Interviewee: Anne Robinson
Interviewer: Amy Stevens
March 31st, 2006
Eastern Fine Paper Oral History Project

T1 S1 Anne Robinson Interview

AS: This is Amy Stevens and it is March 31st, 2006 and I’m talking with Anne Robinson. Is it spelled with an e?

AR: Yes.

AS: And we are at her home in, this is East Holden.

AR: Holden.

AS: Holden, ok. It looks like our levels are good. I’ll just test it here. Ok, so I’ll just have you state your date of birth if you don’t mind.

AR: No, I don’t mind. It’s October 3rd, 1950.

AS: Ok and you started working at Eastern Fine in what year?

AR: It was actually December 29th, 1980.

AS: And how did you, I know we were talking a little bit off the record but would you mind reiterating how that came about?

AR: Oh not at all. I was an older person going to full time college when my husband who was not my husband at the time, gave my resume to the personnel manager, Donna Holland and they happened to be looking for someone to cover three months in the accounting department where a lady was going to go out and have surgery and they hired me that day and I never went back to college. I stayed three months in the accounting department then I went three months in the purchasing department to cover for a lady while she went out to have her baby and then I was placed in human services on the switchboard. I worked on the switchboard for a week and the girl that trained me said I’m going on vacation and she left me alone. So again it’s good to have the secretarial background I got from Brewer High school.

AS: Oh you did.

AR: Yes, I did. Yes.

AS: Great. What year did you graduate there?

AR: 1968.

AS: 68’ ok.

AR: And that placement program was still going on so they placed me in a secretarial job at St. Joseph’s Hospital. So I worked and had my babies and then went to full time college when my youngest went to first grade and I never went back to college. I have one semester to complete in Public Accounting. But the pay was so wonderful at the time and I moved in with my present husband and it was just, he also worked at the mill for 22 years.

AS: You knew him before you started working there?

AR: Yes, I did so that was a big help for both of us.

AS: Now did you grow up in Brewer?

AR: Yes right from South Brewer. My father worked at the mill until the war. My uncle worked at the mill until the war. My other Uncle Cal worked at the mill and then went back after the war and my grandfather was a mill right and the stories he told me was he was the only mill right that would climb the stack, the smoke stack. That was because he was a young man when he went on a clipper ship out to sea for many years and of course they had to climb those tall masts and his name was Simon Belawo so there’s a little bit of history there.

AS: That’s great

AR: And I don’t know if that was just a story he used to tell me but I was impressed.

AS: Yeah me too and what was your father’s name?

AR: My fathers name was John Dirage and their…

AS: That sounds familiar.

AR: There was another John Dirage that worked at the mill and is a retiree and his nickname is Lenny and he’s my father’s first cousin.

AS: Really?

AR: Yes.

AS: So you have quite a family background there as well.

AR: Yes, I never dreamt I’d get a job at the mill.

AS: No?

AR: No, I didn’t even apply just where my husband was copying my resume that was it.

AS: Now where did he work when he was coming across your resume and passing it on?

AR: My husband started out as a regular mill worker in the beater department, beater room and as he was working as a union worker, he put himself through college at night so he got his degree in Business Management and also in Real Estate Management.

AS: Wow.

AR: So he worked his way up the line and when he was done, got done he was the department head for the production-planning department. Shipping was under him and all production planning which is the individuals that would do the bill of ladding make sure that what was on the pallet to be shipped was the correct thing before it went out. That’s what he did.

AS: Wow. That’s great.

AR: So cut backs happened. Mr. Torres purchased the mill

AR: And I’ll never forget Bruce Hamilton was then the president and he called his department managers in for a meeting of one, which was my husband was one of them and he told them about Mr. Torras purchasing the mill and he said within a year, there’s going to be a lot of changes and I would suggest you to do the same because there might be a lot of changes. So that’s what my husband did. We consolidated bills and tried to clean up items. It really happened. As they say they shake the tree and the leaves fall from the top down and in one year I saw 19 managers lose their job, in one year.

AS: Now what year was that? Do you remember?

AR: No I don’t. 1989, I believe was when Mr. Torreas purchased the mill.

AS: That sounds right.

AR: Yes and the following year would be 1990 Bruce Hamilton lost his job. In fact I was filling in as the executive secretary which was part of my duties. When the executive secretary Lois Andrews would go on vacation or it could have been Debbie Spencer, I would go upstairs and fill in. And I went upstairs that one day and I looked in and all Bruce’s personal pictures were off his desk. Now he was supposed to ride his motorcycle to work that morning with my husband. They had a camp down to Branch Lake. We lived at Branch Lake full time and so I called my husband and I said, where is Bruce? And he said, well it’s funny you say that; he just called me and said he wasn’t going to work and he had told my husband that night before Mr. Torres talked with him and told him he was all done.

AS: Wow.

AR: So he got done and it just left the men in shock. Bruce was a very personal man to the men. Bruce, every morning, would walk out into that mill, would talk to the men, just a normal human being talking to the guys and seeing how they were doing. He was very friendly in that respect. I saw Bruce leave. Then all the Vice Presidents lost their jobs and then the other department heads so the words of wisdom that Bruce gave the men a year prior had come true.

AS: Wow.

AR: So that was devastating. It was devastating you know. A couple of the men probably I believe did try to file law suits you know discrimination and no one ever won anything of course.

AS: Now do you think that happened because they were looking to consolidate

AR: Oh yes

AS: and save money and get rid of some of the chief’s basically.

AR: Oh absolutely and that’s what was happening all through the industry in the United States you know consolidation. Companies were merging and when the merger takes place, there’s too many chiefs so they shook that tree and they had to get rid of a lot of people which was unfortunate because the shake down was of good people that understood the workings of that paper mill and when you take individuals from say Lincoln Pulp and Paper that were brought down to be put in those positions, they were not well received by the employees. They weren’t but they had to try to make it work. I’ll never forget the day that we were all bused over to the Bangor Motor Inn and there was a huge area that we all sat in and Mr. Torras spoke and a lot of his other manager’s spoke and one thing they said to us they were changing the product mix. Now Eastern Fine Paper was known for a fine writing paper. They were changing it to commodity grade. Now every mill in the country would do commodity grade and that was the beginning of the demise, the end right there.

AS: Really?

AR: That was the beginning of the end. They should never have changed that mixture. Mr. Torras is a good businessman and he listened to his board of directors. He listened to his advisers. I don’t think he was advised properly. It’s why it closed. And then they tried too late to go back to making a fine writing paper and it was way too late, unfortunately. I do remember that everyone felt very sad. They knew that was the wrong thing to do but they wouldn’t listen to the employees. They wouldn’t

AS: Really?

AR: That’s right. It’s a shame. The employees, especially the men that run those machines, they knew those machines. They were there for a long time

AR: You had men that kept their jobs for a long time and speaking of which that’s why I say it was a male dominated mill. There probably were five or six women.

AS: Really? You mean on the floor or in the offices?

AR: Well I, mostly combined. On the floor maybe three at a time. There weren’t very many women, not many women in the union itself. I had heard a comment from the personnel manager that said I would prefer to hire all men because women are more trouble.

AS: Really.

AR: Well when you got a twelve hour shift going you can’t be called home because your kid is sick. You know there are reasons and you’ve got your pregnancies, boy has time changed. Time has changed.

AS: It sure has.

AR: Yeah, there were several women in the offices. There were three or four of us just three I believe maybe four when I got done that were salary.

AS: Wow.

AR: Now what’s that tell you? Yeah, isn’t that amazing.

AS: Yeah.

AR: Not like that anymore but people did keep their jobs. The women that kept their jobs had their jobs was a good second income, was a real good income. The benefits were very rich for that paper mill and they tried to keep the benefits very rich for us all. They did a good job. My boss did a very good job with her benefits. She negotiated the benefits and I administered them. [That’s good]

AS: Now when you started in accounting, you were not a salary worker then so were you in the union?

AR: No, no one in the office was in the union. There was never a union for office workers.

AS: I see.

AR: Although it had been talked about just among us. It was never presented. I think if it had been presented someone would have lost their job, definitely.

AS: Really.

AR: So that was an area we didn’t rock the boat.

AS: And then you became salaried when you went into personnel?

AR: No, I became salary you know I really don’t remember the year. I already had, I had an office all by myself. I would say probably 1987, definitely around 1987 I was in an office by myself for confidential reasons when an employee would come in and talk with me we had privacy. When the lady came from the government, the EEO compliance officer, she interviewed many people and I was one that was made salary because of that interview and because of the nature of my job I had at the mill. I was salaried so that made me probably number four salaried woman and that was it.

AS: Wow.

AR: There was Donna, myself, Lois Andrews, and Edith Campbell in customer service. We were the only women that were salary in that mill and we worked hard for that mill. Donna put in as many hours as I did if not more.

