Subseries: Hannon, Conchera L.

INTRODUCTION

HANNON CAME TO MADISON FROM SICILY
Scope and Content Note: She was two months old. Her father had come first, gotten a job with the railroad, then sent for his family. Relatives and friends had previously immigrated to Madison. There were two children when the family emigrated; 11 more children were born in the United States.

HER FATHER OPENED A GROCERY STORE
Scope and Content Note: She and her mother worked in the store, as did a brother for awhile, “but after my father saw his attitude toward the customers, why, he realized that Vito wasn't ever going to be a grocery clerk.” The family “often wondered about” her father's decision to leave the railroad for the grocery business. But there was potential on Regent Street for such a business. One large store had already opened, and nearby churches also attracted business. The store was located “just about where Madison General Hospital is now.” It was a busy area with no parking problems and good traffic for the store. The store opened in perhaps 1921 or 1922, when she was about nine.

HANNON'S DUTIES IN THE STORE
Scope and Content Note: “They were many.” She waited on customers, ordered, kept books, interpreted for her father with salesmen, and cleaned cases. “The candy case always had to be cleaned.”

CUSTOMERS CAME FROM VARIOUS ETHNIC BACKGROUNDS
Scope and Content Note: “We had Jewish..., we had Irish, we had German.” The store also got business from university professors living at what then was called “College Hill” (now University Heights).

ITALIAN SPECIALTY ITEMS WERE PURCHASED FROM A CHICAGO SALESMAN
Scope and Content Note: “...(L)ike olive oil, the spaghettis, your tomato paste, and cheeses--he would get great big rounds of cheeses.” Some of these items were shipped on freight trains. Her father picked up shipments in a Model T Ford, “which was the pride of the neighborhood.” It was sometimes necessary to make several trips in the car. She has a photograph of herself in her store apron with two neighborhood boys standing by the car. Her father kept the car for years.

MORE ON HANNON'S BOOKKEEPING FOR THE STORE
Scope and Content Note: She was the store's bookkeeper because her father could neither read nor write English. She worked at this during recess from the school she attended across the street from the store. “I started my own bookkeeping system.” She got a ledger and wrote out receipts and bills on a carbon-copy book. One copy was for customers; she used the other for entering totals in her ledger. Charges and payouts had a separate book. Some wholesale companies helped her set up her book-keeping system. “I don't know if they only helped me or maybe helped perhaps other immigrants who had businesses.” Inventories of store stock was needed for government reports. “They were very nice that way to help out.”

A TYPICAL WORK DAY FOR A NINE- OR TEN-YEAR-OLD
Scope and Content Note: She would be awakened by a cow bell, rung by her mother. She would be in the store by 5:30 a.m. “I didn't dare to be late.” Laborers would buy lunch meat in the store before reporting for work. “So, we had to be up early so they could get to work early.” Next, bakery items arrived in big trays. “Then we would have the breakfast trade.” There would be a lull at about 10 a.m. At 10:15 recess, Hannon came to the store to place some orders and finished ordering and posting the morning's credit at noon. “It was really amazing...how this man, who couldn't write, yet, he would have all these numbers down, and he would know, and what items they bought, by memory. And he would read them off to me.” He had his own “code” for memorizing orders until she could record them. It was important to be accurate; “heaven forbid” if she erred. Customers knew she would not be there to write down charges immediately. “Oh, it was really fun, fun, fun, I'll tell you.” She also worked during afternoon recess and after school for “the supper trade.” “It was nothing to have the store open 'till 10:30, 11 o'clock at night.” She did her homework on the store counter and would play jacks and ball with her sister when her father was not there. “It was difficult. I don't know--I think that's why I grew up so fast. At thirteen I felt old.”

LOCAL SOURCES OF GOODS FOR HER FATHER'S STORE
Scope and Content Note: He bought from Simon Brothers, Frank Brothers, and Klueter and Company. Italian specialties came from Chicago. Produce came from the Frank or Sweet companies. Meat came from Armour, Oscar Mayer, and another company. The store did not carry fresh meat, only cold cuts.

REFRIGERATION IN THE STORE
Scope and Content Note: There was a “huge ice box and a smaller one.” An ice cream cabinet was serviced daily. Ice was delivered once or twice a day. The ice box was 19 or 20 cubic feet. Ice was put on top. There was a pan underneath which had to be emptied several times daily.

