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Interview with Harry Foote
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Harry Foote was a labor beat reporter for the Portland Press Herald (and editor) from the 1930s through the 1960s. He bought Westbrook's local newspaper, which over time came to be called the American journal. He was astute observer of the character of the people of Westbrook in the context of S.D. Warren Company's dominance.
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Interview with Joe Jensen
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Jensen was a member of the in-plant organizing team for what would become United Paperworkers International Union Local 1069 at the S.D. Warren mill in Westbrook, Maine. He worked at S.D. Warren from 1960 until 1997.
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Interview with Robert Burton
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Burton worked for a few years as hourly worker, then spent most of his career as a foreman and supervisor at S.D. Warren from height of S.D. Warren days until era when Scott began layoffs and disrupted local management customs. A good interview to learn about how supervisors/managers did their work and issues they confronted. Burton gives a detailed description of how workers were "indulged" by top management, i.e., seldom fired or challenged in work effort and practices, and also how lower level managers were hurt and weakened by unionization.
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Interview with Curtis Pease
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Curtis Pease offers rich descriptions of work life in the mill, the jobs and skills of 1st through 5th hands in the color room and paper machines. He later became a union leader who was then hired into labor relations management by mill manager Howard Reiche. Pease has sharp observations on the failure of Scott Paper's major initiative "Jointness" in the late 1980s.
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Interview with Dan Parks
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Parks began working at S.D. Warren in early 1960s after other factory jobs. He became a union leader after mill unionized in 1967, including a brief stint as President of United Paperworkers International Union (UPIU) Local 1069.
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Interview with Frank Jewitt
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Frank H. Jewett II was a chemist in Warren's R&D laboratory from 1942 until the early 1950s. He provides a very detailed account of the technical work of improving the mill's high quality publication papers. Jewitt also lends a remarkable, rich depiction of three mill managers in the era, and the nepotism and politics of Warren's management.
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Interview with Howard Parkhurst
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Parkhurst worked in mills from 1960s-1990s. He began as a unskilled laborer in coal yard, later was trained as a pipe fitter and became a skilled maintenance worker. Parkhurst was also elected as a union leader in the Pipe fitters union at S.D. Warren.
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Interview with Howard Reiche
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Reiche's far ranging interview includes oral memory of S.D. Warren Company back to the early 20th century, S.D. Warren's business prowess, and the antiquated shop floor management system and its reliance on heavily paternalistic practices.
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Interview with Marv Ewing
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Ewing was a union activist and leader at New Jersey factory before working at USM. Ewing was the first major president of S. D. Warren's largest union local, led 1977 strike and trained next generation of union leaders. He left Warren in 1979 to become a professional at Maine's Department of Labor, including a stint as Chair of State's Unemployment Commission.
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Interview with Patricia Gaudet
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Gaudet was a female electrician who repaired machinery at S.D. Warren for roughly ten years. She provides a vivid picture of the challenging, dangerous, and rewarding work fixing the large machines that can be found in Warren's 13 acre facility. The central story is of a severe injury. Following the injury, Gaudet spent years fighting the company's lawyers who sought to deny her workers' compensation. At the time of the interview she was studying business administration at the University of Southern Maine.
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Interview with Paul Drinan
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Drinan's observations of mill life, and the culture of S.D. Warren unions.
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Interview with Phil Lestage
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Phil Lestage describes discrimination against Franco-American workers and importance of union protection to workers.
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Interview with Ron Rondeau
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Rondeau had worked for 15 years in the mill and is a third generation papermaker. He held a variety of positions in the mill. This variety meant that he provided a rich description of the sites, smells, dangers, and workplace culture throughout the 13-acre mill.
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Interview with Ron Usher
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Usher was a rank and file worker and a son of an S.D. Warren worker. He worked at mill from 1960 into the 2000s. Usher participated in union organizing at mill in 1960s, and was recruited by leaders of United Paper Workers International Union (UPIU) Local 1069 to run (successfully) for Maine State Legislature.
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Interview with Jack Jensen
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Jensen came from long line of paper mill workers at S.D. Warren, including grandfather, uncles and cousins. He details the typical experience of paper mill town youth who got jobs in the mill during summers in college but not continuing after college completion and is an astute observer of mill life and community culture.