AS: Now can you describe a typical day in the mill, in your job? What types of things would you have to deal with, with the employers? What types of you know

AR: Well my day was varied because I wore so many hats. It starts with the darn phone in the office. Oh my gosh, that phone never stopped ringing. I dealt with spouses. You have medical issues for their health insurances. People would make appointments because they wanted to retire. People would make appointments because of disability insurance they needed to start. Then you had people that workers compensation that I had to follow up daily on; new injuries that may occur. Before they changed the workers compensation system that you would just go in front of a small board versus going in front of a commissioner. I would go in front of the commissioner with Donna or Hugh Flynn who was the safety director at that time so I learned a lot by doing that. I learned a lot of dealing with the attorney’s for workers comp. so the floor workers, the union workers knew that I would help them. The company knew that I was a company employee that I would do the right thing for the company but I had to do the right thing for both of them; to get the employee back and to make the company happy you know and not spend a lot of money doing it.

AS: Was that quite a fine line to walk at some times?

AR: Yes, yes, yes I didn’t want to be put in that type of position but times I had to be. One other duty I had was giving hearing tests

AR: I went to school and became a certified occupational therapist, listen to me occupational therapist, occupational hearing conservationist. I had administered the program. I had to keep the OSHA log for it and I had to schedule and do hearing tests. Now that’s mixed all in with a very busy day and it just was all a matter of scheduling and doing it.

AS: And this was only you. You didn’t have an assistant or anything?

AR: That’s right, just only me.

AS: Wow.

AR: And then if the safety director wasn’t around or there were times when we had no safety director. I had to respond to injuries in the mill and then act appropriately, do I call an ambulance or do I take this guy myself and that’s the judgement call I made.

AS: Did that happen pretty frequently?

AR: Not frequently but often, yes often. That was an old mill and when you work a ten to a twelve-hour shift these men would get tired. So unsafe acts would happen, bad things would happen and at the worst, two of the worst ones I responded too was one man that got a little cocky with his paper machine, number two paper machine and there was a piece of loose paper and he went to take his finger to flip it. Now the rolls were rolling inward like this, took his finger and his arm and brought it right in and he was caught right up to here. That happened to two different individuals while I was there and they saved his arm because the one thing you want to do instinctively is to pull back, when you pull it rips so they saved his arm anyway.

AS: Did they have to shut the machine right down?

AR: Absolutely, absolutely and he’s caught and he’s burning. These are hot rollers in there.

AS: Oh gosh.

AR: So it was sad, every day was an interesting day at that mill.

AS: And you didn’t have any problems responding to injuries like that? No squeamishness?

AR: No, no. Not at all.

AS: So what types of things would you do if something like that happened and you would be called to the floor?

AR: By that time someone had already called 9-1-1. The only thing you can do is make that person comfortable. Make sure they continue breathing until help arrives. In a situation like that you need several people to help release that lever and get the arm back out but that always is the case in any situation you respond to. First you got to know, what am I responding too. You’re thinking as you are running or walking fast to the incident, ok, this is what I’m going to find. This is what I am going to have to do. I’ve taken men off the floor who have been suffering heat exhaustion and I’ve gone right in the shower with them to hold them up. Just get soaken but you need to do that to cool them down and then get them into the hospital. The ambulance would be there.

AS: Did that happen pretty often too?

AR: Oh yeah. At least once a summer you know you are going to have someone whose got leg cramps, heat exhaustion, heat exposure. It’s nothing to get a 120 between those paper machines in the summer time. There’s no ventilation well the ventilation would be the doors opened, you can’t have air conditioners in a paper mill, in the paper making part of it anyway. Oh god it was hot.

AS: I bet.

AR: So the safety director from all the years I was there would always have usually someone with him working in the summer like students from the University and they would have carts and they would have big containers of ice and Gatorade, nice, anything refreshing for these men to drink all the time.

AS: Oh that’s great.

AR: All the time. I don’t know how it was before that but that was a good policy they started to keep these men hydrated.

AS: Now was that a mill policy or like an OSHA policy?

AR: No actually you have to offer water to an employee and that’s it. Now we did Gatorade and that was from Phil Mataya, the safety director, the last safety director that they had. I don’t know if Hugh Finn did that or not because I don’t recall being on the floor seeing that but he might have, he might have. He enjoyed the men. To get the men to wear hearing protection in the designated areas was like pulling teeth. There’s no way they wanted to wear hearing protection and they never did until OSHA came out with the law that anything over a certain decimal level is mandatory for hearing protection. So I hate writing the men up, even if you wore hearing aids you had to have something over your ears.

AS: Really?

AR: That was difficult for some of the men. I do recall when the men went from

AR: The southern swing which is like 3 days on, 3 days off and then nights are so crazy for your body to a twelve-hour shift. The men, that really weeded out the older employees. That was really rough for them. I remember that.

AS: They were so used to the swing, the twelve-hour shift just threw them off?

AR: It did. The swing was harder than the twelve-hour shift, it really was. Now your human body isn’t used to working that type of shift you know, three days, three nights, four days off. It’s all mixed up and your body gets mixed up. If that messes you up like that your whole system gets messed up, your family is going to suffer. There’s a lot that goes on. So whenever we would come across different articles how they could help themselves, we would be sure that they got it. We also, I don’t remember the year, say early 80’s there was a newspaper that was published right in the mill for the employees. Which it was really great because that’s communication. In fact I have one.

AS: Do you?

AR: I’ve got it right in the other room. My husband’s doing some re-filing and he’s left it on the floor.

AS: Oh great.

AR: The Atlantic, Eastern Atlantic

AS: I would love to see that if you could dig it out at some point.

AR: Yeah, hang on.

AS: Sure.

AR: 84’ The Atlantic Ledger, Volume A, number 1, May 1984. This is, was a good communication for all the employees. It’s really nice. It’s got pictures.

AS: Oh that’s great.

AR: Everyone participated and it, the mill was really a big family. We were. I knew everyone. They all knew me and of course I got to know their spouses too. And there was one year and I would say it was the mid 80’s to late 80’s, a whole bunch of managers would get together, guys and myself, because I was at that time married to Gene and we started downhill skiing. And we would go to Hermon Mountain after work and go skiing and that kept us close too and we would have parties. The mill would have a retirement party and it was, let me say, the end of every May and it was a big time. The mill hired Pilots, grill and there was steak and lobster offered on the menu.

AS: Wow.

AR: and of course fish and it was a big to do and there was a band and you could just party. It was all for the retiree’s and they loved it. They just loved it. And that sort of fizzled when, well it didn’t stop, it stopped at Pilots and then they used oh gosh where did we go, Jeff’s Catering. It wasn’t the same because we lost Bruce Hamilton and the other vice presidents were gone so that changed. It all changed.

AS: Now were all employees invited to these or was it just for retirees?

AR: No, just retiree’s. The past retiree’s were invited and the new retiree’s which were from the union or from management or nor management were invited. And the mill had a history of pictures from each party every year.

AS: Really. We actually had Vince Desecere donated boxes of photo albums to us that he had saved from the mill before he left.

AR: Good.

AS: And I think a lot of them are retirement photos

AR: Yes.

AS: Christmas party photos

AR: Yes.

AS: And we are looking forward to going through those.

AR: Oh absolutely. Yes, there’s album after album. There probably is, I’ll say close to 20 albums and they were always on display in the front reception area.

AS: Really.

AR: Yes. I hope you have them.

AS: I hope we do.

AR: I hope someone has them. I’m sure Donna would have taken them, and put them or give them to someone in a safe place.

AS: Let’s see, what other questions do I have? You said that you went skiing so you did activities with co-workers outside of work.

AR: Yes, yes.

AS: Did they have like picnics or Christmas parties or anything like that?

AR: Not so much Christmas parties, each department would have their own Christmas party and it was up to them if they wanted to exchange gifts and we did do that.

AR: It evolved in the main office to have a big main office Christmas party. We would set up long tables. We would invite everyone in the mill to come and join in and what food was left over, I would take right out in the mill and set right up for the men on the paper machines that could not leave. They did appreciate that.

AS: Oh that’s great.

AR: The guys liked to eat, yeah.

AS: Oh yeah.

AR: They finally got a training center, a modular house put together that was empty inside for training purposes which were, was really needed. And that didn’t come until the 90’s, 1995, maybe 94’. Just to keep up, comply with everything that was going on so that’s where we had a lot of meetings which was good. It was good for the men. There was a lot of pilferage at that mill.

AS: Really?

AR: My god I’ve got to tell you a story. Years ago, lets see I started in 19- , they used to be young teenagers that they would hire in the summer time to do all the mowing, to do the raking, to pick up the yard in general which was good training for these young adults. Now these teenagers belong to the workers probably some union workers. Once my son was there, he was about 14 lets say and he worked there and he was over by the fence, he was still in the mill property, inside the mill property. He’s facing the parking lot and he’s trying to mow and he finds this brass something brass and I don’t remember quite what it is, a very expensive piece of equipment. He brings it, mom look what I found. Oh my gosh, so anyways that lawn got, that part got really mowed well. Come to find out what was going on the men would take lawn mowers apart; they would take equipment apart and they would go over to that part of the fence and they’d drop it. Someone was to go out that night and throw it over the fence.

