The Michiana area is rich inthe history of work, workers and unions. Studebaker, Oliver, Singer, Wilson Brothers and Bendix are just a few of the names that come to mind when we think about this area's manufacturing history. Indiana University's Division of Labor Studies is trying to capture some of this abundant heritage by conducting oral interviews of the women and men who lived anmd worked in our comunity. The statements included in this document represent just a few examples of the wealth of information that can be recorded through oral interviews. All of the excerpts refer to the 1933 to 1939 time period that is currently depicted in the Worker's home Museum and many of the interviewees are of Polish descent.

Interview conducted by Janet Weaver, March 2, 1979.

Well, I think what I'd like to talk about next is perhaps how the union started to get organized.

Nowicki: How we got organized? That was nice. just quick as . . . Roosevelt got in, you know, the President of the United States, He told the working class of people to get organized. So we did in 1933. Hoffman was the President and he was a pretty good fellow, you know. And I think he was on Roosevelt's side, you know, the way he was talking. So when he said get organized, so we did get organized. I got organized in the press room -- I worked in the press room in 1933 . . . , I got organized in the press room.

Interview with Irvin P. Nowacki, employee of Bendix Corp. for 43 years (still employed at the time of the interview, 1979) and a member of UAW Local 9. Mr. Nowacki's father worked at Oliver Corp.

Interviewed conducted by Thomas Luczinski, October 9, 1979.

Where did your father work?

Nowacki: Oliver's, forty-seven years. He was a set-up man in cut and punch for . . . up 'till 1939. After 1939, he took a job as a guard out on Chapin Street. Retired as a guard from Oliver's.

(Did you ever hear) him talk anything bad about the job?

Nowacki: Nope. Outside of . . . oh, yeah, he . . . the hazards were there, like every place else. He'd been banged up, cut, punch dies busting, you know, and he got shot in the arm, over an elbow, and he had a sensitive elbow. He couldn't lean on porcelain or anything like an ice box, 'cause it would bother his nerve, and he even kept some of the things in a little jewelry box in cotton, where they used to take it out of him, slugs of steel and metal. He's been hit . . .,he had a broken hip, broken leg, lost an eye, all done at Oliver's. So he had his share of hazards.

So you quit school and went for your first job?

Nowacki: Yeah, right to Bendix, yeah . . . I was just a little junior employee at the time and there was a lot of old bucks around me . . . . I was a stock chaser for 110, which involved a hundred and forty girls on three different sub-assembly lines, all carburetor work, and then we had a clerk, one boss, and five set-up men that took care of all these girls, and my job was to maintain that they'd have the stock, and when they'd fill their pan after their operation, I'd put the stock down and pull it with a long hook, no trucks, in the scale bay, where it would be weighed and moved on to where it had to go, and then replenish them with a new supply . . .and i had a pair of roller skates issued to me, too.

Then you roller skated around Bendix?

Nowacki: Yeah, when i got hired in on that day of November, at ten o'clock in the morning, in 1936, there was a foot and a half of snow on the ground, and President Roosevelt got elected for his second term, and they took me . . . after examination, they took me right to the storeroom and issued me a pair of roller skates, and i was at that time known as a stock chaser for an individual department, and the duties that came in regards to the roller skates work, they'd run out of hairnets or fire hose or chisels or hammers or drills or bits or taps, you name it, and they'd make vouchers out, the clerk would, and then they'd shoot me down to the storeroom.

Did you belong to the union?

Nowacki: I joined the union during the sit-down strike, which was known at that time as the first sit- down strike in the nation, in 1936, November 17th. And that lasted for eight days and seven nights.

Interview with Ted Dylewski, an employee of Studebaker Corp. and Scherman- Schaus-Freeman.

Interview conducted by Janet Weaver on February 5, 1980.

Do you remember the first time you ever talked to anybody about organizing a union?

