George, Tom, Jim and Bob Miller discussed the sweet, bittersweet and not-so-sweet moments of what they called the “sweet ride” at Hershey Chocolate Co. in this exclusive LebTown interview.
Read more: Between Hershey and Wilbur: A look at the chocolate industry in Lebanon County
The early days of the Miller brothers
The Miller brothers grew up on North 5th Street in Lebanon. They attended St. Mary’s School and later Lebanon Catholic School before beginning their careers at the Hershey Chocolate Co., where they worked for a total of 167 years.
“Back then, you could get a job after graduating, even if you hadn’t studied,” said George Miller. “Lebanon was different back then. I mean, there were all kinds of jobs. It’s not like today.”
George said that in the 1970s, you could offer your family members or, Bob added, people you knew were good workers a job at Hershey Chocolate Co. Other companies in the area had a similar practice at the time.
“Back then, it was kind of a family thing. These were places where you could bring your family together,” George said.
He said times have changed, pointing to Hershey’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies that have modernized hiring practices and said that today you have to be politically active to get a job.
“Plus, jobs aren’t as readily available as they used to be,” he said.
Jim said he was proud of his job at Hershey because his brother got him a job offer. He said their bosses would agree that they were some of the best employees they ever had, and he’s met many people who have said Tom Miller was the best boss they ever had. He feels that connection has been lost in the new hiring practices.
The Miller brothers shared their sweet impressions of Hershey Chocolate Co. before and during their employment with the company.
“You live here your whole life,” Jim said. “And as a kid, all you knew about Hershey was you could smell the chocolate, mom and dad would take you to the park, you know, and like I said, when you came home from school and went in there, you thought, ‘Man, this is really cool.'”
Bob said, “I worked right after school… cleaning cars. I thought, ‘I’m not going to drive half an hour every day.’… Well, then when I saw some of Jim’s checks, I thought, ‘No, half an hour isn’t bad.'”
Tom echoed these pleasant impressions, saying that it was a “good place to work, and back then they always told you that you could earn good money there.”
George Miller’s career
George Miller, now 75, began his career at Hershey’s 19 East plant in 1967, earning about $2.42 an hour. A few weeks after starting work at the plant, he received a job offer from Cornwall Ore Mines, where he could earn about $4.50 an hour.
George told LebTown that staying in Hershey was “pretty much the best thing I ever did,” since Tropical Storm Agnes flooded Cornwall’s ore mines in 1972 and the business closed shortly thereafter.
During quiet times, layoffs were common at the plant. The plant offered some employees the opportunity to continue working by taking available work.
After the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment by both houses of Congress in 1972, George said that the jobs that had been male and female jobs during his time at Hershey had simply become occupations, and that seniority lists were now segregated by sex.
This meant that during quiet periods the plant offered women with longer service the opportunity to continue working in jobs traditionally considered male-dominated, and vice versa. The selected employees had the choice of whether to continue working or accept dismissal.
George was fired during one of his first years at Hershey. Soon after, he was given a salary and was not fired again.
The eldest of the Miller brothers oversaw production and maintenance operations at Plant 19 East until he moved into corporate engineering in 1995. He formed a production support group that supported plants in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Hilo, Hawaii, which involved frequent travel for several years.
“One of the bad things about that job was that I ended up having to close a lot of factories,” George said. “So that was a tough job for me, but I ended up closing all the Canadian factories where I had to meet people I’d worked with for years on their last day of work. So it was a tough job.”
George mentioned that it was hard to watch everything he had helped build at the beginning of his career at Plant 19 East be torn down when it closed.
He retired in 2015 after working for Hershey Chocolate Co. for 48 years.
Tom Miller’s career
Tom Miller, now 70, began his career at Hershey’s 19 East plant in 1972. After being laid off in 1973, he left the company for 17 years before returning in 1990.
The middle Miller brother joked that he “closed them all.” He was in charge of Hershey Pasta until it closed in 1998, then the 19 East plant until it closed in 2012, and then the Reese plant until his retirement.
He retired in 2020 after working for Hershey for 31 years.
Jim Miller’s career
Jim Miller, now 65, began his career at Hershey’s 19 East Plant in 1978 and worked in processing and packaging until the plant closed in 2012.