WELFARE CUSTOMERS AT THE STORE
Scope and Content Note: The store had its “welfare trade.” She made monthly visits to the welfare office to deliver bills and pick up new orders. She remembers a small room containing clothes and shoes for welfare recipients. “I can still remember those ugly shoes.” There were special holiday orders. Statements from the welfare office listed the names of welfare recipients and the amounts they were entitled to purchase. Candy, tobacco and near-beer were prohibited. Substitutions were allowed to account for food preferences of different nationalities.

CREDIT CUSTOMERS PAID THEIR BILLS MONTHLY
Scope and Content Note: Credit customers had to be sure she was there to pay their bills. Her father gave customers a bag of cookies as a “token of appreciation” for paying their bills. Deliveries were made only for customers living some distance away. There were no deliveries for neighborhood residents. “A lot of it was credit. It wasn't anything to have a $400, $350 grocery bill a month.”

THE STORE'S LAYOUT
Scope and Content Note: There were window displays on either side of the entry door. Displays changed according to the season. Sometimes there were firecrackers (for the Fourth of July), and school supplies. Her father took in used schoolbooks from students on consignment. One side had tobacco, bakery goods, candy. There was a long counter with “10 or 12 different kinds of spaghetti.” They sold sugar and navy beans in bulk. Flour was bagged in 25- or 50-pound bags. Yeast was also sold in bulk; it was cut with a string. The ice box was behind the long counter. Cookies were on a rack in bulk boxes. Another end had vegetables. A pot-bellied stove kept things warm in winter because furnace pipes were not long enough to reach into the store.

END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1

INTRODUCTION

MOST STORE ITEMS WERE STOCKED IN BULK

THE DECLINE OF HER FATHER'S STORE
Scope and Content Note: Stores began selling fresh produce and meat. Chains had a produce rack which her father's store lacked. Not long after the appearance of chain grocery stores, larger produce and fruit markets also began to appear. “That started to take away some of our business.” People could buy in larger quantities at lower prices. Her father paid more because “his merchandise was more select.” “Multiple sales”--six items for 25 cents, for example--began appearing too, and were popular. “Dad couldn't compete with that.” After the 1929 stock market crash, more people bought on credit. “I said to Dad, 'You aren't going to be able to pull through this.'” “I said, 'I'd rather go to work and see a paycheck at the end of the week.'” This “hurt his pride.” He decided to close the store he had operated for about ten years. It closed in 1930. She began work at A & P; her father returned to working for the railroad. “We enjoyed what we were doing. We enjoyed the years that we had in the store. But when competition came, then it was an entirely different situation. He just couldn't compete with it.” Chain store brands especially hurt. Customers complained because his prices were so much higher. “I just couldn't stand that anymore.”

SHE BEGAN WORK AT A & P IN 1930
Scope and Content Note: Located on Park and Mound streets just down the street from her father's store, the A & P had been open for about a year or so when she began work. Other chains came to Madison too, creating more competition. She got the job by asking the A & P manager for it when he passed by her father's store one day. “It helped because I could speak the language (Italian) too and help out.”

ORTHODOX JEWS AND OTHERS IN HER MIXED ETHNIC NEIGHBORHOOD
Scope and Content Note: She helped Jews on the Sabbath by opening their mail and lighting their gas stoves for them. It was a large ethnic neighborhood. “To us, they weren't the Jewish people, they weren't the Irish or the German. They were people that we knew by name. And they were just like one of the family.” “They were people that we grew up with, so we didn't think of them as being any different.” For Jewish customers, she had to use different knives for cutting cheese and cold meats, and keep her cutting board very clean. “I would tease them once in awhile, but we respected them....”

DESCRIPTION OF A & P
Scope and Content Note: It was twice the size of her father's store, even though it was still small compared to today's stores. There was a loading dock and storeroom in back. Packaging, egg candling and potato bagging were done in the back storeroom. Preparations for special sales were also done there, well ahead of sale time.

SHE COMPARES HER FATHER'S STORE AND THE A & P
Scope and Content Note: Her father's store had one room above the store for extra stock. They carried 100 to 150 boxes of spaghetti because customers bought it “by the cases.” Father's store was located in the front of their house. The A & P, therefore, seemed very large to her. Both stores were service stores. The clerks added each item separately. Cash registers rang the totals only. There were no adding machines. The display area at A & P was larger. A & P also had specials. Even today, she can tell if a store is an independent or a chain store by the displays. “The displays are changed more frequently...to keep the customer alert” in a chain store. Hannon noticed this as a difference between her father's store and A & P.

