The reasons given by shopkeepers for the dismissal of their assistants, or by assistants for giving notice, were often curious; sometimes ludicrous or grimly humorous.
The following 'reasons' for dismissal have beentaken from cases that passed through the NAUSAW&C central office all those years ago.
1. Woman (27 years of age) engaged as assistant - afterwards ordered to do housework in addition. Hours, 7 am to 11 pm. Gave notice.
2. Dismissed. Told he had no right to look for another job while he had one.
3. Dismissed, man, 23 years of age, for having candle in bedroom.
4. Dismissed for carrying matches in pocket.
5. "Dismissed because my customer would not stay to be served after closing time."
6. Dismissed for charging a pennyworth of gum tablets to wrong department.
7. Man (grocer, age 20), wages 7s. Parents left town and was obliged to go with them.
8. Dismissed for being ill one day.
9. Man (30 years of age) dismissed for getting married.
10. Woman (23 years of age). "I had to give notice on account of the food being so bad, and young ladies who had not very good characters. I did not wish to lose my good character."
11. Man - "living-in" - dismissed. Complained of condition of sleeping apartment, where water dripped on to bed from ceiling.
12. Dismissed for refusing to sleep in bedroom with unclean person.
13. Dismissed for asking for advance on 22s. per week for managing butcher's shop doing £135 per week.
14. Dismissed for going through wrong door to dinner.
15. "Guv'nor objected to me as a prospective son-in-law."
16. Asked for two days' leave to return home to arrange for and attend funeral and was dismissed.
17. Dismissed for bringing a sandwich to work.
18. Ate a plum.
19. Caught in the act of serving a customer.
20. "New employers regretted to find they had engaged me without having a vacancy."
21. Suffering from "guitar" of the stomach.
22. Employer got a relative to work for less wages.
23. Temporary "birth".
24. "Held responsible for shortage of stock which I was on holiday."
25. Because customer would not conform to rule of establishment and wait for receipt from the cash desk.
26. Alleged defiance - singing in bedroom.
27. Refused to sleep any longer on the pledge counter.
28. "Dismissed because I would not shout in the street."
29. "For refusing to sign an agreement that would prevent me from earning my livelihood at my own trade in my native place."
30. For eating a scone at teatime. The preference for this rather than bread and butter was regarded as a personal insult.
31. For becoming engaged to a young lady employed by the same firm.
32. Stock short £2.4s. Previous stock was £2.4s. over.
33. Dismissed. Employer doesn't quite know why.
34. For doing too much work. Grocery trade.
Shop assistants were in every way bound to their employers, often dismissed for misdemeanors committed outside working hours.
There was much work to do. In order to be effective the Unions realised they needed to increase their numbers.
In 1893 the National Union of Shop Assistants changed its name to the National Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks (NAUSAW&C) and five years later joined forces with the United Shop Assistants Union to form the National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks (NAUSAW&C).
Meanwhile, in 1895, the Manchester and District Co-operative Employees' Association (MDCEA) merged with the Bolton Co-operative Employees to form the Amalgamated Union of Co-operative Employees (AUCE).
On formation, the AUCE had 2,151 members and had net assets of £92.2s.2d.
The formation of the NAUSAW&C and the AUCE ensured that trade unionism in retailing was here to stay!
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