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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Session:         Page of 592

Foner:

He says, “You take the contract.” It's like part of his severance pay. “You can have the contract. You can administer these people. Make an independent union. Do what you want. I won't bother you.” And Elliott knows the workers there, too, some left people there, Morris Hodara, Marshall Dubin. These people had worked in Montefiore . Elliott had all kinds of experiences before 57, attempting to organize, Montefiore and failing. He had a sit-in at Beth-Israel in 1936, and Brooklyn Jewish. He had a lot of experience.

Q:

How old was Elliott at that point?

Foner:

Well, when he died, he was sixty-seven. He died about five, six years ago.

Q:

So he was sixty-seven in 1980.

Foner:

Yes, '79, probably.

Q:

My mind isn't that quick.

Foner:

Elliott was still about in his forties at that time. So they know each other. Elliott doesn't have a job, and one day he's in the hiring hall. In 1199 we have a hiring hall, hiring from the union. He's looking for a job as a pharmacist. Davis sees him and they talk, and Davis says, “Hey, how would you like to take a crack at organizing the hospitals?” Elliott agrees after a long discussion, and they begin to figure out that they should try to organize in nursing homes first, proprietary, profit-making nursing homes. You don't want to go into the voluntary hospitals. They're big operations. So they fool around with nursing homes, and they find out that in the proprietary homes and hospitals, that many of the workers are derelicts, they pick them up off the streets, many of them are live-ins, and that if you sign up two people, the next day you come and they've been fired and that it's not the kind of thing -- that the work force is not -- So there are little things here back and forth, and nothing happening really.

Then finally, in '58, Elliott says he's like to take a crack at Montefiore. Why? He still knows some of the people who he organized years ago and still at Montefiore, some old left people. He'd like to try it. So Davis saiys “Okay. We'll assign Ted Mitchell, a black organizer in the drug union, vice president, with you, because of the work force.” And so they try.

Q:

Can I stop you for one second? Do you have a direct relationship with these discussions and efforts at this time?





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