HANNON'S WORK AT A & P
Scope and Content Note: She stocked at the store. “We had to do everything.” Employees included the manager, assistant manager, the manager's wife, Hannon, and a meat manager. She used a “long pole with a spring” with prongs at the end to get items off upper shelves in the store. “But many's the item I got on my head, especially if it was a heavy can or something.”

A & P's REFRIGERATION
Scope and Content Note: At first, there were ice boxes. They had walk-in coolers with an ice storage space above. Large blocks of ice were delivered once or twice daily. Electric refrigeration was not introduced until after she began working for Kroger a few years later. She did not recall how meat was refrigerated.

WORKING HOURS AT A & P
Scope and Content Note: She does not recall when work began on weekdays, though she recalls leaving work at 6 or 6:30 p.m. On Fridays and Saturdays she worked from 7:30 a.m. until 10 p.m. Because child labor laws also covered women, “I think they were a little more strict about the hours.”

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WORKING HOURS AT A & P AND HER FATHER'S STORE
Scope and Content Note: A & P did not open early enough to cater to laborers enroute to work. “In fact, at my Dad's store, we never knew what it was to have a Sunday meal.” Her father kept the store open to enable churchgoers across the street to pick up needed groceries after church. “So it was a good many years before we got Dad to finally realize that we wanted at least one hour on a Sunday to have a family meal.” Even so, customers would knock on the back door and interrupt their dinner because they had forgotten something at the store. “It was disgusting.”

WAGES AT A & P
Scope and Content Note: She made 14 or 15 cents an hour, or about $13.50 a week.

SHE FINDS INCOME TAX RETURN FOR 1951
Scope and Content Note: It shows she made $367 that year working for Piggly Wiggly. Her husband, Bill, worked at the University of Wisconsin. “And he sure wasn't earning a lot of money, I'll tell you--$2,150?”

JOB DUTIES AT A & P
Scope and Content Note: She waited on customers and stocked shelves during slack times. Rotating stock was “a must.” She did that at her father's store, too. Even just before she retired, some stock boys were “lazy” about doing this.

HANNON WORKED AT A & P FOR FOUR YEARS. THE STORE CLOSED BECAUSE “PEOPLE JUST WEREN'T BUYING ANYMORE”

EFFORTS OF A & P TO STIMULATE BUSINESS
Scope and Content Note: A & P sent her around the neighborhood to take orders on specials. The manager ordered carloads of special items such as flour. The manager delivered the orders. “This was all on our own in order to get some business stimulated.”

END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2

INTRODUCTION

REASONS WHY A & P FAILED
Scope and Content Note: “I think it's what we're going through right now. What business is going through right now, they were going through then.” A & P closed some of its smaller stores. They were competing with self-service stores.

HANNON WORKED FOR KROGER
Scope and Content Note: First, she worked at a store on Mound and Randall streets. Shortly thereafter, she moved to a new self-service Kroger store on Winnebago Street at Union Corners in about 1940. The self-service store “was pretty much like it is now.” Customers used shopping carts; the store had checkout lanes. Today's stores have different registers.

DUTIES AT KROGER
Scope and Content Note: She waited on customers, stocked shelves, packaged, put up dried fruit and candy. At the Union Corners store, she was a checker and also stocked shelves and dusted. “You just don't stand in back of a register and wait for a customer.” After her son was born, she also had to order and stock drugs “between checking customers. And if that isn't nerve-wracking....”

THOUGHTS ABOUT WORKING IN A SELF-SERVICE STORE AFTER HAVING WORKED IN A SERVICE STORE FOR 20 YEARS
Scope and Content Note: “I found it a little exciting.” When she waited on customers in a service store, sometimes she and waiting customers would become somewhat anxious when customers could not decide what brand or product to buy. “To know that you didn't have that to contend with, it was real nice.” She did have to help customers unload groceries at the self-service counter. “Each method has its own responsibilities.”

MORE COMPARISONS BETWEEN SERVICE AND SELF-SERVICE CLERKING
Scope and Content Note: Kroger still carried some bulk items which had to be packaged by clerks. This was done either in the back room or on an unused counter “so we could keep an eye on our checking.” She often spent as much time doing things away from the cash register as checking.