AS: Really.

AR: I have heard that lawn mowers have walked out of that mill in picnic baskets. You’ve got paper, you’ve got duct tape, you name it, the men would take it. Isn’t that awful, awful, tools, so they really put a stop to that. What they finally did is with the guards, they would make the guards check the men’s picnic baskets or anything they were carrying. Oh yeah.

AS: Wow.

AR: They were being, stole blind actually. It’s too bad.

AS: Yeah, I’ve heard a few stories. Not only in terms of products but also sort of stolen time when you know I walked through there recently with some of the folks from city hall and saw a half finished duck decoy that somebody was carving in the machine shop and you know little projects on the side.

AR: Oh yes.

AS: Here and there.

AR: Oh yeah, they would bring in their own welding projects or somebody in the mill, it could be a manager had a problem and they would bring it into the guys in the welding shop and they would take care of it for them. Family takes care of family.

AS: Yes.

AR: That really changed when Mr. Torras bought the mill.

AS: Really?

AR: Oh yeah.

AS: Much more strict?

AR: Oh yes, yeah, more business like. It really changed. It really changed and attitudes in management had to change too and if you didn’t go along; if you weren’t a yes person, you were out.

AS: Really.

AR: Oh yes.

AS: So did a lot of people lose their jobs after that change over?

AR: Just the shake down that one year and then a few years, probably 5 or 6 at a time. But not, the first group was the major group: the president, the vice presidents, and department heads. And then a little bit at a time and that’s what they were doing. They were consolidating and you can’t blame them. That’s the way business is.

AS: Right.

AR: It’s too bad though that they let the good men go and took their men from Lincoln and brought them in. They weren’t well received like I said.

AS: No.

AR: No.

AS: And it must have felt like outsiders

AR: Exactly.

AS: Where as before it was one big family.

AR: Exactly, so we say we saw changes. Even Donna had to change.

AS: Really.

AR: Her philosophy had to change, yup. So we had nicknames for a lot of different people.

AS: Did you?

AR: You had Gene Loffland who was a paper making, excuse me, department head. He was known as Helium Head. He would blow up, just blow right up at the guys. Then you had Ronnie Holland who had the finishing department and he had shipping until they gave shipping to my husband. Well that left a little thorn in Ronnie’s side but he was known as Rotten Ronnie, for good reasons. His, he never had finished his high school and the only way he could

AR: make employees work the way he wanted them to work was through intimidation. They became scared of him. They didn’t like him. They didn’t respect him. That’s unfortunate and my boss Donna was known as the Iron Maiden.

AS: Oh really. Now did they know about these nicknames?

AR: They, oh sure, they must have by you know you didn’t talk about it. I don’t know who started all these names but I learned them when I got there.

AS: Yeah.

AR: Real fast.

AS: Did you have a nickname that you knew of.

AR: Not that I’m aware of, not that I’m aware of. Kiss ass, I don’t know. But again, it was difficult to work, I had to learn the jobs first but to work with the men and with the company and to make a happy situation out of it all.

AS: Yeah. So you were sort of an employee advocate in a lot of ways.

AR: I was. Yes I was.

AS: And so I bet the, a lot of the workers really, really respected you and the relationship they had with you in terms of what they needed.

AR: There were times when my boss would be upset because I would not break that confidentiality that I had with this employee because if I felt she needed to know something, I would tell her but other than that I didn’t. I didn’t and perhaps she didn’t like that with me and that’s the way it was. That’s the way it was.

AS: So in some ways you kind of acted as a counselor

AR: Yes, go between.

AS: Without you know giving any specific names or anything, what types of problems maybe that didn’t directly correspond with mill work would you hear from employees, outside problems?

AR: I had a mill worker call me one day and he was going to commit suicide.

AS: Oh my gosh.

AR: And I was dealing with an employee that had a gun, a loaded gun and I had to deal with him. I had a phone call at my home after hours from a woman that was beaten by her husband who was a worker in the mill and I had to get her to safety. And this was going on, and this was, the man that wanted to commit suicide, we already had an EAP counselor in place and so I would go to him for advice and they would intervene with him and that worked out, that worked out very well. The woman who called me in the evening and her husband was an alcoholic and an employee; we didn’t have the EAP counselor in place at that time and I think that was the last straw and I went to Donna and I said Donna I should not, and don’t want to receive calls at home from the employees or their spouses. We need to have some type of intervention and thus the mill got an EAP coordinator.

AS: Now what does EAP stand for?

AR: Employee Assistance Program through Eastern Maine Medical Center.

AS: Ok.

AR: Yeah, and that was a good thing.

AS: Wow.

AR: It was a good thing and just knowing how to act is just, I, it’s life that’s taught me different ways of handling people in different situations that I could help them. But I was not trained as a counselor. I really didn’t want to be in that position but I found myself in that position. I just should have stayed in accounting.

AS: Now were there many substance abuse problems in the mill that you were aware of?

AR: I have never, never in my day saw anybody smoke a joint, smoke a pipe that had pot in it or take a drink but there are a lot of stories. I had walked into going to the store area in the mill, I smelt pot.

AS: Really.

AR: Oh yes, and I said to one of the managers you know there’s, someone is over there probably a millwright in that millwright area and they’re smoking pot. Can’t you smell it? And they said to me, leave it alone. Just leave it alone and I said ok. And there had always been stories of the men working the afternoon or the night shift in the coater department, going out in the back loading docks, smoking a joint. I never saw anything but I’m sure they did. There were men that were taking speed all the time so their bodies would be able to keep up with the work pace and you know again, their tired working these terrible shifts. So they are taking a lot of speed so I have heard an awful lot but I never, never, never saw anyone smoke anything. Just smelt it.

AS: Yeah.

AR: It was there so they told me not to rock the boat and I didn’t. I just let it be. It wasn’t my place to say anything anyway. I didn’t see anybody. I just smelt it and we all knew it was there. Until the time that they closed, the guys were out back probably smoking. Alcohol, yeah there might have been a couple that had their little can of beer. I know of a few that drink out of that brown bag and the men would cover for one another.

AS: No major problems though because of it that you know of?

AR: Well, I don’t know of any major accidents. The men would cover, I know this one man, oh geeze probably came in drunk half the time- good worker, good worker. With the EAP system that we had in place, that was a good, a good haven to get them into that, what would happen if a guy came in drunk the supervisor was suppose to take him aside, either send him home and tell him to report to human services the next day. And they would with a union rep and they would agree that they would go get some counseling and I’d make the appointment to get them in. So that worked. They never lost their job. I don’t know of anyone who lost their job over drinking in excess or coming to work drunk because the union really protected their men, which was good to get their jobs back.

AS: So did you have to deal with the union on a regular basis or ?

AR: No, not so much. If I, the regular basis would be individual men; as a group would be hearing protection seminars or different benefit seminars that we would have. If there is anything safety involved, I might or might not be involved in.

AS: And now would you patrol the mill looking for things or is that just more a case by case basis that would be reported to you or?

AR: I would go through the mill almost daily.

AS: Really.

AR: I would go out there and talk with the men, I’d be sure, what I’d be doing is eyeballing to be sure number one they had their hearing protection in and they knew that. They see me, they put their hearing protection in. I said good you know but you shouldn’t be doing that, you know they should put it in without me being there. I would check the medicine, the first aid kits if when different times we didn’t have a safety director I would do that to be sure they were up to snuff; see how many things they were stealing from the medicine chest, you know different things like that and get them filled back up again, especially on the night time shift.

AS: Really, what types of things would they take?

AR: Oh aspirin, aspirin, non aspirin, band-aids. You put it out there boy they are going to take it. Someone’s going to so you have to monitor that. But just going through, just walking through saying Hi. Or say I had to go out and talk to someone, I would go right out and talk with them if there was a situation we needed to deal with. He can’t leave that paper machine because there is no one to cover, I would go to them versus they coming into me.

AS: So what did you like best about that job?

AR: Probably all the interactions I had with all the employees, all of that. Yes, I really miss the employees.

AS: Yeah.

AR: And they took me out of my nice little comfy office that I had. They put me downstairs in the basement and that rubbed people the wrong way. And by this time, the mill is really trying to condense their employee numbers and we’re merging with Lincoln as far as benefits. So there was a lot going on and that was a wise move. It really was you know if you’ve got a big business and you’ve got all these three individual places, you had corporate office, Brewer Mill and Lincoln Mill; it made sense to merge all those benefits and that’s when Donna became Vice President of human services, human services, human resources for three locations. And I worked under her with that. We did work hard. We really did. She’s a hard worker so that was a big undertaking and I voluntarily got done.

