Session: 123456789101112131415161718192021222324         Page 145146147148149150151152153154155156157158159160161162163164165166167168169170171172173174175176177 of 592

it, that he told us that we ought to add Lenox Hill. Van Arsdale said, “Add Lenox Hill.” We added Lenox Hill. So we went out.

We made preparations, we assumed the strike, the routine kind of things. We had never been in a strike this big in our lives. We sort of learned the ropes as the strike went on -- the kind of committees you needed. I think I mentioned earlier that hopsitals were twenty-four- hour operations, and therefore you had to have picket lines up all the time. That meant that you had to have committees assigned to shifts, and you had to have committees assigned to prevent people from going in, and all of that. The hospitals were always saying that very few workers were out, and we were saying that 3,500 were out. We knew that we were right, because at the end of the strike, when they returned to work, they had to process all of these workers to go back. However, I'll get to that later in the evaluation of the effect of the strike.

I think I've mentioned -- I know that I had contacts with people in various hospitals who were in management, whom I would talk to every night and would report what was going on in the hospitals. My job during the strike was primarily internal and external and community support. Early in the strike, Davis, because the injunctions were issued, because it was illegal to strike a hospital, Davis went into hiding to avoid being served. “Gone into hiding” sometimes meant being in a hotel room in the city, and we were in contact. After a short while, it meant being in his office. Nobody was told that he was there.

The committee that was in charge of operations of the strike was Davis, Elliott Godoff, Billy Taylor, myself -- I think that's the top committee, and beyond that, we had a staff and organizers. The organizers we had were all division organizers; we did not have hospital drug division organizers at that time. Well, Local 65 came and offered us ten organizers, and they were assigned to us for the duration of the strike. Van Arsdale offered us assistance in every possible way, and we began to campaign to raise funds. With his help, we raised -- I can't remember, there was a report we prepared -- I think we must have raised from the unions and the public, we got money from the public, too, about $150,000. But unions were giving aid in kind. The bakery workers every day would bring bread and cake and rolls to different picket lines. After a while, we worked it out that unions took the responsibility for bringing food, so that every week we were able to give food out to the strikers. We were able to give coffee to the strikers -- that was a nickel. Julia Davis, who had been a social worker before she retired, began to operate a program of social work assistance, working on the question of housing, rent, payments, you