00:00:01.909 - 00:00:15.600

I don't think they did. But, but, but the truck comes and somebody, I don't know who it was, comes up to me and says, we're here with a truck from the joint council. We want to go to the, do you want us to lead the march

00:00:15.600 - 00:00:30.479

downtown yeah. And I said no, no, we don't want. It's ours. It's ours. You guys can be at the someplace else in the march, but and he was, he was flabbergasted. That was Bill Walsh. I don't remember Walsh. Oh, he was the guy who worked with

00:00:30.479 - 00:00:54.979

the you know, he, he was one of two people that Chuck down. Alex was one, and then Bill was basically there to sort of see what he could do to help out. Um, and he wound up marrying, I guess, the secretary of Local 912, uh, but

00:00:54.979 - 00:01:12.699

you know it was this transformative experience for him. He was a dried out alcoholic who, which, which, who did he marry, um, Dolores, is that her name? A Mexican girl. I don't know. Pam was the secretary, Pam. I don't Pam, uh, the office person, you know,

00:01:12.940 - 00:01:26.569

not, not an officer, but the person whom Pam. I believe Pam became an officer later, but at the time she was secretary at the office, I don't know, I, I, I thought it was Doris Dolores or something like that maybe it was I whoever it is,

00:01:26.580 - 00:01:46.129

is living up in now widow, but um no. He, he, he kind of his life had kind of run off the rails. Uh, he, he was a staunch union guy, you know, in local 70. But he lost his job because, you know, of his drinking. He

00:01:46.129 - 00:01:59.050

checked into a twelve-step program in East Oakland where as Chuck puts it, he was the only white guy in the room, uh, and Uh, he got on the wagon and Chuck wanted to give him something to do that would be good and useful to the union

00:01:59.050 - 00:02:10.110

and useful to him, and he sent him to Watsonville to kind of work with the strikers to help him out with the food bank and stuff, and that was what he did. Yeah, all the strikers I talked to him, I remember him. He'd come down to

00:02:10.110 - 00:02:32.850

the picket lines for us, you know, he was, you know, kind of interesting. Didn't, didn't, um, didn't Chuck have a Spanish speaker to send? I'm sorry. Why didn't Chuck have a Spanish speaker to send? Alex, Alex speaks Spanish well. Very well, he's he was Basque, um,

00:02:32.860 - 00:02:46.029

he, he was and he was there to gather intelligence, you know, I think, ah, so he of course would be talking to people one on one a lot. Bill was more there to so we team bunch of old white guys, but we're here, we care about

00:02:46.029 - 00:02:59.339

you, you know, and, and that's what he did and he did a he did an excellent job of it, you know, everybody. All the strikers I've talked to say, oh, I remember Bill Walsh, what a sweet man, you know, that kind of thing. Um, no, Alex,

00:02:59.509 - 00:03:14.410

um. Chuck told me a story about the first time he met him. He was a young guy running for union officer for the first time, and he was going down to some warehouse to leaflet, and Alex was there. And he would, depending on who the nationality

00:03:14.410 - 00:03:29.830

of the work coming out of the warehouse, he would go back and forth between English, Spanish, and Chinese, you know, without missing a beat. He was raised in Shanghai. His father was a player from, you know, Catalonia or whatever, and I guess there was a big

00:03:30.429 - 00:03:53.470

kind of a cult in Shanghai before World War II, so he moved his family there, you know, ah. And he grew up speaking Spanish and Chinese, ah, and you know, plus he was a very bright guy, you know, uh, Chuck regarded him as a brilliant strategist,

00:03:53.639 - 00:04:07.550

you know, he was really good at, you know, Chuck was looking for ways to win strikes without smashing windshields and shit like that. There must be more sophisticated methods we could use, and Alex apparently was really good at coming up with them. A lot of the

00:04:07.550 - 00:04:23.160

boycott shit, you know, uh, he was responsible for that, uh, contacting the stores and, you know, you're getting damaged right now. You don't really want to sell out to your customers, that kind of thing. That was his role, but he was also the Spanish speaking contact

00:04:23.160 - 00:04:38.940

and he could not operate openly in Watsonville that much while King was still in office because if King happened to sober up enough to come around the hall, there'd be hell to pay, but, uh, uh, he, yeah, that was why. OK, he sent Alex in there.

00:04:41.100 - 00:05:06.250

Uh, anyway, um. Let's get back to my questions. Um, I hope this is helpful to you too. Oh, it's I haven't thought about this stuff for a really long time. Well, um, So I think you've already explained to me that when you were no longer a

00:05:06.250 - 00:05:24.989

teamster, you no longer could function as a member of TDU. Joe said he described, so you must have been when you ran for uh secretary treasurer, that would have been at 82. Were you actually expecting to get that big of a vote? Uh, yeah, I kind

00:05:24.989 - 00:05:35.029

of thought we were gonna win. I think, I think, uh, you were planning to win. You weren't just there as a protest candidate. Yeah, I know, I, I mean, no, I thought we had a chance to win. I think that, I think that we could have

00:05:35.029 - 00:05:52.119

won. I mean, I mean, Sergio won in the election. Yeah. Sergio won the election and they won the election on the on the grounds that I'd been to China. Yeah, he bragged it to me. He said, Frankie, you, you know, you shouldn't have visited China before

00:05:52.119 - 00:06:12.880

you, before you, uh, you ran for a union office in the United States. I said, I was, I said, um, Sergio, I went to China after Nixon. Good answer. And he said, yeah, but you went on a different kind of trip. Well, it was, it was

00:06:12.880 - 00:06:34.589

a UCSE trip. It wasn't fucking different kind of trip. But anyway, they, they, they scared people and they, they, they bused people in. They bust people in the vote. Yeah, of course it was and um uh I mean I don't think that they misted the votes.

