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Notable New     Yorkers
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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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it ever happened, I don't know. No one else in the world ever did that. I don't remember the legal reasoning of that, but there was something about her relationship to Macy being not that of an employee, but that of a retainer. She was retained professionally by them. However, it was a permanent job. It was only part-time, but permanent.

Then she set up a labor advisory firm. She got a number of very good accounts. She got not only Macy's, but other good ones. That's where she made her money. You charge through the nose for that kind of work. The companies that pay for labor relations advisers are companies that are anxious to write off a big cost of doing business on their income tax returns. They don't care what they pay a labor relations adviser. It just brings them down into the next lowest income bracket. The fees are just preposterous. I've been told what she was paid, but I don't know if it was true or not. It was said that she was paid a $25,000 a year retainer by R.H. Macy. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but it was understood that other firms paid in proportion, and more.

So I think what drove her on was money, and perhaps some longing for power, but she never had recognized power. Whether she isn't smart enough to cash in on it or hot, I





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