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Interview with Arthur Gordon 1 of 2
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Gordon successfully led a union effort to remake Westbrook from a Republican city before unionization in 1967 to a Democratic city with union members as elected officials after 1967. He was elected to Maine State Senate in early 1970s. Helped create and lead a statewide organization for injured workers, and was a leader of the UPIU Local 1069 from the late 1960s until his retirement.
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Interview with Arthur Gordon 2 of 2
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Arthur Gordon is considered by Maine labor union leaders and activists to have been the "institutional memory" of S.D. Warren's unionization and Local 1069 of the United Paperworkers International. Gordon spearheaded Local 1069's transformation of Westbrook in the 1960s from a management-dominated Republican city to a union-dominated Democratic city. He served on the Westbrook city council and then the Maine State Legislature, also while being a leader of the movement to improve occupational safety in Maine industrial workplaces.
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Interview with Barry Kenney
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Kenney was a skilled millwright at S.D. Warren from the mid-1980s until 2000. Millwrights are all around machinists/mechanics who repair machines. Kenney worked with other "maintenance" workers including electricians, pipefitters etc. to repair and maintain the wide variety of machinery found in the pulp mill, paper machines, finishing department, and boilers. Kenney was also a union official with the International Brotherhood of Fireman and Oilers. Previously, he was in the Navy for six years.
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Interview with Bob Dorr
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Dorr was a highly skilled instrument technician at S.D. Warren-Westbrook, and union official (shop steward then vice president) during the 1990s with the Westbrook local of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). Dorr previously spent six years in the U.S. Navy as an electronics technician. Was laid off, became a production manager at B&M Baked Beans and Fairchild Semiconductor in Portland area, also earning a Master's in Business Administration.
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Interview with Cheryle Kimball
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Kimball was a female electrician -- college educated. She offers detailed descriptions of work experience, union culture, and the impact of recent employment declines.
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Interview with Chris Murray
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Murray was a young skilled worker who spent 10 years in mill. He articulates community memory of the mill founder and uses this memory to criticize current ownership. Murray imparts critical views about impact of seniority on younger workers during time of frequent layoffs with colorful descriptions of work life, manly camaraderie, and conditions in the mill.
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Interview with Shirley Lally
Michael G. Hillard PhD
Lally worked 40 years at the mill in the predominantly female finishing department, inspecting and counting reams of paper by hand. She was married to another mill worker. At the time of unionization in the late 1960s, she led a group of activist women who rebelled against the mill's practice of laying off women with greater seniority than men, successfully changing seniority policy for women for the better.
S.D. Warren Company in Westbrook is Maine's oldest paper mill, first opened in 1854. Warren was known for having the highest quality publication papers in the world, particularly coated publication paper used in glossy company annual reports and magazines. Innovation was key to Warren's long term success, thanks to its "Technology Center" which performed product and process research and developments. The mill always produced a great number of specialty products. The focus of the interviews is the business and labor history of the mill. Warren was famous for one the nation's longest and most successful paternalistic traditions, which kept the company union-free until 1967. Workers and managers alike recall generous employment terms, and a company based social safety net that took care of injured, sick, and financially troubled employees, often thanks to direct appeals by employees to the mill manager. The company was purchased by Scott Paper Company in 1967, and was sold again to South African Pulp and Paper Industries (SAPPI) in 1995. Many interviews deal with the suddenly contentious relations between the new union locals, especially United Paperworkers' International Union Local 1069, the largest union local in the mill. Interviewees also paint a detailed picture of the difficult conditions of paper mill work life - heat, danger, exhausting shift work, abusive treatment by supervisors and favoritism by managers in work assignments. Workers stress the important role of their skills in the company's success, and their overall pride in working for Warren. Two other themes of interest to economists and historians: (1) the traumatic experience of the mill's precipitous decline after 1985 (employment fell from a peak of 3200 in 1966, to 2200 in the late 1980s, and then heavy cuts that left the mill with only 200 employees in 2003); the role of community memory in dealing with the mill's demise, centered on filiopietistic recollections about Samuel Dennis Warren, the mill's founder.
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