00:06:35.540 - 00:06:53.700

But, um, and you know, they had a male ballot election, a fucking male ballot election. And, um, and you know, and Sergio was a power in the union and, and Sergio had helped a lot of people and so he cashed in his chips, but, but, uh,

00:06:53.730 - 00:07:14.799

Jim and, and Jim and um And uh King could have never beat us and, and, um, so Seria told me that he was actually, um, when the campaign started, he'd been detailed out to the western concrete is working with some strike in the Central Valley. And

00:07:14.799 - 00:07:26.459

King called him up on the phone and said, you got to get back here. We're both gonna be out of a job. Yeah. Yeah. He also in the same interview, he said, you know, I don't know if I told you this already or not, but he

00:07:26.459 - 00:07:42.679

said that. He frequently bad mouths Joe. I think they have a kind of a love-hate relationship. It's only two guys who have held office for 10 years can have, um, what about Frank is you always know exactly where you stand with him. He comes right up

00:07:42.679 - 00:07:53.660

to me he says what he thinks I'm gonna fight you and as soon as the bell rings I'm gonna come out, come out swinging and if I, I advise you to do likewise, you know, it's much easier to deal with people like that. That's to make

00:07:53.660 - 00:08:12.809

you feel good. Yeah, well, there's some truth to that. Uh, um. You know, I think it would have been a disaster if we would have won the election, but you weren't thinking that way at the time. No, of course not, of course not, but I mean,

00:08:12.899 - 00:08:37.570

you know, we would have been if we would have, if we would have won the election, people would have felt that TDU and the left were responsible for driving the frozen food industry out of Watsonville. It wouldn't have been true. Because I don't think that the,

00:08:37.849 - 00:08:58.619

the objective condition. of $4 a day in Mexico. Could have kept the frozen food industry in town. I would allow the frozen food industry to stay in town. We couldn't have stopped it. That's what I'm saying. You weren't really aware of that at the time, were

00:08:58.619 - 00:09:13.919

you? I, I've read stuff you wrote at the time saying why are they investing all this money in their plants? Why has Shaw got this new state of the art plant? Why did Morono blow $750,000 upgrading his plant, you know, they're here to stay, yeah. They

00:09:13.919 - 00:09:30.500

and they didn't know it either, you know. Um, and seems to have been somewhat aware of it, yeah, and then they, they, they hit on this thing, thing of, of importing the importing the broccoli and and and freezing it here that that campaign he did but

00:09:30.500 - 00:09:50.409

he was also the most overcapitalized of all of them, yeah, and you know the when they had the Buy America campaign, they were, they were packing Mexican produce. I was. You you don't know about that? I didn't know that. Oh, that's grown in Mexico and Watsonville.

00:09:50.690 - 00:10:08.729

Yeah, Joe and I exposed that when I was writing for um that would have been a little bit. Yes, that's later. Joe is a union official. This is after strikes over. They have a buy American campaign and we've got a photograph of Joe. We got a

00:10:08.729 - 00:10:27.229

photograph of Joe holding up a box of broccoli. That says Echo in Mexico in front of the Shah, you know, inside the Shaw place, and we, we found where they were hiding it. And uh And the and that was the end of the Buy America campaign.

00:10:29.700 - 00:10:44.150

Well, I know, um, for me, you know, I had always sort of assumed that Sergio was a Kind of a stooge of king who just happened to hang on to power, you know, and the league represented him in the papers. Well, at last they have a

00:10:44.150 - 00:11:03.630

Mexican running the union here finally, and I, you know, my reaction privately was big fucking deal. But I Sergio was never a stooge of kings. He I think he might have been at the beginning, you know, he talks about King like his father figure, you know,

00:11:04.960 - 00:11:19.520

I mean King, I think reacted the same way when Sergio turned against him that he did when Mark Conso fucked him over. It's like, you know, King Lear. Yeah, OK, I, I, I just mean that Sergio was an independent Sergio played his own game from the

00:11:19.520 - 00:11:40.479

beginning, and Sergio respected him deeply in the early years. I, I think that's true, but I don't, but Sergio also knew what he was doing. Sergio extremely smart person. Yeah, I, I, you know, I people. Bad mouth them uh a lot, uh, I know he was

00:11:40.479 - 00:11:55.159

sort of. When I talked to him, he said he just reminds me of, you know, 3 quarters of the other career union people I know, uh, for better or for worse. Um, I think when I first started taking him seriously, you know, because it's like it's

00:11:55.159 - 00:12:13.830

the nature of the job. Uh You're called upon to try to balance some fairly irreconcilable contradictions in what you're doing, you know, and I mean brighter people than you and I have written about this stuff. Um, And um I think when I really started taking it

00:12:13.830 - 00:12:34.869

more seriously was a few years after I think it was in '92 93, Carinists came to San Jose. And SEIU, they were doing their Justice for Janitors campaign, and they organized a whole program around him. Uh, around NAFTA. And you know, There was no question in

00:12:34.869 - 00:12:52.830

my mind that Sergio stole the show from Cardenas. Because you know, this is undemocratic. This was not done properly, the people were not consulted. We should, you know, the, the, the, his whole thing was like the sort of liberal obsession with technicalities and stuff. And these

00:12:52.830 - 00:13:07.369

guys were working the midnight shift and we're separated from the says, Well, what's, what's, what's so terrible about our being able to go home, you know, and earn a living there? At which point Sergio took a mic and said, look. I grew up in Mexico. I,

00:13:07.469 - 00:13:21.299

I, I, I learned our country's history from the same textbooks that you did. When is US investment in our country ever brought us anything but crap? We all know what Standard Oil did to us. And you know, Cardenas would never have been capable of saying something

