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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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got on all right until this unemployment came. We had good jobs. There wasn't much dissatisfaction about the wages or about the hours. They were all right. But, of course, there are lots of picayune troubles, fights all the time. I think we ought to have a union, but the company doesn't want a union and so none of us are going to kill ourselves to have one.”

One by one they all said what they thought. Some of them said they didn't think they needed a union. Others of them said that a union would be an awfully good thing for the men, and it was a good thing for the men to belong to a union and to have a sense of independence, not having to take everything from the boss, but having some right to question what he ordered, and so forth and so on. It was a mixed report.

I remember that weeks or months afterwards Mr. Grace couldn't resist asking me, “What did those men say to you? I know you must have asked them about unions.”

“Well,” I said, “I'll tell you frankly. I can't identify the men, because I don't know who they were now, but the report was a mixed report. They thought that on the one hand it would be good, but on the other hand the company didn't want it. They weren't going to have a fight with the company about it. They saw certain values in a union,





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