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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Session:         Page of 592

interested also in this question of -- well why don't you answer that and I'll ask my next question.

Foner:

It's hard for me to say. I knew. One of the goals I had was I wanted 1199 to be known as the Bread and Roses union. Because I knew from a p.r. point of view that that phrase was so powerful, and so good, and so sweet, and so non-threatening, for a union to be identified with a slogan like that, that you could gain a lot from it. Now to be successful, it had to be able to reach a lot of people. Now, we were very careful of where we brought the show. If we had an election scheduled at Daughters of Jacob, for the nurses, we made sure that the show came up there before that election. I remember in the Voice, the Voice did a long feature by Rachel Cowan on Bread and Roses. It was very very good. It's reproduced in the first special report -- we reproduced a lot of the p.r. thing. She quotes an organizer saying that it helped us win the election there. So I was aware of it, organizers would come to me and say, “Look, we have this thing happening.”

See, part of the problem was that I always had this feeling -- it was more than a feeling -- that Doris regarded Bread and Roses as a threat to her. That Bread and Roses was a threat to her because it came at a period where there was beginning to be talk of the succession. I'm sure she felt that I was using Bread and Roses as a way to build myself as a potential successor to Davis. The p.r. thing, because Bread and Roses was getting so much p.r. that I became identified with the union every place. You know, “Mr. Bread and Roses,” that kind of thing. “This is Bread and Roses.” I would be introduced at the delegate assembly. “What do you think he's going to talk on?” Bread and Roses. “Update, tell us what's going to happen on Bread and Roses.” That kind of thing. I think I made the point last time that it was like a torrent. It could run over people -- you couldn't stop it. It just went on by its own momentum because it was good, and because there were members there wanted it, and there was enough pushing for it, to put it through.

The other thing is very very important, that I have not mentioned. I mentioned the kind of union we have. We also have a leadership in terms of Davis. Davis saw this kind of thing as being valuable and important.

Q:

Why?

Foner:

Davis felt that it was good for the union. He also liked the idea. You know, after all the idea of setting up a gallery in the building, of taking very valuable space in the lobby and putting a gallery there, and never moving it out, meant a commitment to this kind of thing. He





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