00:13:21.299 - 00:13:35.429

like that in spite of what his old man did, you know, he really, first of all, you said what needed to be said in that venue, very well with a lot of credibility. The other thing that I've noticed about him is it's like he talks when

00:13:35.429 - 00:13:56.109

you talk to him now. Like the great tragedy of his life was the failure of Ron Kerry's. Administration. He's even more wrought up about it than Joe is. In fact, Joe is fairly hard boiled about it. It's a, the, the failure of Kerry's administration and especially

00:13:56.109 - 00:14:20.099

the way it went out. Um, with the fucking Einsky eyed dirty trick money. Um, is, um. Is one of the major um tragedies of the working class in those years. I mean they're legitimate they're legitimately upset about it I think. I don't think it's just a

00:14:20.099 - 00:14:37.780

personal thing don't you think, don't you agree with that? Oh yeah, no, I mean, I, I, uh, I do agree with it. I was not paying really close attention, you know, in the early 90s because of my personal situation. Um I got the impression that Kerry

00:14:37.780 - 00:14:52.869

was not quite the ball of fire, that you know, labor notes was making him out to be that he was militant but not that political. Uh, and. You know, this is one problem I've, I've had with labor notes for a long time. It's like they'll find

00:14:52.869 - 00:15:08.049

anybody who will stand up to the incumbent bureaucrats. And The whole thing is like the opposition. What happens when the opposition gets into power, you know, what actually do you expect these guys to do? What do you want them to do? What would it take for

00:15:08.049 - 00:15:26.229

them to do the right thing? And you know, I mean, um. Once I got involved in, you know, union politics myself, I've learned that, you know, the hard way too. Um, I think this is, you want to know how the league's politics evolved during the strike.

00:15:27.429 - 00:15:41.520

Um, people started thinking and in a lot of ways it was a negative thing. But people got more and more dissatisfied with the sort of oppositional approach to unions. It's like the main thing is what do you want the goddamn union to do? What would you

00:15:41.520 - 00:15:56.070

do if you actually got elected because they, they were starting to elect some people into union office. How do you make a difference, you know? Um, anybody can put out a leaflet trashing the leadership, you know, just what we did along with everybody else on the

00:15:56.070 - 00:16:10.900

left, you know, at the beginning. Uh, But how do you make a union operate in a progressive way given that it's got all of these responsibilities in terms of these legal things it has to operate under the responsibilities to bargain collectively for the people in your

00:16:10.900 - 00:16:27.489

jurisdiction regardless of the impact on, you know, all that stuff. And um what's the conclusion of that? Yeah, I mean, I don't have any answers to it. I'm just less judgmental about people who get in there and uh and and don't quite figure it out. I'm

00:16:27.489 - 00:16:44.200

not an expert on this. I really not. I just read a few, you know, stuff here and there. Um, I know it was a great loss, but I mean, I think there's, there's two. There's, there's two things I think of when I think of Carrie. One

00:16:44.200 - 00:17:03.869

is, once you invite the government in, then they're in. And the government carry only got in because the government and, and those. The oppositional group called the government in. They wouldn't have been able to come in without their support, and then the government was there. So

00:17:03.869 - 00:17:32.630

that's the first. And the second one was that in Kerry's campaign. Some Alinskyite folks arranged this dirty trick, you know, passing money, yeah, well, they, yeah, they were SAIU guys yeah another another uh. Another casualty I think of them deeper philosophy, I think that really, I

00:17:32.630 - 00:17:48.420

mean. You know, the whole Minsky syndrome. That yeah that's one of the things that's valuable about your, your book, I think, is it really. Does a good analysis of what's wrong with that whole kind of organizing. Well, part of what's wrong is their, their belief in

00:17:48.420 - 00:18:05.140

dirty tricks, and they, these guys thought they could cover the money and they couldn't. People need to remember that Einsky got all of his ideas from watching John L. Lewis. Yeah, that's true. That's absolutely true and wasn't a Democrat, was hardly a, yeah, but no, I

00:18:05.140 - 00:18:24.619

mean, I, I think, oh, I wanna tell you one thing about Surge. I tell you about Surge ahead. I got my first impression of Surge. Which, um, And his buddy, what the fuck was his buddy's name? Uh, what the fuck is this buddy's name? The other

00:18:24.619 - 00:18:46.770

guy Ellis Ellis, yeah, and Ellis was when we started. Getting a quorum to come to the to the union meetings. And Surge's technique when people would bring up a problem. His standard thing you could you knew he would do it. You just had to figure out

00:18:46.770 - 00:19:05.930

what way he was gonna do it would be to think of all the different interests involved and why people couldn't get together to do anything about this. So if you, if you brought in people on the line complaining about it, complaining about a uh uh floor

00:19:05.930 - 00:19:26.780

lady, surgeons say, well, you know, floor ladies are in the union. Oh yeah, I, I've been that too, you know, and he wasn't making it up. No, no, no, no, but that's that's, that's, that was his response, not. Not trying to figure out a way to

00:19:26.780 - 00:19:42.439

figure out a way to get around it. He tried to divide people when people came into the into the office with a complaint, he tried to divide them and um that and and you know, I saw that for a couple of years. You're talking now about

00:19:42.439 - 00:19:59.489

after the strike or no, no, I'm talking about before the strike when you were when you were when you were a 79 to 82. And when when when our main thing was bringing people into the office, you started the TDU chapter in 1980, right? Yeah, but

00:19:59.489 - 00:20:18.069

I came in October of 1. Yes, I think so. I wouldn't be and, and between 80 and 81, the main thing was to go to to to to get people to go to the union meetings. Um, and, um, and the way we did that was listening

00:20:18.069 - 00:20:33.069

for complaints because I was a lumper. I was working in the plant, so I heard all kinds of complaints and you, you moved around to different plants. I talked to you how exactly that work? Did you, did were you paid by a contractor I was paid

