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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Davis and Ruby Dee and people like that there, “It's my union.” There's a tremendous amount of pride and identification. Because when Ossie and Ruby perform, they don't just perform; they start talking about the union, and they start talking about 1199, about their union, see. So that it becomes like a united home. You're in your own home with these people. That's the whole thing that you create with this thing.

You get Alan Alda there. Members don't know. They know that there's a Broadway show that he's on and he's working with Diana Sands, they know that. So you get Alan Alda there. One of the things that happens is that the people become very impressed. People from the outside are shocked; they never saw anything like this. So you say to Alan, “Let me drive you home.” He lives up near Washington Bridge. “I'll drive you there.” While you drive, you're telling him about the union. By the time he finishes, you name it. So Arlene Alda is calling. She's a musician. She's a flutist in the symphony orchestra, and she hears about it. She wants to come with him to see things. So you begin to develop a relationship with everybody in their family, their children, your children. Like Ossie and Ruby, we go to their homes and they come to our homes, the kids know each other, their kids know our kids, that kind of thing. So it's cemented. That is important in terms of the relationship with the artists and then the member begins to rub off. So Ossie and Ruby will come to the union not to perform; they'll come to walk around and to talk to people, see, that kind of thing.

Q:

So the gist of it really is that you're trying to create an institution which is alive enough that people can really identify with it in some way that's broader than just wages and working conditions.

Foner:

It's almost like a church. People have got to feel for this union that they're ready to put their lives on the line. The whole structure of the union is that way. You build a steward structure. It's true that 1,000 stewards are an unwieldy group for meetings, but you have 1,000 stewards, you have a demonstration, you can produce for it. You have an action in a hospital, it becomes known that the hospital runs into trouble with you, that you're going to have a demonstration, that they know it's not like most unions have. You're going to bring 1,000 people, and 1199 demonstrations are going to bring not only hats, but they're going to bring signs and they're going to start screaming, and before you know it, there's going to be something happening there. It's that kind of thing. That's why when Murray Kempton said, “Well, 1199 strikes were like wars of national liberation,” it was that kind of thing all the time. So the culture





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