Title

Interview with Clyde Harriman

Authors

Michael Hillard, University of Southern MaineFollow

Streaming Media

Additional Streaming Media

Date of Interview

7-24-2002

Duration of Audio File

Audio file #1 1:08:18; Audio file #2 1:15:00; Audio file #3 00:36:38

Interviewee

Clyde Harriman

Age

Born approximately 1932; aged 70 at time of interview

Gender

Male

Birth Place

Likely Portland or Westbrook, Maine

Residence

Likely Portland or Westbrook, Maine

Occupation/ Work History

Paper mill worker, union official, U.S. postal service worker.

Role

Union

Mill or Principal Employer

S. D. Warren

Mill Location

Westbrook, Maine 04092

Keywords

Paper mills - Maine, Sappi Paper - History, S.D.Warren - Maine, unionizing, paternalism, gender discrimination

Abstract

Harriman was a leader of the workers' successful unionization effort in the 1960s. He was Vice-President of the paper workers local for a few years before leaving the mill to work in the Portland, Maine post office.

Comments

Most detailed description of unionization campaign of any of the project's interviews. Encounters paper union organizers who misunderstood mill's successful paternalism that helped the company defeat numerous unionizing efforts the 1940s and 1950s. As a key organizer, he and his in plant committee took control of unionization campaign, focusing on frequent meetings with women workers in the mill. Early years of union featured constructive relationship between union leaders an management (not true of later mill labor relations). Union bargained successfully to end mill's discrimination against women, particularly in vacation weeks and layoffs (women's seniority was largely ignored).

Document Type

Interview

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Clyde Harriman, interview by Michael Hillard, July 24, 2002, Stories of Maine's Paper Plantation, Digital Maine, Maine's Economic Improvement Fund, Digital Commons, University of Southern Maine