00:20:33.069 - 00:20:51.459

by a by a by the trucking company and I got um. Uh, very good wages. The, the trucking company, the lumper wages were came from the San Jose contract or something like that. So I got good wages. Um, Dwayne Beason actually told me that that was

00:20:51.459 - 00:21:05.050

one area where the union got into a lot of trouble because it was, uh. They were soaking the employers in a way they couldn't justify legally. Uh-huh. I don't know how whatever it's gone now. The lumpers are all the lump it was gone before the before

00:21:05.050 - 00:21:21.699

the industry shut down. The lumpers are all hired by the, by the, uh, canneries. They were hired by the canneries. we were hired by the trucking companies, so we got the we got the wages associated. That change happened because of um when. Oh fuck, I don't

00:21:21.699 - 00:21:48.689

know sometime after sometime, um. I don't know. I don't know whether it happened before the strike or after the strike. Sometime soon after. Um I think sometime soon after I caused so much trouble. That would probably would have been before the strike. Well, that would probably

00:21:48.689 - 00:22:02.609

be, you know, I think, um. He, he, you know, I was talking to him about something completely different, and he just sort of happened to mention that this is one area where the union was not on shaky legal ground because the lumpers were paid way the

00:22:02.609 - 00:22:19.589

hell more than I forget what we made, but we made real good wages and so then we had very close connections with forklift drivers and then there were a number of plants where, um, so the forklift drivers know a lot in any in any um. Plant

00:22:19.589 - 00:22:52.000

because they move around so much. So that's where we learned about the conditions and then I used to go eat lunch in the Green Giant, um. In the green giant, uh, uh, cafeteria. So it was out of all that that was formed. So You were still

00:22:52.000 - 00:23:15.219

a lumper when you ran for when you ran against, no um. OK. Uh So we have this TU chapter which um I can't, I don't really know what, what, um, what Ken's attitude towards it was, but we seem to be getting a lot of support and

00:23:15.219 - 00:23:29.260

help from, from Detroit. Oh, you brought him out and you made a had a public meeting and you got fired and then I went to the uh then you went to Hanson and I went to an LRB and I won, I won a settlement. I mean

00:23:29.260 - 00:23:47.410

there was this, uh, a, um. And they at the end of the settlement of the NLRB settlement, a guy came out from, um, a guy came out from, uh, Rhode Island, an interesting guy who was the NLRB investigator, and, um, and I won the thing. It

00:23:47.410 - 00:24:11.189

was proved that they fired me because of, uh, concerted activity. And um the judge said to me, do you want a higher Financial settlement. Or do you want a lower financial settlement and your job back? And I said, I want to lower financial settlement in my

00:24:11.189 - 00:24:27.680

job back. Because I wanted to keep organizing. And um I like the job as Lump. That's something else I kind of remember to tell you about the difference between me and Joe and some of these other people. I like being a lumper, so, um, but what

00:24:27.680 - 00:24:45.469

happened of course was. I technically got my job back, but they, they got rid of the job. Uh-huh. Um, I believe it was in that period that they actually changed the whole system, but There was no work for me. They found another guy to do it

00:24:45.469 - 00:25:00.160

and they had some so I went back to the NLRB and I said look at they didn't get it to me and the NRB wasn't interested, so I made a mistake right, so, um, then I wanted to stay in the union but I was blackballed. I

00:25:00.160 - 00:25:16.119

went and got a job at Shaw's, um, on their, on their, um, printing boxes and I was there for, um, I got sent by the unemployment department and, um, I was trying to get back into the canneries. And um I worked there for one day and

00:25:16.119 - 00:25:35.709

they fired me. They recognized somebody recognized who I was. Um, because I used to work a lot loading truck trucks at Shaw's and um. Uh And so I, I, I couldn't find a place to work in the any of the main places. Hansen's was a little

00:25:35.709 - 00:25:56.709

tiny, um, uh, bottling company that, um, where it was all Portuguese, all work mainly Portuguese workers, and they didn't know diddly shit from TDU, neither the management nor the and so by the time the union got the time the union got um wind of it, I

00:25:56.709 - 00:26:15.569

already had passed my. My Yeah, I already passed my 90 days. Then they took an old union loyalist and they sent him to work at Hanson's. Poor guy. I, I, um, they found an old union loyalist who was on the executive board. I can't remember his

00:26:15.569 - 00:26:29.619

name. He's dead now. They sent him to work at Hanson to keep his eye on me, but I turned him around because we spent a lot of time. He told me more about them than I than he told them about me. This isn't it? Yeah, yeah,

00:26:30.099 - 00:26:46.890

he was the vice president of the union. Yeah, well, he was sent to Hansen's to work. I'm alive. The vice president of the union, they they'd actually sent him to work in this little. That ought to feed your sense of self importance. They had nothing better

00:26:46.890 - 00:27:01.660

to do with his time. Well, he was, he was a vice president is not a full-time position, you understand. It's an executive board position um and he was, he was a, oh, he had a bunch of stories from the 30s and we really became friends. Bobich

00:27:01.660 - 00:27:24.839

and I became friends. Yeah, you did tell me that. Yeah. But here is the problem. Here is the problem. I was made a forklift driver for a while. I just, I loaded pallets. They made me a forklift driver at at Hansen's and I did not like

00:27:24.839 - 00:27:44.030

driving a forklift. I don't like to drive and I, it's dangerous and um, you know, you're a danger to other people and um I've done it. I fucked it up, yeah, and um I didn't like it and you, you have, I had 3 bosses. Because I

00:27:44.030 - 00:28:02.640

had to I had to undo the end of the line. I had to take the apples off the trucks, and I had to, um, uh, dump the apples on the, you know, where they were being, um, sorted. They didn't sort any fucking apples in the juice,

