Full Text of the Excerpt

JACQUELYN HALL:

What did you do there? What was your job?

EULA MCGILL:

I was spinning, because they made the sugar bags. I had to still do that; that was the only thing I knew to do. And I had to still do that because you had to tell them you were experienced to get a job, and I didn't have a chance to do anything else.

JACQUELYN HALL:

What about your wages?

EULA MCGILL:

You know, I can't remember what I made when I first went there. It must have been about four or five dollars a week. I remember there a time right after I went to work there in the winter, they didn't pay us all in money. As I remember it I was making six dollars a week, and they gave me three dollars and three dollars in script to spend at the A&P store, because they couldn't pay us all-just in the height of the Depression there, just before Roosevelt was elected. Then later, though, I was making $5.10 a week, because Joe came over to me one night and he had some black work running. I don't know, it was an experiment or something, but they had some black, and you couldn't hardly see it at night. He couldn't get nobody to stay over there; he told me if I'd go over there and run that black work that he'd help me out and he'd give me two dollars a week more. So when payday came I still had $5.10, and I was working sixty hours a week. So I went to him and said, "Where's my two dollar raise?" And he said, "What?" And I said, "You promised me two dollars if I'd stay over there on that black work." And he said, "Did I?" I said, "You know you did." "Well, I don't know how I'm going to fix it." I said, "Well, I'm expecting it." So I got two dollars a week more for that; and I was making $7.10 a week for sixty hours when the first minimum wage law came in under the NRA-twelve dollars a week for forty hours.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Did your wages go up when the minimum wage law came in?

EULA MCGILL:

Twelve dollars a week for forty hours. So I worked the second shift then, and they put on a third shift, see.

JACQUELYN HALL:

What were working conditions like there in comparison to your first job at Dwight Mills?

EULA MCGILL:

Terrible!

JACQUELYN HALL:

Worse?

EULA MCGILL:

Yes, because the company wasn't as good a company. They didn't keep their places clean. But so far as supervisors, I have had no trouble with supervision. I have to say that, I just didn't have any trouble per se with any personal clashes with the bosses, with my immediate supervisors.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Your supervisor there was . . . very helpful to you.

EULA MCGILL:

Yes.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Why was that?

EULA MCGILL:

I don't know, he just took a liking to me some way or another. I never missed any time from work, and I was never late. I couldn't miss no time. Some people did lay out; how they did it I don't know, but I never lost a day from work. I had to be there because I needed to work; if you didn't work you didn't get paid, so I had to be there. I needed the money, what little I got.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Did he treat you better than he did the other women?

EULA MCGILL:

Well, he was a pretty nice fellow to everybody, but I would say that he did, by the fact of giving me the two dollars a week more-which he had to finagle and fix some way or another, because they never would have allowed it. I would say yes. I know when we started organizing he came down and said, "I understand that they're trying to organize a union." And I said, "Yes." And he said, "I understand you're on the organizing committee." I said, "That's right." And he said, "Well, I just want to know why. Haven't I always been good to you?" I said, "Well, you've done all for me that you can. My Dad always told me if I wanted a drink of water go to the head of the spring. I want to get to the man over you." He just laughed and walked off, you know. So in our department he never tried to interfere; that's all he ever said to me about my union activity. Except he came back one day (and there were a couple of black women that worked there-and they made less than we did; they paid them less).

JACQUELYN HALL:

They did the same work?

EULA MCGILL:

He laughed one day at me and said, "Hey, you going to get Rosa into the union?" And I said, "Yes, if she'll join." (She was one of the black women.) He said, "You going to call her sister?" I said, "Sure I'm going to call her sister; I work here with her, don't I?" And he just went on; that's the only thing he ever said to me.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Did you think of him as a friend of yours? Or was it that kind of. . .?

EULA MCGILL:

Well, not really friend; but I'd say this, that he seemed to have a little more respect for me than he did the other people, and he'd come down and chat with me.