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Elliott knew an enormous amount about hospitals and how workers react and what the jobs are like, you know, what the problems are in each department, and how to organize. He was a genius in that sense, because he spent his whole life doing it, and he had, because of his patience, he could listen to workers and make suggestions without overpowering them. He could inspire them, but he wasn't the kind of hot shot that made people feel that he knows everything in the world, that all you have to do is depend on him and it'll be all right. And he had the help of Teddy Mitchell, who could talk to black workers, and who had been a porter in a drugstore and could talk that way. You could come to a meeting and bring to the meeting a porter from a drugstore who would tell him what he made.

By comparison.

By comparison. This is a porter, he's in a drugstore, he's in the union. You make thirty-six, he makes seventy-four. You work forty- eight hours, forty-four hours, six days, he works forty hours, five-day weeks. You've got no coverage. He has a complete hospital benefit, etc. You know, go right down the line with what's he got. This is the union, see, hiring, through -- you know, etc.

The other advantage we had is that the director of Montefiore Hospital was Martin Cherkasky. Cherkasky came from Philadelphia, and when he was an intern or a resident, he had organized them into an organization. He came out of the left, he was a progressive. He was very brilliant. He was considered, even until the time he retired, he was considered one of the most gifted hospital directors in the country. He was not anxious to have a head-on conflict with the union. Had he done so, he could have beheaded the union at an early stage.

Did you know that this was going to be a factor?

We didn't know it was going to be a factor. We didn't pick it for that reason, but when we found out that he was there, it was being used to help us. So Elliott would try to get a majority in departments, and we would try to work it out so that we would test the workers, what could they do. Because, remember, you were dealing with an industry that had been excluded from all of the social legislation enacted during the New Deal. They and the farm workers had been excluded from the Wagner Labor Act, from the minimum wage law, from unemployment insurance disability benefits, Social Security. You name it, they were out of it. They were uncovered. Therefore, a hospital was not breaking any law if they said they did not want to deal with the union, and they said, “You don't like it? Strike.” And if you struck, you could get an injunction, to say nothing of striking a