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Session:         Page of 592

Foner:

For members of the union. Their works are reproduced in 1199 News, our publication.

Q:

A free weekly class?

Foner:

A free weekly class, which is --

Q:

With an enrollment of?

Foner:

-- over-enrolled. They have to turn people away. They'll have thirty in each class, sometimes two classes. But it's very successful and gives our members who want to write, and many of them have never written before --

Q:

And this is not how to write a business letter; this is creative writing.

Foner:

This is creative writing, poetry, prose, and when you read it, very often, very, very moving and of very high quality. It comes out of the union, from the members. Those members are people who will participate in Bread and Roses programming because they know it. So these are some of the things that happen and are happening and, I think, will continue to happen.

We now have another development that indicates the national concern. The AFL-CIO has set up, established, a Department of Arts and Culture, which is modeled entirely after Bread and Roses. What they are doing is they are remodeling the headquarters of the AFL-CIO in Washington so that it has a space for exhibitions, a shop for the sale of their products, and on display, permanent display, will be such things that they have now that we got for them. Ralph Fasanella's famous painting on The Great Strike is on display there, permanent display. Each floor is being remodeled with large poster enlargements about working people, and most of them are Bread and Roses posters.

Q:

Procedurally, how did they model it after Bread and Roses? Did you go down there? Did they come up and interview you? Did they get materials from us, from 1199, from Bread and Roses?

Foner:

Bob Welsh, who's the assistant to John Sweeney, and John Sweeney are people I know. They are people who have known Bread and Roses over the years, when we were discussing merger. I remember at one meeting of the merger talks, John or somebody said --

Q:

The merger with 1199 and --





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