AS: Really.

AR: I would have stayed right there to the very end with the men and got done with them when they shut the doors. I wouldn’t have left but my husband purchased a business next door in May of 2000 and I told Donna, let’s see, when did I get done? I’m going to say 2002. It was January 2nd, 5 past 8 in the morning and I sat right down with her with a cup of coffee and said I’ll be done in May, sometime in May. I wanted to give them enough time to fill my shoes and the girl that was on the switchboard took over my position.

AR: and they canned her. I think it was very unfair. She was dating a man in the coater department, a union worker and they said no fraternizing. I think she was living with him at the time. They fired her.

AS: Wow.

AR: But they couldn’t fire her because of living with a union person. They had to create, create something. [Yes, must be, yup]. They had to create something and I saw that happen to but we won’t discuss that.

AS: Now why did they put you down in the basement?

AR: Well they wanted to move Nicky Decesere into my office. She was human resources assistant and so it made sense that she would be connected with Donna’s office and so benefits went downstairs in the basement. Also in the basement was data processing. It was a nice cool area. It was nice and I had a little area outside when I had nurses come in and give flu shots and any time of little clinic. It would happen right there so that was fine. That didn’t bother me. It bothered other people. It didn’t bother me at all.

AS: Ok.

AR: So my hearing booth was down there. All the personnel records were there. All the old personnel records were there and I had to access those when I did retirements or when I did deaths, all of that was there. So it made it handy for me but by that time Phil Mataya the safety director had lost his job. I was carrying an awful lot of a heavy load and my blood pressure was going up and it was the best thing I did to go to work for my husband, is to get out of that mill because my stress level was too high. And I told him if I had collapsed while I was employed there that he was to file a workers comp. claim, definitely, definitely. So it was the best thing I did for my health.

AS: Wow.

AR: Yes.

Amy Stevens: I’m going to just flip the tape over here if you don’t mind.

Anne Robinson: Oh no

AS: My supervisor actually has talked with Lois.

AR: Good, good.

AS: Yes.

AR: Now Debbie Spencer last I knew was out in California. Debbie had worked at the mill for a long time. She was a switchboard operator. She had a four year degree in something, counseling and the position became available, let me see now, there were two, there were two executive secretaries at the time; one was for the president. The other executive secretary was for the vice presidents. Ruth Barnett retired. Lois Andrews was the other executive secretary. She moved right into Ruth’s shoes. Then there was a vacancy and I applied for that job. Now they didn’t know me very well, I was hired, see I started working in December and that position was available I think two years later. My work was good but they hired, they took Debbie Spencer. Debbie had been there a lot longer than I had and here’s a lady with no secretarial background and you’ve got to give me a break. But I still filled in upstairs; whenever they needed me I did it religiously you know so I figured someday I might get the job but it never came. - I think the wind blew the door open and shut again dear, yes… probably… she’ll cuddle with you all night –

AS: What a cutie.

AR: Yup, Debbie Spencer did leave and she wanted to finish her degree in counseling and she did, she did. And then they hired, let’s see, Debbie left then they decided they didn’t need a second secretary upstairs; that one secretary could do it all. Louis was busy.

AS: I bet.

AR: Now that’s a different perspective being executive secretary because you really know what’s going on. You don’t know so much what’s going on on the floor because you don’t get a chance to go out there and talk but it’s the business end of it that you really learn about in being in that position and I truly enjoyed it. I enjoyed that, yes. I would have done that, that would have been my primary goal was executive secretary, god I could even take short hand for the accounting.

AS: Yes, you were all set for that job, weren’t you?

AR: Yes I was.

AS: Now you got done about two years before the mill actually shut down.

AR: Yes.

AS: Did you see any sort of changes, writing on the wall towards the end of your career there?

AR: Well they had already filed for chapter gee is it chapter 11 or chapter 13, which ever they filed for first. That had already taken place and that of course left the employees nervous and jerky and if someone came to me and talked to me about it, I would say listen, I don’t know what’s going to happen but I certainly, if you’ve got a lot of outstanding bills, try to consolidate them, get out of debt the best you can. A lot of the men’s spouses did not work. I mean they made, the men made a good living that their wives didn’t have to work.

AS: Yes.

AR: What I saw more and more with the layoffs and the men that didn’t get called back. Yes, there was a lot of unrest at that point, at that point so that was really sad. Of course they were cutting back and cutting back as all the corporations were in the country and the mill really lasted much longer than other paper mills in the country. Mills all around us in New England were shutting down and we were still going good and I attribute that to the government contracts and the way they took from Peter to pay Paul. That’s what they did all the time: took from Peter to pay Paul and they had to. They really had to.

AS: Yes.

AR: And there is one sad note is that when the mill shut down, they of course shut down Lincoln Pulp and Paper and restarted that mill and it was a shame for Eastern Fine Paper did not restart, unfortunately. So that’s really sad.

AS: Do you keep in touch with a lot of folks from the mill?

AR: I don’t keep in touch. If I see them, I see them in the grocery store. Oh I’ve seen a lot of men, I have. Where I was dealing with RV’s for the last five years, a lot of those men are campers so they would come in. They would come in for service or they want to buy or come in; listen to this: during my five years of working for Holden Family RV, I had men come in that wanted to retire. I did their retirement papers. They brought me their papers. They didn’t trust Nicole Decesere. They didn’t like her. She had an attitude problem, that’s Vince’s daughter. Once you get around her cocky attitude, she’s a nice girl. I like Nicky. Well she’s never said a good thing about me, I don’t know if I should say anything about her but I’m going to. God will get me if I don’t. So I’ve done retirement papers. I have sat right down with people out on workers compensation and tried to help them and give them 1,2,3 this is what you need to do and they listened to me.

AS: And this is after you got done?

AR: This is after I got done! I had people finding me to do this stuff for them.

AS: That’s quite a compliment.

AR: Yes, and I didn’t mind. In fact, I did my last pension papers for an employee just last year.

AS: Wow.

AR: Yeah and I still would help the guys if they came and found me and that, you know, once you learn these little areas, you don’t lose this stuff, eventually it will go, it will go.

AS: Do you know, do you have a sense of how a lot of the employees are doing since the mill closed down?

AR: Yes, we have, they have found out that there is life after Eastern Fine Paper. I have talked with a great deal of employees in the area and I’ve found out you know, what are you doing with your self? You know are you going to school and they tell me yup, we’re taking advantage of going to trucking school or we’re going to this school you know and I just praise them right up, because, keep up the good work because there is life isn’t there because I found that out, my husband found that out. He received six months severance and that’s how he got involved with RV’s. He got hired by Web’s RV. So he enjoyed his six months of severance and in that time he had learned how to do dishes, run a dishwasher, run the washer so we were ok. Probably we were more fortunate than most, our kids were grown up and out of the house.

AS: Yeah.

AR: Yes, that was a big help. I was always very gracious to Mr. Torras and his entourage and I would bend over backwards to help him and I did, especially as I was working as executive secretary. And it was really, I hated what they did to my husband and I had to work there because I had a very good income coming in and I worked, and I kept my mouth shut and I kept my ears open. That’s how I normally worked anyway.

AS: Now what did they do to your husband? What do you mean?

AR: Well they, what they did is they said they were going to abolish his position which was a lie. Of course you can’t, I wouldn’t have taken them to court. I wouldn’t have won because of false documentation. He was a manager of shipping and production planning and what they did, they brought Jim Jameson down from Lincoln and they put him in my husband’s position, is what they did. And they said to my husband, you can do this for six months, you can do something different and it was, he said absolutely not. I’ll take my severance instead.

AS: Pushed him right out.

AR: Pushed him right out to get again men from Lincoln down into Brewer and that man that they did put in my husband’s position, the union men didn’t respect him at all. They didn’t like him at all. They baulked. They did baulk and eventually they had to take the shipping department away from him and give it back to Ronnie Holland.

AS: Really

AR: Oh yeah. Yes, it was bad. People didn’t care for him at all.

AS: Was your husband pretty bitter about that?

AR: No.

AS: No.

AR: No

AS: Just sort of, he saw it as an opportunity to get out.

AR: That’s right. It was an opportunity. He was there for 22 and a half years and he did, he worked hard. He worked himself up through the ranks but what I had heard was everyone that worked for Bruce Hamilton, the prior president, would lose their job.

AS: Really.

AR: And it did come true, except for Donna, except for Ronnie, Ritchie Smith the engineer. There was just a very, I could count them on one hand and, pretty bad huh?

AS: and that was just because Joe Torras decided to bring folks from Lincoln down in?

AR: Yes. Yes, this Bob Sullivan that they hired, Bob had been groomed by Joe Torras and he had worked at the Lincoln plant. He had been at Amherst first and then he worked at the Lincoln mill and then he became the president of the Brewer mill and that was a friggin’ joke. That was a joke. That was unbelievable. Everything that he told Ronnie Holland in confidence, Ronnie would go right out and tell. It was a riot because my husband was still there and he would tell me he heard it. I can’t believe it!

