Interview
I [interviewer James Cavanaugh] interviewed Schachter for a total of four and a half hours on November 21 and 22, 1980. He was included in the UFCW Oral History Project because of his broad experience with the AMC&BW--local union president for 40 years, International vice-president for 32 years, Director of the union's largest district for 24 years, Director of the union's Legislative Office for 26 years, and an important figure in all of the AMC&BW merger attempts.
In this interview, Schachter clearly explains the AMC&BW trade union philosophy which is based on a decentralized structure, quite the opposite of that employed by the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) as explained in the Jesse Prosten interview. Other strong points of the interview include Schachter's description of his stay in Turkey, the creation and implementation of the Teamsters-Butchers Joint Organizing Committee, the 1968 merger between AMC&BW and UPWA which he opposed, changes in the meat industry, changes within the AMC&BW during its last decade of separate existence, and the history of Local 56.
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 of “SCHACHTER'S FIRST WORK FOR THE UNION” should locate the place on the second track of tape one, side one, where the voice announces the 06:25 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “Six minutes, twenty-five seconds”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “SCHACHTER'S FIRST WORK FOR THE UNION” continues until approximately 08:10, at which point discussion of the next topic (“EARLY ORGANIZING METHODS”) begins.
Notice that in most cases, sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the sentences underneath “SCHACHTER'S FIRST WORK FOR THE UNION” give further details on what appears on the tape between 06:25 and 08:10.
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.
