00:00:01.059 - 00:00:28.799

OK. as the head of the TDU chapter after the election in '82. You were already, you already working at Hanson at that point? I'm going to get the years wrong, but you have to understand that I was, I left at, I stepped down from the TDU

00:00:28.799 - 00:00:52.439

chapter in the process of stepped down in the chapter when I left the union. I didn't, I don't think I stepped down. Well, Joe and I Joe came to the first meeting. In bare feet, yeah, you told me that story. Um, uh, and And yeah, I

00:00:52.439 - 00:01:17.459

called the first meeting, but the TDU chapter. was Originally me and Joe, um. Uh, I can't remember when Jose Lopez comes in or when, um. I mean, the thing that happened when the the the TDU chapter became something more than a small little unimportant thing at

00:01:17.459 - 00:01:34.110

the when the one case, that's when it becomes an actual real rank and file caucus is in the one-par case and it became we got into the one par case because we're going to the union meetings and the very first thing that TDU chapter tried to

00:01:34.110 - 00:01:54.440

do was get a quorum at the union meetings. That was like our first. Now, Yeah, Joe is younger than I was and not. And newer to politics, but, but, um. But in those early, I mean, I don't think of it. As me being the head of

00:01:54.440 - 00:02:13.520

it and Joe being, I don't think of it like that, um, uh. Um, So when I left, uh, but I don't know what year that is. Um, when I left, I could no longer be part of the TDU chapter because I was no longer I was

00:02:13.520 - 00:02:33.339

no longer a teamster, and you know, during the strike, I'm not a teamster, I, I, I, you know, my, my area of um activity was as one of the many counselors to TDU. Um, and as, um, in the strike committee, I mean in the strike support

00:02:33.339 - 00:02:47.399

committee, the local strike support committee, that's where I. I was active and I'm gonna want to ask you about that too because I. You know, I think a, a defect in my research has been focused on the people who were actually strikers or who were involved

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with them. There's very little about I don't know very much about the uh. The local or the Santa Cruz support committees and I need to, you know, really the only person I've interviewed aside from yourself from the Watsonville is uh Delia Mendez and I went to

00:03:02.070 - 00:03:24.009

talk to her about her but um yeah there was like. There was like progressive Santa Cruz County. Manuel made the point. He said, you know, Watsonville has always been a magnet for for some reason. you know, going way, way back, he didn't explain it, but it

00:03:24.009 - 00:03:39.979

was his observation, and I think, you know, I guess he He just moved out of town fairly recently, and he was, he, he was here for 20 years, he said. After the strike, well, you know. Turn it off.