AR: He’s since stopped by and seen us a couple of times. He was selling insurance and then he got a job as a site manager for H.E. Sargeon and Son and I don’t know what he’s doing now.

AS: This is Bob Sullivan?

AR: Yes. It was a shame. The men didn’t respect him at all. He wasn’t a manager. He probably was a good engineer but not a businessman to run that mill. Sad. That it was. It was pathetic. I could see that mill going right down the tubes.

AS: Really.

AR: Yes.

AS: And probably a lot of folks did too.

AR: Yes, a lot of people could look and see that happening. Take for example the accounting people, Terry Hutchins. Have you talked with Terry Hutchins?

AS: No.

AR: Write her name down. She’ll thank me when she see’s… Terry was the accounting, she wasn’t an accounting manager, she’s one of the ladies in time that became salary and that’s because she started way after I did. I believe she works at Kohl’s, Kohl’s express. She would take all the bills and excuse me, send them to Amherst or let them know by the computer, email to Amherst and they, Amherst would pick and choose what was going to get paid. Unfortunately, Joe Torras had a horrendous background of not paying his bills. I mean being 90 to 120 days past due was very common for Lincoln.

AR: But Eastern had a very good credit rating, eventually Eastern of course had to get in, was in, caught in that 90 to 120 day payment scheme to the point when they filed for Chapter 11 when a load of pulp, anything coming in to manufacture the paper, they would have to have a COD and pay for it right then and there, at the gatehouse.

AS: Really.

AR: The men knew this. The union knew this, this made unrest. It really did and I’m surprised there were not more workers comp. claims and there were some. You know the men would see what was happening, they would have a comp. case. You know, they are not going to work there. They are going to collect workers comp. and a lot of that you had to watch because there were men that would take advantage of the system and try to pull something.

AS: Yes.

AR: Yeah, and you knew the men that would do that. You know, you learned over years what these personalities were like.

AS: What was the most common comp. claim that you would deal with?

AR: Back injury.

AS: Really.

AR: Couldn’t see it. You had to watch them walk, you know. It would be a back injury. Then the ones you could see are the amputations of the finger tips.

AS: Was that pretty common?

AR: Not all the time but yeah. You talk with the old timers, you notice their fingers, they got stubs, unfortunately. So you want to make a real safe work environment but it’s sometimes very difficult to do and you do have people that are tired. You have people coming to work again that just had a fight with their wife. You know, they are bringing that hostility into the mill. Do you think they want to concentrate on what’s going on? No. There minds elsewhere. So that’s something you really try to teach people, instill in people- leave your problems at home. That’s difficult sometimes. That’s not living in a real world.

AS: Right.

AR: Back pain or back injury was your culprit at the mill. Then you get some legitimate ones though really did injure their back. When you’re up on a paper machine and it’s hay, which means the paper machine broke and it’s flying paper, wet broke everywhere, that’s real heavy. If you can imagine taking out towels from your washing machine that didn’t rinse well and still heavy with water, that’s what they’re picking up in drove’s and throwing manually. Yes, a lot of back injuries. Yeah, some men I couldn’t get back into the mill.

AS: Let’s see, change the subject a little bit. How do you think the mill contributed to the greater community? That’s kind of an open question but it can be in terms of the

AR: Well you’ve got your employment number one. They took their money and put it back into the community, their paychecks which was good, Shop N’ Save, that way. Once in awhile we would have a baseball team, golf teams. I’ve never really seen a lot of activity with the community. I was hoping that they would get more girls in the program at Brewer High School involved, working at the mill. I don’t think they had a lot of involvement in the community. I don’t recall having the mill donate money to different services in the community other than the United Way. We really ran good campaigns. That’s because I did it. We really ran good campaigns for the United Way. Donna did it then she passed it on to me and I must have had that friggin’ thing for 5, 6, 7 years, geese, I don’t want to do this anymore. It gets old after awhile.

AS: I would imagine.

AR: Wow, and you need fresh ideas all the time so they passed it on to I think it was Nicky. That was fine. That was fine. No, I don’t believe there was a lot of, not that I can remember. I don’t believe they even belonged to the Chamber of Commerce.

AS: Really.

AR: I don’t believe so. I don’t think they did. Nope, just the United Way.

AS: Any like…

AR: Well I should I’m sorry let me say that the girls, the seniors would come down from Brewer High School and they always would take an ad out in the yearbook so that is something.

AS: Ok.

AR: Pulp and Paper at the University, they were involved with that and they would hire students in the summer time, to work at the mill so that to is an involvement which is real good. So that was a good help. We would get involved if one of us in the main office would take the initiative to do it. The MS walk, to do something like that as a group was good so that was giving to the community too. But other than that it was basically the United Way.

AS: When you say like baseball and golf teams, was that just like departmental something else to do or was it like to raise money?

AR: Well not to raise money but it was just the group getting together.

AS: Like an office softball team idea.

AR: Yes, exactly, exactly.

AS: Because I knew back in the earlier 20th century, they had a pretty professional baseball club at Eastern. I’m not quite sure when that ended but it sounded like it was a pretty big deal.

AR: Well, down in the basement I shared my office with the old stuff in the junk room in the files was a lot of trophies.

AS: Really.

AR: Baseball, softball trophies, yes.

AS: Huh, that’s interesting.

AR: Yes, that was real good and plagues for the men, different softball teams that they had, or baseball teams.

AS: You don’t know if there were any local musicians or bands or anything that worked in the mill?

AR: David Morrison.

AS: Really.

AR: Of course he’s a musician and he also played in a band other than there wasn’t anybody else from the mill in this band. My husband was a musician. I don’t know of any other people

AS: What’s your husband’s name?

AR: Gene Robinson.

AS: Gene.

AR: Yes, Eugene.

AS: We’re thinking of…

AR: Oh David Peavey in technical services, he lost his job too. He was one of the guys that got done, excellent guitar player and they would get together these men that all knew one another and they would, they would jam. Burt, Wayne Burt oh boy, he even made some cassettes. Excellent banjo player, blue grass all the way. He was an electrician.

AS: We are, I think I told you a little bit about how we are trying to put together a DVD of different interviews and group sessions and we would love to have some background music that is actually played by former Eastern Fine Paper workers.

AR: Oh wouldn’t that be wonderful yes.

AS: We are trying to find somebody that might be willing to play a few strings or something like that.

AR: David would, David would, yes and David Morrison. David Peavey is out in Arizona. My husband probably would refuse.

AS: Really.

AR: He’s too busy running this camp ground. We just bought it last year and we are trying to get up and running.

AS: That’s understandable.

AR: and Wayne, I don’t know where Wayne is. I really don’t.

AS: Some more random questions that I’m thinking of, do you know of any like ghost stories or legends or anything associated with the mill.

AR: Oh my god, unbelievable. Well it was just a few years before I got done; Melissa Spencer was a janitor in the main office. A union worker, and of course Donna and I again thought nothing to work until 6, 6:30 at night and Melissa of course would come in about 4:30 and she would work probably until 10 or 11 to get, and she only concentrated on cleaning the main office. She told me she was upstairs working and she saw a shadow pass her and I got goose bumps. Now upstairs there’s a basement, the main level of the main office and then a third floor. The third floor had a vault and in that vault was just kept probably patent numbers and stationary odds and ends and it was always shut at night. Well anyways, I don’t know who this was and she would be a good name, someone to follow up with Melissa Spencer.

AS: Ok.

AR: And tell her I told you to contact her ok and then she will probably talk with you. And she saw a woman floating by and she said she was dressed in the civil war era. It scared her half to death.

AS: Now this was in the vault area. AR Well this was upstairs on the third floor around the vault area and she had heard noises prior

AR: I mean I would be there by myself at night and before I knew that she had seen a shadow pass, I would hear noises and I’d try to just shrug them off but I would always call the guard house to say I am in here alone because the doors, the front door and the back door should have been locked but here I am alone as a woman in that office and I didn’t want any man coming in, you know, that’s scary, although the men were very good with me. They knew I was there, my lights were on but you know it was just the safety feature. Yes you need to contact her and let her tell you that story.

AS: Now what types of noises would you hear?

AR: Someone dropping something or giggling or freaky isn’t it you know and I just dismissed it. I didn’t want to concentrate on that. There were times when I would just pack up my work and leave.

AS: Really?

AR: Yes. I don’t want to hear those noises.

AS: Well the place has quite a history so I imagine there had to be some stories like that.

AR: Oh yeah. You need to talk to her. She again was the janitor at the time.

AS: I definitely will.

AR: I have kept an old rolodex. When I left the mill, I copied the employee rolodex. It’s probably 20 pages with names, addresses and phone numbers. So when we are done, I’ll see if I can locate it and look up her phone number.

AS: That would be great.