RESPONSIBILITIES AS A CHECKER
Scope and Content Note: At Kroger's Winnebago Street store, the manager gave her about 10 minutes of training on the cash register. Each checker checked her register in and out every day. Registers had to balance at night. If registers were off, “you'd have to check and recheck it. If it didn't come out, it didn't come out.” “Sometimes, it's just as bad to be over as it is to be short.” “We had to be very careful.”

WHY HANNON WAS SWITCHED FROM THE MOUND AND RANDALL STORE TO THE UNION CORNERS STORE
Scope and Content Note: She was told she was needed at the newer store. She thinks Kroger planned to close its smaller stores anyway because they were losing business and because “they were deciding to go into complete self-service.”

SHE NEXT WORKED AT THE UNIVERSITY AVENUE KROGER STORE
Scope and Content Note: She retired from that store because another son was born. She was asked back to help out during World War II, beginning on weekends, and gradually working more and more weekends.

SHE WAS TRANSFERRED TO THE PARK STREET KROGER STORE AND WAS ASKED TO MANAGE FULL-TIME
Scope and Content Note: At this store, she was asked to manage stores while managers were on vacation. “And then, the big question came up: Did I want to manage full-time?” She decided, “No, I can't do it. I can't give it the responsibility it will have to have.” She also wondered how high school boys would respond to a woman manager. At the Park Street store, boys “would sass back” occasionally. She also believed her baby needed “total care.” Kroger fired her when she told the company she did not want to be a full-time manager. “So that was my thank you for being an excellent clerk, or whatever, or manager, and I went down to a no-nothing in no time at all.” Kroger was not yet unionized. Neither was Piggly Wiggly, for whom she later worked. A & P may have been unionized. Kroger had wanted her to manage a downtown store on Hamilton Street. A woman named Irene managed the Hamilton Street store, which was still a service store.

MORE ON THE SIZE OF THE UNION CORNERS KROGER STORE
Scope and Content Note: There were three or four checkout lanes. A nearby A & P was double the size of Kroger. Kroger moved into the smaller store just to compete with A & P. “I couldn't understand why Kroger's went into it.” The store “was there for a good many years.”

MORE ON CLERKS UNLOADING SHOPPING CARTS
Scope and Content Note: Clerks still helped customers unload shopping carts when she began working at Piggly Wiggly. She recalls having to go around the counter to help. In 1949 to 1950, Piggly Wiggly was one of the area's larger supermarkets, with perhaps eight checkout lanes. The manager or assistant manager would help customers unload shopping carts. Conveyor belts enabled customers to unload carts for themselves. “But it took a long time because a lot of people resented it. They didn't like to unload their groceries.”

CUSTOMERS LIKED SELF-SERVICE STORES
Scope and Content Note: Customers believed “they were saving money, which, in a way, they were.”

MORE ON UNLOADING CARTS
Scope and Content Note: For awhile, customers resented having to unload their own carts because they thought checkers were being paid to do it.

COMPANIES OFTEN DISTRIBUTED FREE SAMPLES TO CUSTOMERS
Scope and Content Note: As many as six companies might distribute food samples on Fridays and Saturdays. “Or they would have free giveaways, which they don't have now.” “That was always exciting. We liked all that hoopla.” Sometimes they had to wear costumes.

SHE HAD TO WEAR UNIFORMS
Scope and Content Note: She “hated” A & P's uniforms because they scratched her neck. Next came the nylon uniforms, which were “really hot in the summer.” Just before she retired, she wore slacks and a jacket, which she liked “because that saved clothes.”

MORE ON HANNON AS A PART-TIME MANAGER FOR KROGER DURING VACATION TIME
Scope and Content Note: This was during 1944 to 1945. Her responsibilities included weekly ordering, supervising clerks, handling displays, cashiering. She did not receive manager's wages. She also had to take inventory before and after the vacation period. For this, Kroger sent in “a regular inventory crew.” The inventory protected her and the manager.

HOURS OF WORK AT KROGER AND PIGGLY WIGGLY
Scope and Content Note: She worked a six-day week at Kroger. A five-day work week was begun while she was working at Piggly Wiggly. She worked an eight- or nine-hour day. Stores stayed open until 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. She worked either a split shift or a straight shift with a lunch hour, depending on scheduling.