00:28:02.689 - 00:28:19.170

but they, you know, they took out um 1 out of every 5000 apples. Um. Uh, and so I had 3 people wanting me there and I just would get flustered and, um, I dropbox. I, I didn't like the job. I did not like the job. Oh,

00:28:19.209 - 00:28:32.930

OK. I've, I've been there. I drove a forklift at the Oakland Maine post office for a while until I took my license away because I was just too, it's, I, you have to respect people who do that job well. Yeah she gets very skilled work and

00:28:32.930 - 00:28:42.520

if you fuck it up, you you're a danger to everybody at the very least you're gonna overturn some pallets and dump them all over the place and then has to pick them up at the very least. I did that. I didn't do it enough to lose

00:28:42.520 - 00:29:05.089

a job, but I did it to the job. So then I ran for office and then after we lost. I don't know how long it was, maybe a year or 6 months or something like that. I did the bad thing that political people do. Um, after

00:29:05.089 - 00:29:23.410

running for union office, you leave the. You leave the industry. That's a very bad thing. I'm not proud of that at all. Um, but it was because I hated the job. Now, here's the thing that I want to tell you about me and Joe. I'm a

00:29:23.410 - 00:29:43.650

political person, a very political person, but None of the jobs that I've ever done. Uh-huh. Have I done for their political reasons? I did them because I liked the job. That's even true of the fields. Now, people find that really, really hard to believe, but that's,

00:29:44.270 - 00:30:00.719

that's true. I was young, I liked the physicality of it and, and, um, when my, in my My work years working in the fields, I made real good money working 6 months a year because I was a salary picker. A celery cutter, and then I got

00:30:00.719 - 00:30:18.550

top unemployment in the offseason. When I moved, when I get, when I moved from the union. The UFW to the um to being a teacher at the school, I think I've cut in pay. We did that for quite a while. Yeah, 25 years? What school? Yeah,

00:30:19.770 - 00:30:46.089

25 years in the school. So and you said in the book that you encountered a lot of your old friends from UFW there from the fields, yeah. So anyway, um. That's also true of Joe. Joe was a UPS driver. He liked the job. Both. Joe and

00:30:46.089 - 00:31:04.989

I. I think it's true of Mike too, when Mike worked in the canneries. I'm not sure about that, but I think so. I think Mike, uh, my impression was that Mike liked to work. It's true of Mike Parker. Mike Parker really liked the work. He was,

00:31:05.000 - 00:31:22.459

um, he was a, you know, a maintenance man on a, on a, on, on assembly line. Maintenance man on assembly line is a highly skilled job. I would expect that and um. That's a different orientation than somebody who proletarianizes themselves or um goes to work in

00:31:22.459 - 00:31:41.849

the plant to what do they call it now salting is what the younger salting salting that's a union term which political people have taken up. Yeah, um, salting, that's a very different orientation. So my one defense. In terms of running for union office and leaving the

00:31:41.849 - 00:31:58.510

industry a year later, is that I had just, that was the one time in my life that I'd gotten a job. For political reasons because when I was kicked out of the lumping I felt well TDU was unfinished, so I had to get a job and

00:31:58.510 - 00:32:18.390

but but the only reason I wanted a job was for the political reason so that's my defense. Well, but it's a weak defense for what it's worth. I don't think I became very Effective as a union activist until I was actually carrying mail, which I loved

00:32:18.390 - 00:32:35.319

doing when I was a mail handler, I wasn't worth shit. Either as a worker or as an activist on the job. It was just a paycheck and it was dreary and um. You know if you know anybody who's worked at that job, but um, That was

00:32:35.319 - 00:32:48.729

why I was foolish enough to get a forklift license. I thought it might be a little more fun, but. You know, I look back at those 10 years I was tossing mail bags at the Oakland main office, the 10 lost years of my life, you know,

00:32:49.140 - 00:33:05.510

at least I had young kids at home I was raising, you know, but it just Uh, yeah, if, if you aren't enjoying the work and you can't take pride in it. You're not going to be a good organizer either. I agree. I agree with that. Um,

00:33:06.599 - 00:33:30.699

I was in a terrific local we call it a branch in the NALC up in Portland. And you know, very left politics of this really kind of activist tradition. Um, And um Part of the reason that letter carry, I realize letter carriers are different. Than people

00:33:30.699 - 00:33:46.650

who work in, you know, in in mail processing. Because nobody fucks with them when you're out on the street carrying mail, nobody can tell you how to do it. They try. You're not under the boss's roof. No, there's this tremendous pride in it, you know, and

00:33:46.650 - 00:33:57.329

they come around at the beginning of the day and say, Well, uh, what time are you gonna come back from the street? 2:30. Well, according to the computer printout, you should be back by 1:30, say, fine, have the computer deliver the route for me. I'll take

00:33:57.329 - 00:34:18.870

the day off. There wasn't a thing they could say, you know, I have a very, very close friend who was a letter carrier for. 30 years my closest friend actually I know Bob uh Bob Murphy, he's in Salinas was local't know. I know so many people,

00:34:18.919 - 00:34:31.188

but not in and uh he, he enjoyed it and when he first started working there when you finished your route, you could go home. Yeah, that was a long time ago. Yeah, well, that's, he's been retired for about 5 years and he worked 30 years, so

00:34:31.188 - 00:34:46.378

that was a long time ago. Well, that actually that's the way the rural carrier still operates. Yes, that somebody told me no, he wasn't. He walked downtown Salinas. Well, he was on his route about that. He lived on his route. He delivered mail to his house.

