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SPEAKER: Our guests today are three women who have been pioneers in the labor movement in this area in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, particularly in the labor movement as it has affected women. And I want to introduce them Myrtle Harris, who is an international representative of the United Garment Workers Union, Nellie Stone Johnson is also a member of the Garment Workers Union, and Ann Lewis has been and perhaps still is chairman of the Human Rights Commission of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union Reserve. Is that right?

ANN LEWIS: Yes, I'm co-chairman this year. I used to be at the Minneapolis Athletic Club. I just retired in 1972 after 47 years. This year, they had the golf tournament and they asked me to come out and work at it like I have done for so many years. And I have a silver plaque that they gave me for 20 years of service out there. And when I went out this year, it was just really something wonderful. They gave me a standing ovation, had me sitting at the head table, and it was really-- everybody was so nice to me back there. It was really nice.

SPEAKER: Mrs. Lewis in 47 years, have you seen an awful lot of changes in your Union? Has those changes have affected women? Tell us about what it was like back in 1920?

ANN LEWIS: Well, back in-- I didn't go back that far, 1920. But in the olden days, we didn't have a Union in the club. And we were working 13 hours every other day and six hours the other day. I think we had a 15-minute lunch period. We had one day off every six weeks and a half a day off on the next following Sunday after that six weeks.

And the [? check room ?] girls used to have to come to work and work a half hour on their day off so that the girl that was in the [? check ?] room could get a lunch period. We took two cuts in those days. We were getting $60 a month. Our first cut was down to $59. Our second cut dropped us to $55.10 a month.

We were getting meals, but they were very poor sort of meals, and nobody cared about it. So that's when the Union came in. And when the Union came in, I think our first break was they put us back to the original $60. And then they gave us a choice of $10 or the meal. And we took the $10 so that raised us to $70. That was our first start in coming up in the Union.

SPEAKER: What kind of struggles did you have to go through, Ms. Johnson, to get those?

NELLIE STONE JOHNSON: Well, some real struggles. Number one, we started out with organization that was practically done secretly. I was running the service elevator and the president that's still the president of the Union was running the freight elevator. And between the two of us, we pretty much had everybody signed up. The board of directors woke up one fine morning, we practically had authorization cards for everybody in the club there.

There was a real fear of joining because the managers, bosses, or what have you, and still the fear of God almost into people if they join the Union. I know our immediate boss in the Department where Ann and I worked-- we used to have staff meetings every morning before the noon crew came out. And he would say, if you join that old Union, you're going to get fired.

And then I remember one morning I came to work and myself and one of the Fellows in the card room had attended a meeting the night before and the word was out. And he looked at me and he says, Ellen, you and Bry had attended that meeting last night. If you attend one more meeting, you're going to get fired. And I said, well, he said he was going to fire us if we attended at all. He didn't fire us then. So as far as I was concerned, I just felt that I had just the stamina to go on and see what happened.

SPEAKER: Mrs. Harris, you told me that you had a part in organizing the hospital workers back in the '30s, was it?

MRYTLE HARRIS: Yeah, I think it was in '37, 1937.

SPEAKER: Where did you-- what hospital did you organize first, and what were the conditions look like?

MRYTLE HARRIS: The first hospital that we had our Union, our election, was the Northwestern Hospital, and then the Swedish Hospital followed right behind, and then the Saint Barnabas. Then we went on to the Idle and to Saint Mary's and to the Fairview. And it wasn't too long until we had them organized. And at that time, almost all the help was working split shifts. And they'd work from 7:00 in the morning until 11:00, then they'd go home. They'd get on at 7:00 again at night and work until 11:00 at night. They'd never seen daylight.

Well, that was the first thing that the business agent, Norman Karl, changed was that the split shifts. They could be there and get the next meal partly ready so that the split shift was done away with. And the wages were very poor at that time. And we gave them quite a raise. And it didn't take long before all the hospitals in town were crying, can't we get in this Union too. And so we have the hospitals all organized. And it was a big job.

Then I was over in Saint Paul. And we worked in Saint Paul and organized hospitals in Saint Paul as well, because the workers were told at that time that they were to serve the patients, that they must think first of the sick people. Never mind your own wages in that. And they couldn't hardly make a double car fare and all that. And it was very bad. So it was brought up a lot. And today, the hospital workers are respected like any other organization.

SPEAKER: So the split shift was the first thing that you allowed.

MRYTLE HARRIS: The first thing that they cried about. And I don't blame them. I mean, that was a terrible thing. Nobody-- the cooks, they'd have to get there, of course, 5:00 in the morning, which, of course, you could understand, but they couldn't do a lot of getting ready for the next day's meals ahead of time and that's what they had to do.

SPEAKER: What were the wages then 1936, 1937?

MRYTLE HARRIS: Well, it seems to me it was something like $36 a month, if I remember right. I know when I went out and organized the janitors in the libraries, their wages was somewhere near $50 a month, and we raised it up to $72 on our first contract. And that was pretty big. That was a lot of money.

SPEAKER: You were elected member of the library board in 1935, Ms. Harris.

MRYTLE HARRIS: Yes, I was. I was the first organized labor member to ever hit the library. I was the first member. And then Leila Harding went on. And then a few years later, Nellie Stone Johnson came along. And we elected her to the board. So we had quite an exciting time with the library system.

Roy [? Weir, ?] the organizer of the Minneapolis Central Labor Union, showed up at one of our board meetings. And all the different members asked. They said, who is he? So Miss Countryman said that he's from the Minneapolis Central Labor Union. Then we organized the janitors. Then we organized the shelvers, the girls that shelf the books.

And then the librarians come along and they said, how come we-- pretty soon the janitors and the shelvers will have more money than we will. And we said, well, we can't help it. You don't want an organization. And so they got busy. They organized. So there's three Unions in the library system. And that's good many years ago.

SPEAKER: I guess we don't think of library board members today as being Union organizers.

MRYTLE HARRIS: No, you don't.

NELLIE STONE JOHNSON: Or even members of organized labor. Because when I first went on there, people took a good hard look at me as a Black. And then they took the next hard look as a Black and being labor and having run in a Citywide election and getting elected.

SPEAKER: And as being a woman, did that interfere also?

NELLIE STONE JOHNSON: The woman, yes. But you see, this is the part I think of organized labor. That organized labor in spite of how they feel today about women's lib, the organized labor has welcomed women, not completely with open arms, but at least more than the other parts of society.

SPEAKER: We hear complaints that organized labor is just as male chauvinistic about women in the movement in top echelon as any other kind of organization. Is that true?

NELLIE STONE JOHNSON: This is not quite true. I think it's a different-- the degree is different, because women that are in labor-- well, I think the best indication of that is that there are more women in organized labor over the last 25 or 30 years that have served in high capacities than there are in other parts of all other industries and agencies and what have you. And I think this is the evidence of it. I think there's less fanfare.

SPEAKER: What about senior citizens? Now we hear a lot about the plight of senior citizens. And is organized labor doing something for them?

ANN LEWIS: Yes, I think labor has interested-- because I'm a senior citizen.

NELLIE STONE JOHNSON: Well, I think number one, not butting in here, Ann, but the senior citizens organized labor is where Social Security started from. And if it hadn't been for organized labor, we wouldn't have had Social Security. And I think that this is the beginning. I don't care who wants to take the credit for what they're doing for senior citizens. Organized labor has set the pace, laid the groundwork for people to be taken care of.

SPEAKER: Well, in the last 36 years, you women have contributed a great deal to the labor movement and in the Twin Cities. And you have a great deal to be proud of. And I congratulate you all and thank you all very much for coming down today.