END OF TAPE 2, SIDE 1

INTRODUCTION

MYSTERY SHOPPERS
Scope and Content Note: She thinks A & P and Kroger both used such shoppers to check for courtesy and accuracy in making change. Piggly Wiggly had mystery shoppers, too. Checkers never knew when they would come in. She thinks they are still used today.

WORKING FOR KROGER AND RATIONING STAMPS DURING WORLD WAR II
Scope and Content Note: The stamps posed problems for stores “especially if you ran out of merchandise.” They also had rationing tokens or chips. Stores could sell just so much of one item per customer. Handling coupons slowed the checkout process. This was about 1942.

LATER, COUPONS AND TRADING STAMPS ALSO SLOWED THE CHECKOUT PROCESS
Scope and Content Note: They were a problem for checkers, “but somehow or other, you get into a routine of doing all this.” “I think that once you get into the routine, it's all done automatically.” Trading stamps were discontinued because they were too costly. Store games were “a lot worse than giving out green stamps...because you always had a lot of disappointed people.” Coupons still are problems for checkers “because you've got to remember whether or not they bought the item.” Good checkers, who worked many years, developed a knack for doing this.

CHECKERS MUST GET TO KNOW THEIR CUSTOMERS
Scope and Content Note: Checkers learn to do this “if you have any interest in the customer. But if you're there just like a robot, then you just don't. You really have to learn to like your customer. You have to enjoy your work. And that was my big 'it'--I enjoyed my customers.” “It was just like a friend coming in to visit.” Old-time customers sometimes could be insulted if a new management policy mandated changes in check-writing requirements--such as limiting the amount of the check to the purchase amount only, or insisting on identification or fingerprinting. “And that's one of the things that all of us hated, when we had to tell an old customer that there was a new procedure.”

COMPANY WORK RULES
Scope and Content Note: All stores had personnel handbooks. “Basically, your chain stores are about the same.” Some stores prohibited wearing tennis shoes and jeans, required boys to wear ties, and forbid girls to wear earrings or nail polish. Some of these policies have changed. Stores prohibited smoking on the floor, shopping during working hours, and eating lunch in customer areas. Store managers did not want checkers to converse much with customers. She found such talk distracting, “and that's when you can make a mistake.” It is also “rude” to customers waiting in line. “Of course, the younger clerks would do that. The younger girls. Where the world is a big merry-go-round.”

AFTER HER SON'S ILLNESS, SHE RETURNED TO WORK AT PIGGLY WIGGLY ON EAST WASHINGTON AVENUE
Scope and Content Note: She was spending too much time at home with her son, who had rheumatic fever, and returned to work when a doctor advised it. She worked there for about 11 years. She began by working from 4:30 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. After her son had started school, the manager told her she was working more hours as a part-time employee than a full-time employee but without the full-time employee's benefits. So she began working full-time beginning at noon or 1 p.m. Gradually, she was given responsibility for all nonfood items.

BENEFITS AT PIGGLY WIGGLY ON EAST WASHINGTON AVENUE
Scope and Content Note: A non-union store, the company had hospitalization and profit-sharing.

SHE LIKED GETTING BACK TO WORK AFTER NOT HAVING WORKED FOR SIX YEARS
Scope and Content Note: Hannon found she needed little instruction on the newer cash register and quickly worked her way back into food store work. Maybe “it was something that was in me.” She assumed responsibilities for nonfood items when the manager became too busy to do it himself.

COMPARISON OF THE KROGER STORE AT UNION CORNERS WITH THIS PIGGLY WIGGLY STORE
Scope and Content Note: “Altogether different.” The volume of business was greater at Piggly Wiggly. Also, employees got to know the owner of the chain. “He was a nice gentleman. Real nice.” There was a different “feeling” among employees when Kroger supervisors entered the Kroger store than when Piggly Wiggly's owner and his aides entered the store. The personal aspect to Piggly Wiggly was lost when the chain was sold to Consolidated Foods.

STORE MANAGERS CONTRIBUTE MUCH TO A STORE'S WORKING ATMOSPHERE

CHECKERS SOMETIMES TRIED TO AVOID CERTAIN CUSTOMERS
Scope and Content Note: They did this by slowing down and forcing such customers into another checkout lane. “I don't know if they're still doin' it, but I know they were doin' it then.”