00:34:46.989 - 00:35:03.899

I, yeah, I know people who did that. I mean, I, I, I, I know carrier who prided himself on the fact that he delivered mail Dion Wenner on Patrero Hill before Rolling Stone made him a millionaire. Uh No, I, you know, um. I remember he liked

00:35:03.899 - 00:35:18.139

it. He liked the politics of it when I first started carrying mail in San Francisco. Um, I was sent out to I was a part-time flex and I was sent out to Hunters Point. Uh, and the reason they sent me out there was the day the

00:35:18.139 - 00:35:32.139

Social Security checks came out, and they thought it was the union had persuaded management that it was unsafe for somebody to be carrying all this money in this rough neighborhood, you know, so the carriers were set out in pairs. So me and the regular, we split

00:35:32.139 - 00:35:42.830

the route up. He took half, I took half, and we spent the rest of the shift in the library reading. And you know, the thing is I never felt so safe as when I was up there because the whole neighborhood was out there and if anybody

00:35:42.830 - 00:36:03.000

had tried to mess with me, 15 people would have come to my defense because the people there waiting for their for their checks, I mean. Uh, anyway, um, I'm gonna go take a leak. You want something to drink? No, but I have to take a leak

00:36:03.000 - 00:36:18.229

when you're done. My favorite Brown story is, uh, you know, Mabel 10 is one of the league. Mabel 10 is one of the league people who went into electoral politics and really went south when she did. I mean, say what you will about Oscar, you know,

00:36:19.149 - 00:36:40.429

it's almost inevitable. Well, Mabel, I think she took it way farther than she needed to, but. She sits down at a table with Brown at some puncture, uh, oh, Mabel, I understand you're a revolutionary. Yes, a new type. Yeah Uh. New type indeed. Well, my, you

00:36:40.429 - 00:37:06.159

know, my favorite quip about the one that I use when we are really battling was, um, you know, the LRS revolution is their middle name. I'm sure that's not unique with me. Hadn't that you hadn't heard that. Uh. So, um, When you did lose your job

00:37:06.159 - 00:37:23.959

or quit your job at Hampton, um. You quit basically, yeah, yeah, they didn't lay you off. You just you arranged to get unemployment, um. And there was a question of, I mean, you had been like the to hear Joe tell it you were like whatever your

00:37:23.959 - 00:37:36.229

title was, you were the sort of, you know, the the chapter had kind of got along on the course of your personality and your expertise and that kind of thing. It was your baby, people looked to you for leadership and so forth and that. In Joe's

00:37:36.229 - 00:38:12.929

opinion, it was never the same after you left. I'm not saying that, you know. Mhm. But I don't remember the content of the discussion, but Joe and I were concerned about it, and, um, I continued to Joe when I was out of the union, Joe continued

00:38:12.929 - 00:38:28.669

to come and talk to me, but we didn't feel like I should, I should keep on coming. There was also a time when. I forget what the fuck I was doing. What the fuck was I doing? I think I'd already gone gone into the adult school

00:38:28.669 - 00:38:44.770

because that's where I, I was teaching the adult school and there was a job there used to be a part-time, um, a part time truck washing job at UPS and it was the kind of job that I used to like part time high pay was high

00:38:44.770 - 00:39:05.669

pay at the time. Um And Joe tried to Joe could have got me in. And uh I could have stayed in the union and I decided not to because I was having a good time um teaching. Uh, and then, then, you know, the story of the

00:39:05.669 - 00:39:19.159

strike would have been a little bit different if I'd been in the union. But I don't think it would have been much different. It would have been a little bit different. Well, I think the point you made earlier about, say what you will about, ah, Leadership

00:39:19.159 - 00:39:35.540

objective conditions ultimately are. Yeah, at least as important or they set some limits on what, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, OK, uh, so I mean what about Jose? I mean, he, he and Joe were the yeah they were the co-chairs of the of the of the

00:39:35.540 - 00:40:05.679

chapter, right? Yeah. So I don't know. I, what do I remember about Jose? He was, um, he was, uh, uh, uh. Ah They were probably I don't know. I think I want this. I think I want this off the record. off the record is I don't

00:40:05.679 - 00:40:24.030

want to say those unkind things. Yeah, no, I, I would not quote something like that. I will say that. And I don't like talking too much about myself. I'm gonna have to work around it and you couldn't find him. Well, Joe doesn't know how to find

00:40:24.030 - 00:40:46.030

him. You don't know how to find him. Gilroy named Jose Lopez, um, there were two of them in Watsonville and they're always being confused, you know, um. These two that I know about, you know, uh. I He, he, he, he, he, you know, he, we're gonna

00:40:46.030 - 00:41:12.100

part la madre, you know, um. He had a more It sounds militant but isn't necessarily militant. Well, you know, I think the way this is why I, I think I probably have. I can probably portray him with a reasonable amount of accuracy even if I haven't

00:41:12.100 - 00:41:25.860

met the guy because I'm gonna have to write about people who aren't around anymore, but, ah, and you know it's so hit and miss you, but the sense I got from both Manuel and Joe and their assessments of him were pretty similar. I think if anything,

00:41:25.939 - 00:41:46.360

Manuel was more sympathetic to him, but they both said hell of an agitator, shitty organizer, you know, uh, wonderful mind, politically, horrible people skills, you know. The way Joe put it is he He got very impatient when people didn't see things his way and people picked

00:41:46.360 - 00:42:03.469

up on that immediately. back here. Uh, so I think, you know, yeah, you're probably right in what you said, and then, you know, 85% of the people working in the plant were women, you know, 85% of women, and we had, we had Fedelia, but you know

00:42:03.469 - 00:42:18.429

it's a there's a sort of Esperanza Contreras work with TDU? I mean, yeah, yeah, I had a good interview with her. I mean Gloria and I and her sat down and we had. It was one of the more enjoyable interviews I've done. She remembers the strike

00:42:18.429 - 00:42:35.639

with real pleasure. A lot of people don't. She was a Esperanza was a was a real authentic leader of that strike, um, she was telling me with pride how her 15 year old daughter disarmed a cop, you know. You know, like a little league dad, you

