I love hearing stories about work environments 'back in the day.' The stuff that was tolerated... alcohol, leaving work, racism, sexism, even having sex at work, wow.
Between 1880 and 1900 there were 23,000 labor strikes in this country. Amazing how quickly we came to take the 8-hour day for granted. Things change. This is a melancholy portrait of what was once one of the most progressively run mills in the country. It microcosmically conveys numerous aspects of North American labor history. Corporate America does not want you to think about labor history, trust me on this. That right there makes this worth airing. The program flows like a steady river – no big bells and whistles – just real stories about a mill where the conditions could be hellish, the life hard, but the company looked out for you. A labor historian posits that the workers remember the company fondly because their employers “offered genuine concern, loyalty and security instead of always putting profits ahead of people.” But the Warren family sold the mill to an out-of-state corporation. The narrator, members of whose family had worked at Mother Warren for over 100 years, is by now working elsewhere. In this year of “values,” his words should be heard: “I hope that someday, somehow, we can get employers back to the values that Mother Warren stood for. That the most valuable asset is the employee.” Well, we can dream, can’t we?
Comments for Remembering Mother Warren
Produced by Jessica Lockhart, Claire Holman, and Michael Hillard
Other pieces by jessica lockhart
Rating Summary
2 comments
Kate McMillan
Posted on July 16, 2010 at 11:03 AM | Permalink
Pretty good.
I love hearing stories about work environments 'back in the day.' The stuff that was tolerated... alcohol, leaving work, racism, sexism, even having sex at work, wow.
Sydney Lewis
Posted on November 12, 2004 at 09:14 AM | Permalink
Review of Remembering Mother Warren
Between 1880 and 1900 there were 23,000 labor strikes in this country. Amazing how quickly we came to take the 8-hour day for granted. Things change. This is a melancholy portrait of what was once one of the most progressively run mills in the country. It microcosmically conveys numerous aspects of North American labor history. Corporate America does not want you to think about labor history, trust me on this. That right there makes this worth airing. The program flows like a steady river – no big bells and whistles – just real stories about a mill where the conditions could be hellish, the life hard, but the company looked out for you. A labor historian posits that the workers remember the company fondly because their employers “offered genuine concern, loyalty and security instead of always putting profits ahead of people.” But the Warren family sold the mill to an out-of-state corporation. The narrator, members of whose family had worked at Mother Warren for over 100 years, is by now working elsewhere. In this year of “values,” his words should be heard: “I hope that someday, somehow, we can get employers back to the values that Mother Warren stood for. That the most valuable asset is the employee.” Well, we can dream, can’t we?