CLERKS COOPERATED WITH MANAGERS EVEN THOUGH THEY MIGHT NOT LIKE THEM

END OF TAPE 2, SIDE 2

INTRODUCTION

MORE ON DIFFERENCES BETWEEN KROGER AND PIGGLY WIGGLY
Scope and Content Note: “The atmosphere was entirely different. I imagine because it was such a busy store.” It was “better to me” than the Kroger store. They also gave more free samples. She liked the busier store.

CHANGES IN ORDERING METHODS
Scope and Content Note: At first at Piggly Wiggly, she ordered by marking needed items on a form. Then the company switched to ordering on IBM cards with a special pencil. Following this method was an IBM telephone ordering system in which the assistant manager called in her order to an IBM recorder. She no longer had to mark the IBM ordering cards. Goods were delivered twice weekly instead of once weekly with the phone ordering system. These changes began in 1971 or 1972 after she had switched to the Middleton, Wisconsin, Piggly Wiggly store. The telephone ordering system was installed in 1974 or 1975.

DUTIES AS MANAGER OF NONFOOD PRODUCTS
Scope and Content Note: The store's management gave her a certain number of hours to do this work, even though it was close to a “full-time job, because it wasn't only the nonfoods. I also had to do my own unloading, my own marking, my own stocking.” A certain number of feet of shelving required a given number of hours to stock, but there were never enough hours to do the job. “And in between times, 'Connie, check. Connie, check.' If girls were on a break, I had to fill in.” After four or five hours of checking, she did not have enough time to stock. “The only time I resented it was when I had to do my ordering, because then I would lose my train of thought.” Cigarettes alone required much time to rotate and inventory.

SHE WAS NOT PAID EXTRA WAGES ABOVE CHECKER RATES FOR MANAGING NONFOOD ITEMS
Scope and Content Note: She was unable to get the Retail Clerks International Association (RCIA) to change her status from checker to a department manager in order to receive wages commensurate with her duties. She thinks that now changes have been made to compensate for these extra duties. A recent contract corrected these inequities. She thought it was unfair to be responsible for stocking and ordering in the nonfood department without receiving extra pay, especially during those times when she was hard at work stocking, and checkers, who made the same wages as she did, were resting at checkout counters because of a slack time in the store. The night manager sometimes got idle checkers to help her.

THE MIDDLETON STORE ORIGINALLY WAS LARGER BUT SINCE HAS BEEN REDUCED TO MAKE ROOM FOR MORE STORES
Scope and Content Note: A shopping center “was made out of the entire store.” The store was too big for customers and for the town. As business and building increased in Middleton, “then the store got too small.”

IT WAS NOT LIKELY FOR A WOMAN TO BECOME A STORE MANAGER WHEN SHE WAS WORKING
Scope and Content Note: “Well, I could have done it. Not now, I wouldn't do it.” “I would have enjoyed it.”

THE DEMANDS OF MANAGING FOOD STORES ARE GREATER TODAY THAN IN FORMER YEARS
Scope and Content Note: Many store managers “aren't out on the floor like they used to be. They manage from behind the scenes.” Assistant managers do most day-to-day managing in larger stores. Some managers believe it is important to have considerable customer contact to better understand customer needs.

THE PACE OF WORK HAS SPEEDED UP
Scope and Content Note: The busier the store, the faster shelves must be restocked. Night crews do much of the stocking. This helps keep aisles clear when stores are open.

STORE MANAGERS TRY TO KEEP EMPLOYEE COSTS LOW TO BOOST PROFITS
Scope and Content Note: “They always tell us that they don't start makin' any money until Friday.... Up until then, what money they've taken in, for instance, has to go for...their overhead.” Profits sometimes are less than a penny on some items.

MEAT CUTTERS WERE UNIONIZED AT EAGLE “WAY BEFORE US”

THE RCIA ORGANIZED EAGLE WITH LITTLE OPPOSITION FROM THE COMPANY
Scope and Content Note: She thinks all Eagle stores were organized at the same time--perhaps district-wide.

CHANGES RESULTING FROM UNIONIZATION
Scope and Content Note: Employees got seniority rights, vacations and other benefits. “You felt more comfortable with your work because you knew you were protected.”

SHE HAD LITTLE CONTACT WITH UNION AFFAIRS

MOST COMMON GRIEVANCES
Scope and Content Note: Employees complained most about vacations, days off, and sometimes wages. Younger workers today perhaps understand contracts and rights better than she did. Her store had a union steward, who was the produce manager. She thinks there were few problems in the store.