Dylewski: I was working in the -- at that time -- it was Scherman-Schaus-Freeman. They were selling Studebakers. So the Wagner Labor Act, I remember 3-3-33 . . . I think that's when Roosevelt first got in and then we learned later. Later we learned about the Labor Act, Wagner Labor Act. Okay, so Studebakers, they went out and unionized. And we decided to unionize too. I was one of the active fellows. A fellow by the name of Councilman Ralph hec . . . . we were the committee that organized. We went out on strike and we were out for about thirty days. The only one that wanted to settle that darn strike was Freeman, because they were losing money. So we finally went back and one of the . . . there was three in the company -- Scherman, Schaus, Freeman. One of 'em made a remark, said, "I'll get rid of these disturbers," they called it, just because we got a union shop. But they finally did; they got rid of us. I couldn't even get a job any more, because i got blacklisted.

Interview with Casimir Kanyszewski, an employee of Bendix, Corp. for 38 years and member of UAW Local 9.

Interviewed by Mike Matuszak on September 21, 1980.

What were the conditions in the factory when you were hired in in 1934?

Kanyszewski: Well, things weren't very good. Maybe you'd work one day or two or three days a week, and many times you'd come to work, and at seven o'clock in the morning, you'd report, and they said, "there's nothing ready now, so go out there and sit in the lobby for a couple of hours. We'll have something for you." See, so you'd spend two hours waiting, then they'd call you in. maybe you'd work two or three hours.

Did you get paid for that two hours?

Kanyszewski: No, you don't get paid for waiting for jobs. You only got paid for the actual work.

What if you had left instead of waiting the two hours?

Kanyszewski: Well, if you left, there was other guys willing to wait, see. The job market was depressed. There was a surplus of labor . . . . See, here's one thing they used to do also . . . to keep people out . . . They issued daily passes. You had different colored passes each day. And just before quitting time, the boss would come over and look you in the eye, if he didn't like the way you looked, he didn't give you a pass.

Interview with Thaddeus Urbanski, employee of Wilson Brothers for 43 years and a member of ACWA Local 106.

Interview conducted by Janet Weaver on March 26, 1980.

When did the union come in at the shirt factory?

Urbanski: In about '36, '36 or '37, somewhere in there.

Do you remember how it got organized? Who was helping to organize it from the international?

Urbanski: Oh, from the international, there was . . . . i know Jake Petosky was in South Bend. Frank Rosenblum and oh, Joe Kominski of Chicago. He was one of the organizers here, too. Joe Kominski, leo Gritski.

Do you remember any meetings you went to about the union?

Urbanski: Oh, yes, some of the meetings. We used to hold those in the Studebaker union hall, that was on Michigan Street at that time. Of course your heavy industry organized before we did . . . . That's where we held our first was at the Studebaker union hall. And the response was great . . .

Why did you decide to become involved?

Urbanski: Well, I could see where some conditions could be improved, like our paid holidays, vacation pays, and sick benefits, you know. Some of those things after . . . what we didn't get previous to union, through the union we got all these things.

Interview with William H. Nichols, an employee of the Oliver Corp. and a member of UAW Local 1095.

Interview conducted by Janet Weaver on July 18, 1979. Mr. Nichols father also worked at Oliver Corp. as a molder.

So tell me about how he (your father) helped organize the union.

Nichols: Well . . . some of his very close friends were a Victor Ruth and a John Shafer, who became, in the early 30's, I'm thinking now in the neighborhood of '33, '34, who were active in trying to get the union started. Of course my father was interested in it. i can remember going to a union meeting that they were having. i couldn't have been over eleven or twelve years old at the time, and it was in the basement of Victor Ruth's home. There was a whole bunch of men down there. They were talking about getting together and organizing for the betterment of their wages and their life, and having the right to have an input in what happened to them in the plant. I can remember at the top of the stairway, there was a guy sitting up there with a shotgun and watching guard. I never did understand that at the time, because it was never explained to me. But I learned later one of the reasons why. Of course it was illegal to hold meetings like this back in those days.