AR: Yes, because she might have gotten married by now, I’m not sure.

AS: It’s definitely harder to track down the women because of name changes and location changes and so like I said we have so many male perspectives and so few women and we are actually trying to get a grant dealing specifically with the women of Eastern Fine Paper, so hopefully have a little sub chapter on women.

AR: That would be nice because there wasn’t very many women. There wasn’t because initially there wasn’t and then as they grew, the mill grew and times changed, they were trying to get a few more and a few more ethnic groups in as well. I’ll never forget the black man they got in there David McCartney. Some people received him well, other people didn’t. It was unfair and the same if we had gotten any Asian people. There were two Vietnamese men working there when I started working. Of course they both retired. But oh my gosh, the littler one of the two, it’s just because he was shorter than the taller one. The taller one retired first and the older man was the shorter one. I made the appointment at social security for him. I went with him as his somewhat interpreter through the social security system and got him all signed up and he moved to California with his relatives. He would call me once or twice a year. He would and he would always, they were very gracious individuals and they always gave Donna and myself Christmas presents. Oh that was so nice, it really was. I had quite a supply of, oh god I’ll say bourbon, I don’t remember what it was but it was alcohol something that we did not drink. I remember giving it away. But that’s all they had for ethnic groups because you had to have so many. There was a time that an employee would be hired if they did not have a high school education or even a GED. When Mr. Torras took over you had to have a high school education. In a way that hurt the community because they were good individuals that are very good workers. I’m not going to say that you need people that are stupid but you need people that can concentrate and focus on this particular job and that would, that gave individuals a good living. And when they made that stipulation, it sort of hurt. You get an employee, yes he can think but he doesn’t want to do this job. That makes it difficult when you are working a line. There were two women sorters when I started in 1980, Alice Bowden and Edith Soucie and they since retired. Edith Soucie has Alzheimer’s and what they did they were sorter counters. That was their union position

AR: They had a huge pallet of paper in front of them and they’d flip and they’re looking for bad stuff, and they’d flip, flip, flip, flip; that’s what they did all day long with rubber things on their fingers. Nice ladies and they remained ladies. There were, there was one woman in the mill and she enjoyed working the night shift. She didn’t care, she would flash those men. Boy she said you want a treat, look at these and oh my god, she was in human resources department the office more than she was on the work floor. What a riot and she could hold her own working with a man meaning she was very mouthy and she could speak up for herself and not coward away where those other two ladies were ladies. So you had to have the tough women that could work in there. As the mill progressed in the later 1990’s let’s say, there were some good women workers and they did very well. They did ok but it’s still with a male dominated mill. It really was.

AS: Did you ever have to deal with sexual harassment issues or anything like that?

AR: Oh yes, when that all came about, mostly that was a Donna thing because that was someone would make a complaint. The complaint had to be filed with a human resource director and that would have been Donna. So basically she did all of that. I just heard about it and I didn’t have to do anything.

AS: Any like counseling or anything involving issues of sexual harassment?

AR: No, no. They tried to nip it in the bud first. You got to deal with the issue at hand and then where do you go from here and trying to clean it up that way. It really got sticky when sexual harassment came out, meetings took place and a lot of jokes were going on and men, especially the millwrights that had girlie calendars in their lockers had to take them out. Well they were very upset, big deal, you know, women shouldn’t be there anyway. That was a man’s place, a man’s locker room and if that’s what they wanted, that was fine. The sexual harassment such as Celeste showing her boobies now that was her choice to do that. We had men that would unzip their flies and say hey do you want this and chase them around the mill. That always happens at night. There would have been some issues with an office worker and a man in the office perhaps. Those issues would be settled and again addressed in Donna’s office and that’s how those issues took place. There weren’t very many. There were not very many, yes there was a few. There was a few. There were a few individuals that lost their jobs, managers that felt they lost their jobs due to age discrimination and I agree. Yes, they did lose their jobs because of age discrimination but I will not testify against that. I have seen personnel records one day say one thing and the next day be changed to something different.

AS: Really.

AR: Yes and I will not testify against that either unless I’m subpoenaed. Yes, see there’s things that you know that you just keep your mouth shut about so there’s no sense to racking up but I had witnessed some of that and that’s dirty. Donna would not do anything unless she had the advice of a legal attorney and I know that. She’d pick up that phone no hesitation and she did the right thing you know by calling Tom Johnston and he was the attorney. But I saw some underhanded things take place and I talked with a manager who’s a friend of ours. He’s my husband’s partner and he said leave it alone. He’s told me a couple times, just let it be. Just don’t get involved and that one thing really disturbed me about records of an employee had been changed and what was so stupid was they wrote it all out in pencil and they erased it.

AS: Really.

AR: That was, if you are going to be smart about it be smart. You know.

AR: I saw some dirty things take place.

AS: Just like any where in a big corporation.

AR: That’s right. That’s right and you just keep your mouth shut.

AS: Did you ever feel maybe not sexual harassment but a sense of inequality with male workers or maybe not you but any of the women?

AR: Not really. I feel I saw how one of the managers treated the other workers and she let herself get down to their level by swearing as much as they swore; F- you’s all the time and that gave her a bad rep. She should never have let herself get in that position to be at their level and that was wrong. I saw that for years, and years, years and that was wrong. You don’t come down to their level and treat them that way. That was wrong and that was Donna. When Bob Sullivan took over as president of the mill, no it was John Harper replaced Bruce Hamilton, I saw a change in her and I saw a change in her personality and in the way she spoke to the employees. It changed. It became more professional.

AS: Really.

AR: Yes. She was afraid of losing her job so she took a turn around. I have been in my office and I’ve had her, I’ve heard her go in her office and slam her door to the point I thought the glass was going to shatter and throw things, the phone. I witnessed that and then she left. She was balling and that’s because Bruce Hamilton told her he should have fired her when he had a chance to.

AS: Really.

AR: Oh yeah.

AS: There were some pretty serious tensions around there.

AR: Yes there was. There really was. There truly was. It’s too bad but you know she learned from, how much can I tell you; she came down from the Lincoln mill and she was young and she had been married once. She worked her way up the ranks. Norm Redman was the personnel manager and he had a severe heart attack and she was the assistant HR manager and she had to fill his shoes. And what she did was she had to prove herself that she could have handled this job and yeah she would just bring herself right low with those union men and it just wasn’t right. It wasn’t right but she did it and she went through seminar after seminar reading this and reading that and she was self taught. She was self taught.

AS: Wow.

AR: And me understanding her background. I think that’s why I could tolerate her all these years.

AS: So were you two friends or

AR: No.

AS: just colleagues?

AR: No. She had learned and she told me with Debbie Spencer that was a worker of hers, you know they became friends and Donna had this position of manager and now Debbie was just a switchboard operator and they were friends and their friendship, it ended very, very sour because of the differences in position and so she said with me we won’t be friends because of that and I understand that. You know and I understood that and I didn’t want to be friends with her. I, of course, we wouldn’t go shopping together but we would go out to their house and see their new house that they just built or Ronnie had something done and we went out to see what they did. On that level it was fine but then us going out to dinner or no, no. We were different levels of management and we kept that separate. And I’m friendly to her today, you know if we see each other in Shop N’ Save absolutely.

AS: Did you have friends at the mill that you would go out to dinner with and things?

AR: I still have the same friends and we still associate.

AS: That’s great.

AR: Yup, yup. Oh yeah, it’s good to have long term friends. You know I’ve seen their children grow and that’s nice. Now we’re invited to their weddings and, yes there’s a lot, oh boy, she had a terrible job though but she did good and she made damn good money.

AS: Yes.

AR: She made very good, she made real good money and Ronnie made at the end, they both made very good money so

AS: Well let’s see. I think I’ll throw another tape in unless you’re, are you exhausted from talking?

AR: No I’m fine. I just want you to ask me questions I don’t know what more to say because I can babble.

AS: Well I enjoy that so I’m going to stop this one right here.

AS: Tape 2 of talking with Anne Robinson, Tape 2. Ok, it looks like we are all set. Let’s see, I just want to go down my question list here. Would you say that in general the workers that you interacted with had a pretty good lifestyle, like most of them were able to buy their own homes and made a good living for their family? That kind of thing.

AR: Yes, they did. Like I said before, their spouses did not have to work. The majority of them did not work because the men did make very good money. They made less money at Brewer then they are making at the Lincoln mill and when it was known to the Brewer union what the Lincoln union was making, well let me tell you something. It didn’t take them long to sit down to renegotiate.

AS: Really.

AR: It’s true.

AS: Was this after Torras

AR: Yes.

AS: Owned both mills?

AR: Yes. Yes, when it was known what Lincoln was making. Absolutely and they had the right. Absolutely. I think Eastern was the lowest paid mill, paper mill in the area.

AS: Really.