HANNON VIEWS HER UNION
Scope and Content Note: “I think that in a way they helped us.” Wages increased. “Sometimes I think you feel that there are things that you shouldn't do that the union or the union members--you have to go along with the tide.... Like asking for more when you know that you can't have more.” She wonders if clerks may have to follow Oscar Mayer workers in accepting wage freezes. Some employees do not appreciate all the benefits they receive and still demand more.

END OF TAPE 3, SIDE 1

INTRODUCTION

MORE ON HANNON AND HER UNION AFFILIATION
Scope and Content Note: She would attend union meetings if she could get a ride, especially at contract negotiation time. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) now includes many other workers besides retail clerks.

MORE ON WAGES
Scope and Content Note: Some women who had worked at Eagle for many years complained that newer employees were catching up to their pay scale more rapidly than they had been able to advance. An assistant manager speculated that some hourly workers who were able to work considerable overtime would make more than he did. She believed that she should have received the same compensation for the work she performed as men received, especially because she worked so hard.

CHECKERS AND OTHER EMPLOYEES QUICKLY ASSUME ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

PART-TIME EMPLOYEES DO NOT REMAIN LONG
Scope and Content Note: Many are students who will move on to other jobs or to college. Because of so large a pool of part-timers, the company does not have to pay substantial wages.

HANNON TALKS ABOUT THE DIFFICULTY OF HER WORK
Scope and Content Note: “The way I felt about it was because I had these interruptions, that the company was making me more tired because I felt that I wasn't doing my work at my own pace--that I always had to work two or three steps ahead of myself. And I felt, in order to do a good job, I felt that I should have been left alone and not called to check when I was responsible to my work. And I told them so many times. Some managers that I had would be sympathetic, and some would go by the book.” Work pressures increased.

AMOUNT OF HELP IN HER DEPARTMENT WAS DETERMINED BY THE AMOUNT OF SALES DURING THE PREVIOUS WEEK

HEALTH PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH FOOD STORE WORK
Scope and Content Note: Allergies affect some people. Standing long hours bothered some women. Some men developed hernias. Checkers were taught how to lift heavy bags. “Gosh, I used to have these old ladies come up to me, and they would feel my muscles. And, gosh, I felt like a boxer.”

HANNON COMMENTS ON MAJOR CHANGES IN FOOD RETAILING OVER THE YEARS
Scope and Content Note: “I think the biggest was, or is, in your cash registers.” Pre-packaging of products also represents a major change.

ANECDOTE ABOUT HER FATHER TEACHING HER HOW TO PACK ICE CREAM
Scope and Content Note: The ice cream was very hard and difficult to pack in cans or other containers. “My Dad would show me how to get a scoop of ice cream, and then the customer would say, "Come on, now, pack it in.' And my Dad would show me how to fill it and make it look full.” Now, the ice cream and other ice cream products come pre-packaged.

MORE ON FOOD STORE CHANGES
Scope and Content Note: “I think that the self-service business in itself is the biggest thing.” “And I think that the larger the store gets, the more you miss this contact with the customer.” “You miss that little something that you get when you know a checker.”

CHANGES IN MANAGER-EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIPS
Scope and Content Note: The manager at one of the last stores where she worked told her he was told that managers should not “socialize with the clerks.” “I don't think that they want the managers, really, to get too involved with the store help.” “I think that when the manager gets impersonal, that I think that that takes something away. How can you relate to someone who is impersonal? I don't know.”

ON RELATIONSHIPS AMONG CLERKS
Scope and Content Note: Gossip always occurs in any job. Some clerks had friendships with other clerks, and some did not. In one store, she thinks that those employees who did socialize with department heads or the store manager received better treatment. The company may have stopped that practice.

HANNON HAD CONSIDERED OTHER CAREER POSSIBILITIES BUT DECIDED AGAINST THEM
Scope and Content Note: “I'm so much more comfortable in what I am doing--what I know how to do best. And then I couldn't see myself in an office, just doing the same thing, because I just would lose all that contact with the public.”

HANNON'S OVERALL APPRAISAL OF HER WORK
Scope and Content Note: She liked most working with people. The aspect of work that most bothered her was being interrupted and not being able to get her work done. “I had a nice relationship with the customers, and I enjoyed it.”

END OF INTERVIEW