They were taking quite a chance.

Nichols: Yes. As I said, I learned this later. Of course, I learned that also that this was not an unusual occurrence. All over the city of South Bend there was . . . this was being done in most of the factories around here.

Interview with Arthur Steenbeke employed for 48 years and Maurice Roberts employed for 33 years at the Oliver Corporation. Maurice Roberts was a member of UAW Local 1095.

The interview was conducted by Robert J. Garman on August 4, 1993. Mr. Steenbeke's father was also employed at Oliver.

So Olivers had employed your father and you came over (from Belgium) in 1920...What were the wages and benefits like when you started?

Steenbeke: No benefits. When we started. We have twenty-six cents an hour, and we worked on that about three, four years and then we got a raise. We got a raise of a dime and we worked six more months and we got another raise . . .

By 1930, '32 you were up to seventy-five or ninety cents an hour. How did the depression affect your hours of work...wages?

Steenbeke: The Depression I got layed off . . .

How long were you layed off?

Steenbeke: I would say six months at least. Then I went to the farm and worked for just for what I could get out of it. But they called me back. And I went back to Olivers. I could have got a job at Studebaker . . . . I didn't want to go because my Dad said, son don't go to Studebakers. They only work so many months and then you're home. You make more money there, but he said, you'll have more when you work at Olivers because its steady. So I went back to Olivers after the Depression then, and it was my Dad's doings.

So your Dad was still there all this time. What was your Dad's position at this time? What kind of job did he have?

Steenbeke: he was working in the warehouse loading box cars. Get the stuff in trucks, and push it down the elevator. Go down the cars, unload it, go back up and get something else. Till all the cars were loaded.

Was his job affected by the depression?

Steenbeke: Oh yes . . . everybody. some of them worked a day, some of them half a day, and a lot of them didn't work at all. They had to wait.

Roberts: Correct me if I'm wrong Art, back in those days, if your supervisor liked you, he favored you. They had no unions at all. And if you had a supervisor that was in your corner, then you got more time or more favors . . .

But if he didn't favor you . . .

Steenbeke: You were washed up, that's all.

Interview with Edmund Nowak, an employee of Oliver Corp. for 22 years and a member of UAW Local 1095. Mr. Nowak's father also worked at Oliver.

Interview conducted by Robert J. Garman on August 11, 1993.

Where did your father work?

Nowak: As far as I know my father worked all his life at Olivers. He had forty years plus there when he retired.

From your earliest recollections, what kind of work did your father do in all those years . . . ?

Nowak: Biggest share of his time at Olivers was spent in the foundry. He was a molder. Matter of fact . . . he used to joke about that, prior to unions coming in, organizing people . . . he got fired seven times. And they came after him seven times because he was proficient in his skills. He always had a job.

Did your Dad ever recount any instances to you of union organizing . . . ?

Nowak: Oh yes, alot of violence involved . . . . He wouldn't elaborate too much . . . . Prior to union times these was alot of . . . fraternization between supervisors and workers. When this guy would bring the boss in a bushel of apples, he got a . . . better job.

What kind of working conditions did your father have in those days?

Nowak: When my Dad would come home he'd be wringing wet . . . . There was a standard norm for those at that time for people to wear long underwear . . . . Which i thought was kind of foolish, but actually it was beneficial for him because it absorbed the sweat. And that cooled him down that way . . . . .And my Dad didn't have a vehicle or nothing to go back and forth . . . . He walked from Liberty Street to Olivers to Chapin Street, back and forth every day.

And that would be a distance of a couple miles?

Nowak: Oh, at least. In all weather too. And my Dad was not the one to shirk duty . . . . He was one of those . . . You told him to be there, he was there.

How long a work day did he normally put in?

Nowak: He used to stay . . . they started out at twelve hour days, then it finally come back to eight hour days. ** Joe's Own Editor v2.2 ** Copyright (C) 1994 Joseph H. Allen **