AR: Even though the men made good money, it still was the lowest paid mill. So the negotiating team did a very good job for the company negotiating, ok. If you can look at it in both lights, you know the company did good for the company, negotiated what they thought was fair and the union agreed. Now if the union had done their work and had gotten more information of New England mills or Maine mills they would have known to fight what that was negotiated to increase it; but it worked out pretty good.

AS: Why do you think it was that Eastern was so much less paid?

AR: I think the union at that time, whomever they had for a president again didn’t do his homework. That’s what it came down to and Donna and Nick Collins, very smart individuals. I remember before negotiations, I would call around to, what was in Bucksport, Champion Paper, I would call all the different mills in Maine and ask them various questions about their benefits, what they were paying the different shifts or could they please send me a union booklet that would list the different pays. So Donna would have this information and of course there was negotiation committee for the union and for the company. Now I’m going back first with Donna and Nick Collins. Nick Collins was the Vice President of financing, that’s another story in itself, and the company did a very good job. They did you know for the company and I do blame it on whomever the negotiation team was for the union. They should have done better homework but all in all, it was a very, they made a very good living in Brewer. They really did.

AS: Did it seem like most of the folks at the mill lived in the Brewer area?

AR: Well the Brewer area, Brewer, Orrington especially Orrington. Some from Bucksport, not too many and then we started as we, as the mill grew a little bit men were coming, driving from the further distance, you know Holden. It was just the surrounding areas the men came from.

AS: Yeah.

AR: Hermon, Hampden. Just to interrupt for a minute.

AS: Absolutely.

AR: I know of two individuals that got their degrees from Husson and either were Business Management majors or they were school teachers and they made more money working at the mill then they would teaching. So that tells you something.

AS: Yeah.

AR: Especially in Maine and even nowadays teachers don’t get paid enough.

AS: No they don’t.

AR: But yet I know of one friend that I went to grammar school with his degree was in Business Management, in fact his other, Manly Debeck was Business Management, Donnie Kauffman was Business Management so you had some educated employees working in the union as union workers. And they were there primarily for the benefits, the rich benefits and for the hourly wage and overtime, at one time there was overtime quite a bit of overtime and that’s good money.

AS: Absolutely. Do you think that for the most part workers and management got along or were there quite a few conflicts?

AR: Oh no, for the most part everyone got along, everyone got along. In the Bruce Hamilton era, there was a good family; a lot of respect. After Bruce lost his job and Bob Sullivan, John Harker had respect. He wasn’t there very long. Mr. Torras is a yes man. You have to yes him and that’s what he had. He had people around him that would do exactly what he said. John Harker would do what Mr. Torras said but John would get the results in his own way, even though Mr. Torras wanted these certain results and do it his way. John did it his way and got the same results and Mr. Torras didn’t like that. He was gone. He was gone. Six months, eight months, he was gone. So all I can think of is Donald Trump. Donald Trump does like an employee that thinks but Joe Torras wants a yes man. There’s a little bit of difference there in their business sense, business style.

AS: Yeah.

AR: Yeah, they all got along.

AS: Was there a real sense of pride in working at Eastern?

AR: Oh absolutely. These men, when it was still manufacturing fine writing paper, yes everyone took pride in that. They really did and the managers in that era wanted the men to take the pride in their product that they are producing and it made everyone feel great. If they received any awards, if they received just repeat customers right there in itself tells you a lot. The coated paper division is of course something different, that was paper already made and they were putting a coating finish onto it and they had a lot, a lot of, at one time the coater department truly was carrying that mill. It’s when the economy was doing better with coated paper products then with fine paper. Coated paper products could be the Armstrong peel off labels and press labels on.

AS: Ok.

AR: Peel and press, that paper that the item was peeled off from that’s a piece of coated paper. Your feminine napkin, you peel off that piece of paper, that paper is coated.

AS: That’s true.

AR: Your postage stamps that you peel off a piece of paper. We had the contract for that so there was such a variety and when Bob Sullivan took over the coated products, it just went. I don’t know if it was Bob’s management skills but we did lose a lot of customers and it started going downhill. It did. Do you want to hear the story of Nick Collins?

AS: Absolutely.

AR: Oh my gosh, well I, Nick is a friend of mine and to this day he’s still a friend. He was having an awful hard time with Joe Torras. Nick’s position was vice president of finance. Nick was a very intelligent man and he’s an accountant, very good friends with Bruce Hamilton and is today. Well I guess what had taken place was when Joe came, Mr. Torras came in he changed some of the positions and he changed the position of Nick. He took Nick out of vice president of finance because he had his son-in-law be that, Ned Woodridge from Amherst, from head quarters, corporate office and Nick became vice president of the coated products area. People respected Nick. They had a very good order base, customer base. Then Nick is not a yes man either you know. He is just not. So there were words and what happened was some of the managers in the coated product area left and went to work for Nick. Nick went out to New York and he purchased, it was Rochester, he purchased a coated paper manufacturing business and he still has that business today and he’s added to it. The men that left Eastern and followed him are still working with him today. He has his office in Bangor with customer service in Bangor and he’s got men out in New York working. Now Joe Torras filed a lawsuit against Nick Collins and Nick Collins countersued.

AS: Really.

AR: Yup stating that he not only took employees of the company, that he also took customers.

AR: Well this went on for quite some time so it was --- everyone talking about it. You know this is a big thing in the mill so that finally was resolved. It cost Mr. Torras an awful lot of money. It really did. Mr. Torras had the money. Nick didn’t have all that money so it finally got resolved but let me tell you something when Bob Sullivan sat down at his conference table with Donna Holland and Nick Collins one evening to let Nick know that he was all done, Nick caught Donna and Bob in some sort of a lie.

AS: Really.

AR: Yup, yup so I don’t want to say a lie but I’m trying to remember what really took place. Nick is very wise and he was able to use a little reverse psychology and he did catch them in something and it was great. It was just wonderful, you know, it was. And Nick was all done as of that evening so that was a battle for awhile.

AS: Yeah.

AR: Yes it really was and I don’t know how much of a customer base really went with Nick. I think it was just poor management on our part that we couldn’t keep the coated paper customers happy. That’s what it comes right down to, you’ve got to keep your customers happy. You can’t promise them the world and not deliver.

AS: Right.

AR: So that’s the story behind that one.

AS: Yes, that’s definitely interesting.

AR: Is your birthday October.

AS: It’s not. This is just, it happens to be my favorite stone.

AR: Opal. Yes, Glades has one. My birthday is October. I have a few opals.

AS: Is it.

AR: Yes.

AS: I’ve been told it’s unlucky to wear one when you’re not an October baby.

AR: Well someone told me that too but I think that’s just old wives tales anyway.

AS: Lets see, gosh I think I’ve asked you everything that I can, oh here’s one more thing,

AR: Ok.

AS: Do you know of any like pranks or initiation rituals or anything like that, that would go on in your areas of the mill or other areas?

AR: There was no initiation from one individual to another or one department to another. Pranks, the guys were always pulling pranks. When you got employed as a union worker you had to serve a probation period anyway you know that would, that’s about it. Not really in the men per say, I remember Debbie Spencer, she was something else. She wasn’t busy in her day evidently as executive secretary and she would take all these paper clips and hook them all together and she would go put them in one of the vice presidents coat pocket, or in their draw to use as paper clips and here’s this long string. One day she took, Warren Rustion was one of the vice presidents of technical services under Bruce Hamilton and she took, you know how you take your hole puncher and you’ve got all these little punched papers, she took that one day and she filled his pockets in his suit coat with those. I’ll never forgot it, oh she was always doing stuff like that. She was the prankster in the main office. She really was. We had a good group of people working there. It really was and we all liked one another. We did have an office romance too.

AS: Oh really.

AR: It’s probably still going on. I can’t talk too much about it. Yes, yes, but other than that it was an ok place to work. It really was. In one sense I missed, I miss the mill but I don’t, I don’t. I don’t. It was time for me to leave anyway. It was too much.

AS: Did you get any sort of severance package or anything when you left?

AR: No because I left on my own accord and I gave Donna five months notice.

AS: Ok.

AR: And I tried truly wanted to train someone to fill my shoes so I did, what I got was what vacation time I had left coming to me and that’s how I got paid. Yeah, and that was fine. I’ll probably think of things tonight you know.

AS: That’s fine you can always give me a call at the Folklife Center and I may come across other things that I didn’t ask you and stop by for a follow up interview or something at some point.

AR: There’s one thing you didn’t ask is sleeping on the job.

AS: Oh yes.

AR: Oh these awful shifts [Is she getting up? She’ll come play for awhile I bet. Come here Lucy, come on baby] and men sleeping on the job was taboo. Well

AR: In some of the areas of the mill that the men worked during the night. The men would have comfortable easy chairs. They would bring in radios. I mean these guys were comfortable. Yes, they would fall asleep and that’s taboo but every thing was fine. That would be just swept under the carpet under the Bruce Hamilton era. But when the Bob Sullivan regime came and Mr. Torras, that was truly forbidden, all the radios went, all the easy chairs went. I mean these men were on their feet nothing was made comfortable for them, nothing at all.

