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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Session:         Page of 592

come, we were quickly going out and getting the word out. We were putting out very, very attractive literature. Of course, I remember that when the hospital strike was settled, when the bill was passed, there was a Daily News two-column headline about “Rocky's Hospital Union Bill Becomes Law.” We would reproduce those things with the stuff that always referred to the fact that this union had gotten that bill passed, so that was an effective kind of thing.

Also, after the law was passed, we set up the Guild Division, because under the new law, it set up election units, a service unit, a professional and technical unit, and a clerical unit, an LPN unit, an RN unit. So you can get elections for units. By the way, that's been changed in the federal law recently by the labor board, to make the units all big, to make it difficult to win. But since there were units and since we had learned lessons from these first strikes that you needed the Guild, and you had to appeal to them on a separate basis as professionals, we set up the Guild and were beginning to pick up units of LPNs and technicians and that kind of thing. They were beginning to move to the union, first in the hospitals where we had the service workers and then in other places, too. But we didn't go to the RNs yet; we were still staying away from RNs. We figured we had enough. So that's another thing.

Now, in '63 and '64, we also begin to go to Jersey, and we conduct a very vigorous campaign in the Newark area and in the area around Newark. We win majorities in a lot of places. There they also have a problem. Elliott knew somebody, Alan Wesenfeld, from the New Jersey Mediation Board, and we were able to get a court decision that was almost equivalent to giving us the right to an election. So we won some elections in Jersey at the same time. Also, by the way, '63 is the March on Washington, and the first press release for the march is put out from our office.

Q:

Really? I didn't know that.

Foner:

I wrote the first press release for the March on Washington. We sent 900 members. We raised money, people contributed to go. But we're doing a lot of things. I'm staying now strictly with the history of the union, not the side things like civil rights or theater.

Q:

I think we should.

Foner:

We'll come back to that, because we'll deal with it in a lump. Because the next thing that happens here is, remember that the law applies to New York City. We're organizing all over the place, and in 1965 we're organizing in Bronxville at Lawrence Hospital. Bronxville is





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