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three or four o'clock. This union or committees of this union would go down to the cafeteria and hold meetings at that time. They would have a cup of coffee and take up the union business all on the government's time. I stopped that. I therefore closed the cafeteria at nine o'clock in the morning, opened it again at eleven-thirty, and closed it promptly at two-fifteen. It wasn't open after that. There was a terrible howl. They opened a little snack bar in the hall where they could get candy bars, boxes of crackers, cold drinks. If the pangs of hunger really overcame anybody in the late afternoon, they could go get that. The howl soon died down. The privilege of the cafeteria was really being abused and this vigorous young union was the one who had started the program of filling up the cafeteria for a meeting practically every afternoon. The cafeteria people didn't complain because they sold coffee that way and it brought in some money.
At any rate, this union was very lively and very difficult. They didn't have many members, but they were making a big drive for members and trying to get more all the time. Helen Miller's case gave the union a bad name with the more or less ordinary Department of Labor employees.
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