00:42:35.639 - 00:42:55.649

know. No, Esperanza, I can't but I think we may have met Esperanza during the strike. I can't remember whether Esperanza was with us before. Fedelia was. Esperanza, no, I mean, she, you, you get a feeling for Esperanza in the movie. Well, she's a picket line hooligans,

00:42:58.520 - 00:43:12.899

no, I mean, no, I, my sense was that she was somebody who enjoyed a good scrap, you know, uncompromising, and she made a great speech at that last meeting, you know, that's, you know, she went, she and and um what was her husband's name? I don't

00:43:12.899 - 00:43:33.469

know. What the fuck is? I can't remember. They became Teamster organizers. They went to, I thought that was Esperanza Torres. Esperanza Contreras. Oh no, I'm talking about Esperanza Torres. Yeah, no, no, I'm talking about Esperanza Torres. Esperanza Contreras is as you describe her. Esperanza Torres is.

00:43:34.199 - 00:43:52.770

Is um the person I'm talking about. Yeah, I tried to find her, her phone has been disconnected. Yeah, she's in Salinas. Um, and, uh, you know who ought to know about her is some Teamsters. I wouldn't be surprised if if Oscar knows about her. He might,

00:43:53.719 - 00:44:13.979

um, or, um, because she worked for the Teamsters, right, and then she got fired. Mike was vague about what it was that she just. But they went to some protocol and left open to, you know, she's a she was a wonderful person Esperanza Torres. Mhm. Um.

00:44:14.580 - 00:44:36.879

And I think the teachers should know she lives in Salinas. I saw her. Did Joe know about us? Did you ask Joe about where she is? I didn't. He might know because he would, he would got of the organizer shop with 890, right? Yeah. Um, Joe

00:44:36.879 - 00:44:53.639

might know. Mike might know. OK, I'll I'll ask. Well, you know, I mean she's featured pretty much in that movie quite a bit. That's what I wound up doing with Guerina because when I talked to her, it was kind of a. It was a difficult interview.

00:44:53.719 - 00:45:06.320

I mean, she just burst into tears about halfway through and it was just, you know, it was obvious I was just sort of bringing her nothing but pain with my questions. She said too many memories and that was the end of it. She also, I had

00:45:06.320 - 00:45:20.020

not realized it, but she voted no on the final agreement, even the last one after the hunger strike and refused to go back into the plant, got her her degree in social work and does what children's services now. You're talking about. You know, she really, I

00:45:20.020 - 00:45:35.100

don't think she would have even talked to me if Oscar hadn't leaned on her a bit, but it's too bad because I think she was really important at the beginning. G is important, you know, I, I bump into her every now and then we get fabulous.

00:45:35.340 - 00:45:52.500

Yeah, I mean she, she spoke highly of you. I think she got involved in TDU largely because she trusted you, she did say that. Um, Everything else, it was like just a big blur in her mind, you know. But she gave several interviews, you know, that

00:45:52.500 - 00:46:16.939

I read, you know, early in the strike, she was quite Articulate and had a lot to say. Yeah. So I'm gonna have to, uh, you know what happened to her? I don't know. I don't know. She's a yeah, I know that, um, I know what happened

00:46:16.939 - 00:46:40.520

to Lydia's son. He became president of the local. Yeah Nice, nice agreeable guy so um. I've got a couple of Things that I pulled out of your files. Three things. You were saying you thought that you wrote this. I already, I think I sounds like me.

00:46:40.530 - 00:47:10.540

Yeah, this looks like it was a draft. Do you have any recollection? It does look like your typewriter and your, you know, yeah. That's one thing I learned at Berkeley is how to recognize a leaflet by the by the pike. Joe's concern was that people started

00:47:10.540 - 00:47:27.620

talking about um That that that $5 a week assessment, uh, what's it really being spent on that people wouldn't give, wouldn't contribute to it, and something had to be said. Reassure people that I do not remember the uh the business about the strike fund. I don't

00:47:27.620 - 00:47:41.250

remember the the the dispute about the strike fund. Yeah, you don't. OK. I have a feeling it's not that important. It just, you know, it was there in uh in in the archives you donated, so there might be a story behind it. I, I think in

00:47:41.250 - 00:47:56.010

the grand scheme of things it didn't matter much. My sense is, and this is what I want to ask you about, I don't know if you're familiar with that. You, you said at Joe's hearing before he joined Council 7 that um, The Watsonville Support Committee had

00:47:56.260 - 00:48:11.350

donated $30,000 or had raised $30,000 to the strike. Did that go to the food bank? Did it go into the, the union strike fund? Did you guys have your own relief fund? I mean, I know Chevello had a little $12,000 fund of his own that he

00:48:11.350 - 00:48:34.729

used to to sort of help people out. We had weekly food giveaways. I imagine that most of it went there. Um When you say we, you mean, uh, yeah, um, this is not the food bank that Lydia and Bill Walsh were involved with. Is it something

00:48:34.729 - 00:48:55.709

else? No, this is a, these were separate food. We used to have, um, we used to have a meeting over at the church right over there, and, um, I can't remember whether there once a week or once every two weeks and we used to, um, it

00:48:55.709 - 00:49:15.270

was a Free food we came to eat. And we had performances and things. It was like a, it wasn't so much a meeting as a party, and then we also Gave away food. We spent a lot of money on the turkeys. Where we bought the turkeys,

00:49:15.510 - 00:49:36.840

gave away the turkeys on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Um, I don't remember whether we gave to that food bank or not. I can't remember whether we gave money to the food bank or not. We may have. I don't, I don't remember. But we did have our own

00:49:36.840 - 00:49:59.520

events and our own food giveaways and our own free meals and um. And uh And then the two big turkey buys you bought turkeys for and you gave to everybody. What maybe you should tell me something about the activities of the support committee generally, you know,

00:49:59.600 - 00:50:13.260

is that the main thing, and I know that that Sherry Lesson filed a lawsuit at one point. Uh, um, she was with us, the Watsonville Support Committee, she was, yeah, she was an attorney, and she, I guess she tried to sue to get the injunction lifted.

