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and the workers. When you give out that leaflet and once the announcement is on the Montefiore contract--
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The workers are calling about, “We want to join the union from Montefiore.” That's it. That's the union from Montefiore. The postman is carrying in stacks and stacks of these forms that are coming, and calls are coming in. So that before very long, almost immediately you're suddenly moved into -- like Montefiore is put aside, and we have to tell the workers, “You have to bear with us. We'll come back and we'll administer the contract, but we've got other things to do.” We get Montefiore workers to come to talk now.
You're dealing now with forty-odd hospitals around the city, in all the boroughs. Hospital workers go to work at 6:00 o'clock in the morning, so you've got to be out there at 5:30 in the morning to give out the leaflets, then you have to handle different shifts. We can't do it; we don't have enough people. So we go into the drug division delegate assembly and we ask for volunteers to join the Crack of Dawn Brigade. So hundreds of members volunteer to come to the union at night, pick up the leaflets, and they have an assignment, where they'll try go, to match it as close to where they work, and they'll get there at 5:30 to distribute the leaflets and then go on to their jobs. Then you get the responses start piling in, and we're running meetings all over place. In different corners of our headquarters every night there are meetings. The drug organizers are now taken off the drugs division, and they're assigned to hospitals to try to do what they can in drugs, but they're assigned to hospitals. And they're all white. But in this kind of thing, it doesn't matter. It's like a revolution is developing. A revolution is developing.
So the thing begins to pile up, and before you know it, we reach a majority in seven hospitals, and we just look to see what we've got. Most happen to be Jewish hospitals. In some cases they were not. So we go where we are. And so we tend to go there. But by this time, I have already met with Stanley Levison, and Stanley has gotten me to meet with King, and Stanley tells him what it is, and I tell him what it is, and he says, “This is great. Include me in. Count me in. Whatever I can do, call on me. Deal with me through Stanley. Check with Stanley for anything you want from me.”
So I have an arrangement with Stanley, if I want a statement, I will call Stanley and say, “I need a statement.” Or, “Is this statement all right?” That kind of thing. So you have that with Stanley.
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