentary.
Index to the Interview
There is no separate index for this interview. There is a master index for all the interviews with UFCW leaders.
