Container
|
Title
|
|
Session I, July 13, 1976
|
|
Reel/Side
8/1-A
Time
0:00 to 0:25
|
Introduction
|
|
Reel/Side
8/1-A
Time
0:26 to 3:10
|
Family background--grandparents of Irish descent--father worked with the Chicago and Northwestern R. R.--family with Janesville background
|
|
Reel/Side
8/1-A
Time
3:11 to 5:53
|
Father was a member of locomotive engineers union, Chicago lodge--dedicated union man
|
|
Reel/Side
8/1-A
Time
5:54 to 8:10
|
Parents as Democrats--Al Smith as a favorite political leader
|
|
Reel/Side
8/1-A
Time
8:11 to 10:25
|
Religious backgrounds--mother more committed than father
|
|
Reel/Side
8/1-A
Time
10:27 to 18:44
|
Parents' residences in Janesville--D. D.'s school experience--“secure childhood”--Grant elementary school--neighborhood friends, including Nick Luchsinger
|
|
Reel/Side
8/1-A
Time
18:45 to 20:27
|
Work experience before Fisher Body--lingerie factory--C & NW
|
|
Reel/Side
8/1-A
Time
20:28 to 25:18
|
Getting a job at Fisher--becoming used to the assembly line--“mankilling jobs”--meaning of “factory broke”
|
|
Reel/Side
8/1-A
Time
25:19 to 28:55
|
Drudgerous work, D. D. often wanted to quit--changing jobs helped--D. D. joined union to improve his life's work
|
|
Reel/Side
8/1-B
Time
0:00 to 4:29
|
Working conditions in paint department--relations with foremen--lack of breaks--“shystering a job”
|
|
Reel/Side
8/1-B
Time
4:30 to 7:12
|
Background of Fisher work force--many from northern Wisconsin--absence of black workers--some workers from Arkansas later
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-A
Time
0:00 to 0:12
|
Introduction
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-A
Time
0:13 to 4:08
|
Relationship with foremen prior to 1937--superintendent rough--plant manager
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-A
Time
4:09 to 12:00
|
Attitudes toward capitalism, bitterness--experience with relief--blamed Hoover and Republicans--questioned system--desperate--class consciousness in 1932, union as a means of striking back
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-A
Time
12:01 to 15:23
|
Reaction toward national figures--supported La Follettes--John L. Lewis as a hero--critical of AF of L
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-A
Time
15:24 to 17:14
|
Dooley social life included Les Fay and Abe Shumacher, later fellow union leaders--church not a center of social activity
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-A
Time
17:15 to 21:37
|
Decision to join union--not a member of earliest cadre--earliest recollections, hard to break through union secrecy
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-A
Time
21:38 to 24:08
|
Very careful about union talk in plant--D. D. worked across from Les Fay--working conditions in paint spray booth, work before and after shift began
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-A
Time
24:09 to 27:00
|
Seniority as most crucial need--need to break influence of foremen in rehiring
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-A
Time
27:01 to 28:41
|
D. D.'s union membership--lapsed for a period prior to 1937 when he perceived that GM had beaten the union
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-B
Time
0:00 to 3:30
|
D. D. first joined Federal Local 19324--it was ineffective--awareness of craft v. industrial unionism
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-B
Time
3:31 to 7:03
|
Brief period of inactivity--reaction to Homer Martin of UAW-AFL--craft and industrial unionism at Fisher
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-B
Time
7:04 to 10:20
|
Union leaders in paint spraying department--Les Fay--anti-union workers--age no factor
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-B
Time
10:21 to 12:35
|
Experience as the key to unionism, more experienced as more militant--workers from rural areas harder to organize--ethnic or religious background made no difference
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-B
Time
12:36 to 14:08
|
Three factions regarding unionism, their relative strength
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-B
Time
14:09 to 17:37
|
Janesville citizens largely hostile to the union--criticism from the business community--use of terms “communistic” and “radical” and “crazy”
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-B
Time
17:38 to 21:06
|
D. D. knew of no communists in Janesville then--recollection of local political leaders--Henry Traxler as anti-union
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-B
Time
21:07 to 24:07
|
Churches and the union, little interaction--D. D. knew about Rerum Novarum, the papal encyclical supporting labor unions, but he did not learn about it through church, even though he is Catholic
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-B
Time
24:08 to 27:10
|
Individual and group decisions to join the union--discharges for union activities
|
|
Reel/Side
8/2-B
Time
27:11 to 31:18
|
Aborted strike of paperhangers in 1935--friend fired--other, similar wildcat strikes
|
|