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When you had a one year contract it was a natural. You signed a contract and you started planning for the next one. That's it. When you had a two year contract you had probably a year of, “All right now we settle down. We get ourselves together and we get it going again.” When you start getting three year contracts, you know you have the three year contract. It has an effect on the organization. The leadership says, “We're going to start getting better together in this third year. We have to start building all of the things around the third year.” Until then we play a play-act. I think you need that. I think the very nature of the organization has it within it.

But the problem is people get tired of mobilizing all the time.

People get tired, yes. For example you have delegates. You had a watch on the people who didn't come. At the beginning we had a rule. If you miss two delegate assemblies in a row you were automatically dropped. After a while it was if you miss two without a legitimate excuse. Then it became three. Then you had to watch the attendance by each area and division. We were big on statistics. I'm telling you, we spent a lot of money. Because the office people were putting together for the staff meetings -- for the officers' meetings and for the staff -- reports on delegate assembly meetings. For example on the delegate assembly. What's the attendance, and compare it over three or four months, so you can see what's happening. It also becomes a competitive thing -- that's another important thing. Competition among staff people and others. If you're losing, you must always have new delegates elected, because you're going to lose them. There's going to be a natural fallout, so you have to constantly replenish or renew delegates. After a while it becomes almost like a -- you can virtually write a book on what you do and what you have to do and what you can't do. Some people on staff, and some officers on staff, virtually, it's within their membranes. You say this they know that. See. It's a peculiar kind of thing.

See, you know what you ought to do some time? It would be worthwhile. Ask Mark Levy next time you see him -- see, you know enough about it now -- if you can have a session with him. A few hours where you want to talk to him about running a democratic union. See Mark was in U.E. and he was in 1199. He was in 1199 at a very good time, and at a very bad time. He ran a very good operation. He was very smart and very well liked, and he knew how to work. Ask him how it works down below, and what he learns from it. It would be interesting.