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Session:         Page of 592

locals, small locals primarily, with large funds which run private operations. They are permitted to do things on their own and not be interfered with. That's the way that works. But as a president of the international union you are a member of the club, the AFL-CIO. You're part of that club, and therefore you have a lot of influence. There's a blood relationship there, and that was to hurt us when things got rough.

Q:

So Heaps turned against the merger and he comes out of the hospital and Doris is against the merger, and a discussion takes place at the 1981 convention.

Foner:

And the convention votes for the merger, continues to vote for the merger but it's into a fight. Heaps because we are a trusteeship, kind of thing, and we're going to defend ourselves -- and even pull out of the international, go independent. We didn't want to go independent, but we were using that as a weapon. We went to the AFL-CIO executive council, were turned down by them. We mobilized a rather large and effective public relations effort that rather blackened Mr. Heaps' name in the media all over the country, which he has never forgiven us for -- me, particularly.

But I want to back up on one thing, because I think it's important. The merger was a very, very critical thing for us. It represented a new possibility for our union. We were convinced it came at the right time to take on the industry, and we knew that SEIU was committed strongly to it, and we believed that that was in the interests of our members and the interests of working people, interests of the labor movement.

We began to undertake a number of things in preparation for the merger that I was involved in. For example, just as when the discussions on the merger came up SEIU asked, “Is Bread and Roses part of the merger?” I said, “Sure.” They said, “Good.” In this period, SEIU took “Take Care” in the Midwest, it toured the Midwest largely through their locals. “Take Care, Take Care” toured the West Coast with them as the basis for it. So it was expected that Bread and Roses would have another life because of a bigger thing, a big international union. At the same time, Jerry Shea and I were assigned -- Jerry Shea was the health care division director -- were assigned to work out a couple of points on the merger to put it in place. We did! We put in place the following. I set up a meeting through the United Church, Art Keys and his people, and the meetings took place where we discussed it. We began to map up a committee, and who would be the chair and the secretary. Howard Spragg would be the secretary and I forget the





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