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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Session:         Page of 592

were able to build the kind of organization that we had in New York. They had Newark solid, and they were never -- only now they have potential, whether they'll carry it out I don't know -- [able] to organize outside the heartland everything. The place was crying for organization. It potentially could become a big big union. Nicholas in Philadelphia built an organization in Philadelphia. He built it like the 1199 model, but he also put his own imprint on it. It's a big political machine there -- a big political machine. There the union -- and he -- plays a tremendous role in politics. Almost to the point that others run the union, where he politics all around. That pays to the union. But there are various differences.

Baltimore we've had a complete -- problem after problem after problem there. We sent to Baltimore a guy named Fred Punch, from New York. Turned out to be a phony. Ended up on management's payroll. Had internal problems in Baltimore. Have never been able to develop the kind of leadership that could build a good union. As a result the union has been in difficulty -- never really organized beyond Blacks. Never organized a guild. The hospitals took advantage of the union, and have been able to chip away a lot of things there.

I'm thinking of other places. 1199P outside Pennsylvania is a largely white union. It's hard to make judgments, right? Okay.

Q:

The question arises for me of, how do you maintain a democratic union and participation by the members without constantly creating this state of siege mentality? In other words, how do you run a democratic organization and not burn people to a crisp? Obviously this is a question that, it's really almost a sort of a theoretical question about organization.

Foner:

See, [District] 65 had a certain approach to it. Davis had a somewhat similar approach to it. It was Osman's -- I think I mentioned it -- to set impossible tasks as part of the siege thing. Goals. Sometimes these impossible goals were realized. It's almost, I think of it sometimes when I hear these crazy -- like the fund raising things on radio, like NPR -- when you know you're going to raise it. If they didn't raise it they're going to say they raised it. Or they've got a challenge, and they're going to make the challenge. Sometimes by now some people are saying, “Well, we've never given back a challenge. We don't give back challenges.” Okay. So you had that kind of thing. Constantly setting goals for people.

Also there was the theory that a union that doesn't organize will tend to begin to, internal problems will arise. You have to be always on the battlefield. Davis believed in that too. For example I would say to





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