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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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always doing the inappropriate and ineffective thing. The more they stormed, of course, the more the people were excited and the more of them would follow the flying wedge out into the mill yard. Frequently they would hand out blue slips and get a lot of them signed by people who said they wanted to join the union. It always created a great disturbance. They they would hop into their cars and go off. They never stayed by to reap the results of an organizing campaign or to follow through in the towns. I was told that that was what they were going to do next, or did do next, that that came later, that the more quiet type of organizers came in and went from house to house.

But this flying wedge technique was very discouraging to everyone, but on the whole effective for temporary alignment. It was not effective, however, for a permanent union build-up. The result was, of course, great animosity on the part of the employers and a good deal of excitement on the part of the half-organized workers. Being half-organized, and having no special leadership, they would often go out on strike again in a day or two, without the presence of the flying wedge, striking sometimes for something quite unreasonable, and sometimes on the basis of something that had been an old grievance.





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