“People had the choice of being laid off or going to heavy haul. And everyone said, ‘We’ll take the layoff.’ Well, I was too stupid. For 12 years I sat in the heavy haul in 100-degree heat, unloading 1,200-pound concrete mixer trucks,” Jim said. “But I thought that’s what you do. You work. But that’s how you avoid layoffs. I was lucky. I’ve never been laid off in my life.”
The eldest child of a set of identical twins, aged eight minutes, was transferred to the West Hershey plant.
He retired in 2022 after working for Hershey for 44 years.
Bob Miller’s career
Bob Miller, also 65, began his career at Hershey’s 19 East plant in 1979 after being held up for a year because of Three Mile Island. Like Jim, Bob was never fired from Hershey.
The youngest of the twins worked in processing until the plant closed. He also moved to the West Hershey plant after working for three years in what he called the 45 building before it closed.
He retired in 2023 after working for Hershey for 44 years.
The Hershey Days or Decades of the Miller Brothers
The four Miller brothers, who each have three children, reflected on how times have changed since they began their careers at Hershey Chocolate Co.
George said when he first started at Hershey, he was used to people touring the factory and watching him work. He said, “People used to take a tour of the factory. They would walk through the factory and then come back out. They had a candy store there and everything, like a soda fountain and everything.”
With the opening of Chocolate World in 1973, factory tours were no longer available and the associated hygiene problems (with over a million people visiting the factory each year) were also over.
During their time at the Hershey Chocolate Co., the Miller brothers appeared in company commercials that ranged from celebrating perfect attendance to showcasing the number of chocolate pieces they wrapped per shift.
Bob told a story about a time he was at a roundtable, a meeting with all the “biggest bosses in the plant.” During the roundtable, a new employee who had worked at Hershey for two years and had a one-year record of continuous attendance asked in advance for a parking space for three months. During the question period, Bob raised his hand and said he had a 21-year record of continuous attendance.
He said, “And I was thrilled with the response from the plant manager, because this young girl said it was almost impossible to get a perfect occupancy rate. He said, ‘Now we have a problem. If I give you a parking space for three months, I have to give Mr. Miller one with a new Corvette on it.'”
The Miller brothers doubt that they were on sick leave for even three weeks during their 167 years at Hershey.
“We tried to bring humor into our work, you know,” George said, a sentiment with which Jim agreed. “We tried to have fun with what we did. … It wasn’t always all sunshine and roses.”
When asked why the Miller brothers stayed with Hershey Chocolate Co. for so many years, they said the benefits were unbeatable. Although those benefits changed over the years, they remained competitive.
“Hershey was more of a family affair. They took care of you,” George said.
When George started working for the company, it paid him his pension, which he started receiving after a few years. In the 1980s, he said, pension plans were replaced by 401k retirement plans, in which the company contributed up to a certain percentage.
Other great benefits of working at Hershey included good pay, the opportunity to work overtime, and the chance to continue working for the company despite layoffs and plant closures.
George said, “I think my 48 years (at Hershey) were a great and sweet time. You could eat as much unwrapped candy as you wanted. That was the rule. You could eat as much chocolate and candy as you wanted, but it had to be unwrapped.”
Thoughts on retirement
Back then, the Miller brothers say, Hershey Chocolate Co. celebrated work anniversaries by letting employees choose a gift from a catalog. Today, the company celebrates retirements by giving employees a cake.
Over time, George said, the company has eliminated some of the awards it used to give for consistent attendance and similar achievements.
When asked how retirement was going, Tom simply said, “I love retirement.”
Jim works as a bartender on Thursdays to spend money, but his career allows him to support himself financially in retirement. “I’m doing well. Everything is great. I can’t say anything bad about working at Hershey,” he said.
Regarding Bob’s retirement, he said, “The only way I know what day it is is because of my pill bottle.”
Questions about this story? Suggestions for a future LebTown article? Contact our newsroom using this contact form and we will do our best to respond.
Support local journalism.
Can be cancelled at any time.
Already a member? Register here
Free news isn’t cheap. If you value the journalism LebTown provides to the community, then help us make it sustainable by becoming a local news champion. You can unlock additional coverage for the community by supporting our work with a One-time contributionor as monthly or Annual Member. You can cancel at any time.
Related
