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Session:         Page of 592

the strike is settled that you will not move on your action for a six month jail term.” He says, “Yeah, yeah, good.” Okay.

He says, “Okay, the judge says that.”

[END TAPE]

Foner:

Van Arsdale then hangs up and says, “the judge is not going to interfere with the settlement.” he says to Davis, “What about this business about the back pay?”

Davis tells him that we've got to have some back-pay for the strikers. “Harry, you can't do it. As a matter of conscience, I can't agree unless there's some back-pay.”

He says, “Okay, we'll do what we can.”

He goes back. They call up and say, “Okay, you've got it.”

Q:

All of it?

Foner:

Not all of it, but enough.

Q:

Whoever heard of getting back-pay from a strike?

Foner:

Well, listen, what's so terrible about it? It's not so terrible, is it? The big thing about it, really, is Davis' guts, you know. You can see the situation for him to hang on tough, because he sensed that we got it now, that they can't back off it, and we got it and we're going to push for it.

Q:

Let me ask a question. Maybe the answer is fairly obvious. So much of the union's success in both these instances that we've discussed today is built around public relations, legal maneuvering, and so on and so forth.

Foner:

Because, remember, that's me. If you were to interview other people, you'll get the inside story of what's happening on the picket line and the strike. So that's what I mean by the various levels of it. I can describe to you only in a general way what's happening. For example, that's the strike where Benny Katy--Arthur Osman went down to Florida to speak with the president of Beth El to try to convince him to settle without a strike, to agree to recognize the union, and he was in the toilet while he was talking to him, and he couldn't move him on it. It's one of those kind of crazy things. You had a whole lot of things happening on the picket lines all the time. You had arrests, you had hundreds of people in jail all the time on these strikes, and you have to maintain strike headquarters every





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