AS: Were there, was there like a difference in accidents and things like that from one regime to the other?

AR: I really can’t, I really don’t know. I really don’t know without looking at the statistics. I don’t remember.

AS: But definitely in employee morale.

AR: Well yes, big time and when your morale is down, yes you are going to have more accidents, definitely. When the lay-offs started more accidents; chapter 13, chapter 11 more accidents. Yes, that was a big thing to keep [what’s the matter darling]

AS: Oh there she is. I heard squeaking.

AR: Keep everything low you know, workers comp. is so expensive in the state of Maine. It’s truly but I just wanted to tell you that because I can picture an employee sitting in an over stuffed easy chair sleeping on the job and not lose his job.

AS: Yeah.

AR: Yeah. I think it was a shame to take the radios. Sometimes a radio is nice, the music is nice but they didn’t want the men to have any distractions from the outside and that I can understand as well, safety plus keep your mind on the job. Working on a paper machine is a big thing. Yes, I saw Vince and Ritchie Smith last summer in Bangor. There was an outside concert that we went to and they came over and talked and they told us what they had been doing with number two paper machine, taking it a part and sending it overseas and Vince was asked if he wanted to go over, be hired and put it together. No way, he said. No way so and Ritchie’s involvement of course is still taking, as an engineer, taking things apart. A terrible accident happened once. It was in the power plant and they were putting in some new GE generators and the outside contractor hired to put them in. He was laying down underneath the generator and something went severely wrong and it burnt and it blew and it burnt his face, his nose, all in his lungs were scarred. I believe he died afterwards. It was terrible. That probably is the worst one I’ve responded too. I don’t like the smell of burnt flesh. That was nasty, nasty, nasty.

AS: I can’t imagine. Would you have to very often calm down spectators and people around or you know was it…?

AR: Most ordinarily I would say you in the red shirt, you know get them out of here or something like that. I would concentrate on that person. Usually not, the men were good. If there were more females around I probably would have to deal where females are more emotional than the men.

AS: Right.

AR: There were times when I would have to get someone counseling from a traumatic event that might have taken place. Yes, we did get some counseling for the men in the power plant because of that trauma that happened and whom ever else was involved we got counseling for the engineer involved, I’ll never forget that, getting him some counseling. Having the EAP counselor come right to the mill and sit right down and talk with them.

AS: Yeah.

AR: Yup. What I would do if I got overloaded from listening to employee problems or spouses problems is I would call Jim Owens, EAP counselor here in Bangor and he was the person that I had to vent to. I had to vent to somebody. We first started EAP, Donna wanted to know everything that was going on and I said no, no. It’s personal information. If I feel that its job related, oh yeah, I stood my ground. She didn’t like that in me but that’s what I did. You know because it was confidential if it did mean job interference I would do the normal procedure what I would have to do. I will never forget the day, I got to tell you this story; here I am, I’ve done my three months in accounting, my three months in purchasing and now I’m on the switchboard and I’ve got this

AR: job. This is now my job because Debbie’s moving on. She said to me when I had made a comment on format of letter style, you are to act and do and not to think. I said oh? Her favorite name was to call me a twit. I never had a boss, a woman boss, and I never, never, ever again will ever have a female boss.

AR: Calling me twit. That’s not very, that’s unprofessional as far as I was concerned.

AS: Yes.

AR: And telling me that I was paid not to think, just to do. I had to say that to a few people. I said do you know what she told me today? She told me I couldn’t think. Give me a break.

AS: Wow.

AR: Unbelievable and that was the working conditions that we worked under. We would hear swearing coming out of her office with the union in there. Oh my god. Oh god I could go on, tell you the stories but it’s all behind us now. Twit, did you ever? Jesus Christ.

AS: Wow.

AR: Again I was the only employee that stayed in her employ that long.

AS: Did she have many people working under her?

AR: Well she had the switchboard operator. She had the human resource, she made the assistant human resource person. She had me. She had the safety director, answered to her. Until probably the later part of the 1990’s when the safety officer no longer reported to human resources but reported to technical services, environmental and technical. This is how they go now, is with the environmental. Yes, she had a handful of people report to her. I saw people come and go, just come and go. She was difficult, very difficult. But that’s ok. I could handle her.

AS: It sounds like it.

AR: Yes, yes. I think we would, we would be friends if, now I’m very cordial to her and she’s cordial to me so we do have quite a working history together.

AR: She is four years older than I am so she’s 59. In fact her birthday’s coming right up. She’ll be 60. One year, I must have been there just for a few years, two or three years. I took up a collection because it was coming upon her birthday and it was a big birthday, maybe 50 let’s say and I took up a collection from every, all the managers and I went and I hired a belly dancer. A male belly dancer to come to the main office and I had arranged it all and got everyone in the main office, ok. The chair was ready. I had to tell her that her mother had been in a car accident and she had to get, I had to write it on a piece of paper because she was in a meeting, and she needed to get to the hospital. Guess who sat in the chair and had the belly dancer dance with them? Me. They put me in the chair. I mean she had to leave.

AS: Oh no.

AR: So I sat in the chair and the belly dancer, the whole production is stopped because the belly dancer was there dancing.

AS: That’s great.

AR: So we did have some good times.

AS: Do you have any photos of that?

AR: No, good thing. Oh my god, so we partied for her. Yeah, we partied for her.

AS: What did she say when she heard she had missed out on that?

AR: She was glad because she wouldn’t have sat in that chair. We would have made her so anyway, we had been through an awful lot together, yes.

AS: Wow.

AR: So we had fun times. We did. We made our own fun times. Yes, then we had one man who worked in production planning. In fact, he was an employee of my husbands who would do all, and he would do the scheduling for the paper machines. He was a scheduler and he lost his job too about a year before the mill shut down. [Looks like she’s going to jump, look at her. There she’s going to jump. Nope, nope, she’s going to change her mind]. And if he had to stay beyond five, if there was a problem scheduling the paper machines, he’s hungry and he wouldn’t think anything of going in the main office to the refrigerator that was downstairs for the employees

AR: He would eat any food that was there and so we would come in the next day and our food would be gone. Oh Billy must have been here last night. It was a standard joke, honest to god. In fact we hired him. He’s next door working as a salesman over there.

AS: Oh really.

AR: Yes.

AS: And you have to keep an eye on your fridge.

AR: Yes, my gosh. So fun times were had by all, truly.

AS: Yeah.

AR: Yeah, they were. I had good things, good things and bad things, you know because it was an old mill. It was in better repair than Lincoln.

AS: Really.

AR: Yup, but we still had problems with leaky roofs and paper machines breaking down all the time but for the most part, everyone worked well together. Oh once in awhile you had a personality or two, there’s only once that I remember a really bad fist fight.

AS: Really.

AR: Yes. Other than that, things were fine. Drug deals, getting back to drugs is coming back to me. I know that there were drug deals going on in the parking lot.

AS: Really.

AR: Yes, because people would tell me about certain things and where that is private property you would have to have the cops right there. The cops can’t go into the mill or anything like that but that’s as far as it went, I do know about that. Yes, that wasn’t so good. Everyone knew who it was too. You know it’s just bad.

AS: Really, but they all covered for each other?

AR: Yes they did. Yes they did. The guards were good. They were lazy, the guards. The guards were lazy. They were from, I don’t remember anymore, the security. There were some good ones and some slackers. There, the company asked a lot of that security business. They did an awful lot; more than they wanted too.

AS: Really.

AR: Yes, yes but they did.

AS: Would they go through the mill or just stay outside?

AR: No, they were supposed to patrol the mill. There were keys that they had to put in different areas, lock down units.

AS: Oh ok.

AR: And write down the keys. There were times when they would go in the main office and they would steal. They would go in the main office and they’d get on someone’s computer because data processing could read a report in the morning who accessed the computers.

AS: Really.

AR: Oh yeah, guards were fired. There were guards coming in the main office making 900 calls. Of course that’s going to get caught, someone’s going to get caught.

AS: Right.

AR: Hello! Jeepers creepers so that took place from the guards. Yup, yup. And the men became friends with some of the guards and so they could steal things and the guards just turned their back. A lot of that went on but the best one was the lawn mower; taking apart the lawn mower in the mill, putting it in your picnic basket and walking it out. Oh my god.

AS: Wow.

AR: Yes.

AS: Now would people get fired for things like that?

AR: Initially when they started cracking down, the union protected their jobs and they just got their hands slapped and got a warning about pilferage and the company got really hard about it and they should; by all rights should.

AS: Yeah.

AR: Yeah, geeze, funny. Do you have any more questions?

AS: I think I am out.

AR: Ok, I think I’m dry.

AS: Well thank you very much. I appreciate talking with you.

AR: Absolutely.

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