00:50:15.620 - 00:50:37.459

Yeah, I don't remember that. I don't know, we used to meet. It was like a, it was like a Santa Cruz left. Grouping. Um, it was, you know, for me it was the place that I had, I legitimately could. B Because I wasn't a striker, I

00:50:37.459 - 00:50:58.080

wasn't a union member. Um Uh There was an and we basically raised money in the area. We didn't go out of the area we basically raised money in the area. People from the uh people from the Resource Center for Nonviolence where Phil McManus was in it.

00:50:58.969 - 00:51:31.199

Who was that again? Phil McManus is from the Resource Center for Nonviolence, um. Uh. And we raised money from from from Santa Cruz County. Excuse me for a moment. There's a it's gonna come soon. I'm OK I know OK um. Were you, um, Oscar said that

00:51:31.199 - 00:51:40.719

when he got to town, you know, the day of the Solidarity rally that you were actually in charge of logistics, that he, he went down, he was told to go down to the park to Callahan Park, and you'd be there kind of orchestrating, you want to

00:51:40.719 - 00:51:58.489

give any kind of of that or nothing? I mean, I thought it was, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think that we made a mistake about the rally, but I thought the Solidarity day was great. And I think the fact that things got out

00:51:58.489 - 00:52:13.760

of hand a little bit was just fine. Well, I mean, you know, there was like some in front of Shaw's or something there was some little deals between the cops and I, I, I, I thought other than when you think about how many people showed up

00:52:14.649 - 00:52:37.040

and um and the way we Violated the injunction and um uh 2000 people facing off against cos you know I thought it was a great, I thought it was a great day. The rally was badly handled. Uh, so you started off in Callahan Park and then

00:52:37.040 - 00:52:51.360

you just marched to the plant and then broke up after that and I, I, I wasn't there actually. I went to the subsequent ones, but um. I gathered, well, what Oscar told me is, you know, he, he started asking questions when he got out of town,

00:52:51.370 - 00:53:04.100

and he said, Well, get this rally got all these people coming in there, and this is cop and attacking people, right, what's, what's the arrangement for security? And nobody seemed to know, so he said to Guillermina, Go find 10 people and have each of them round

00:53:04.100 - 00:53:14.729

up 10 people they can trust and then just link arms and stand between the cops and the crowd and make sure the cops don't try to attack people. Do you, were you aware? Joe said he wasn't even aware that was going on. He says it sounds

00:53:14.729 - 00:53:29.360

like a good idea. Was that your take on it, or do you think something else happened? I, I don't know, but the cops weren't going to attack that crowd. Oscar was afraid when he got there, there were all these people coming in, you know, the cops

00:53:29.360 - 00:53:52.879

weren't that, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a. There's a um there's a thing in, in, in, in those left meetings. Mhm. And next time you see Oscar, ask him whether the people with their hands. Linked Standing like this, whether they're facing the cops or

00:53:52.879 - 00:54:13.719

they're facing the Frank, I've got to tell you something solidarity I went to was the one in the beginning of November. And I was, there was some Telegraph Avenue types, you know, if you get my drift. I was sharing my seat with and um. They said

00:54:13.719 - 00:54:30.219

exactly what you just said. I don't think these workers really understand the true nature of state power. You never turn your back on a policeman. And I said, I don't really think you need to lecture them about the danger that the police pose to them. No,

00:54:30.300 - 00:54:48.320

that's not my, that's not that's actually not, that's not what I mean by that. Who are you protecting from whom? If you if you should be facing the cops you're not trying to hold the people back, you're trying to hold the cops back. Um, so anyway,

00:54:48.600 - 00:55:11.770

facing the cops or I don't remember. I remember I know the one I went to, uh, they were definitely facing the crowd should be facing the cops. Well, this guy was making I I don't know who the hell he was, you know, Sparta or like that,

00:55:11.860 - 00:55:23.739

you know, I, you know, I remember Mike Delacour too. Yeah, well, I'm softer than you are, you know, I'm fairly early on. I was there I was there for one quarter and then I transferred to 66. I remember that sit down, you know, yeah, that was

00:55:23.739 - 00:55:36.350

my first real contact with you. I'd heard my sister and brother-in-law talk about you from the FSL. I guess you were busted with them. That's where they, they met in the paddy wagon and they got, got together, but, uh. Um, I was with Jacobs. Oh yeah,

00:55:36.360 - 00:56:03.879

you told me about the Coke bottle in the Lincoln Continental shit you know the story about a while that the that the um that the um uh uh uh life span of a farm worker is 49 years old. Have you heard that? I mean, it's only

00:56:03.879 - 00:56:21.280

it's a farm worker thing anyway. It's in the Chavez movie. It's every, everywhere. It's I haven't seen the Chavez movie. I'm not sure I'm going to, that's a good decision. Uh, So it's, it's in all the literature. It's just quoted again and again and again it's

00:56:21.280 - 00:56:38.929

right. So Gill told me that he was at a, a thing in Washington DC when he was head of the Washington boycott, Gilbert Gilbert Padilla and um some guy up there said the average lifespan of farm workers is 49 years old. And, um, some academic and

00:56:39.149 - 00:56:56.219

Gilbert went up afterwards he says, you know, I, that doesn't sound right to me. I, I know a lot of old farm workers. And the guy said, Oh well, I mean, you know, the farm worker I know, he died when he was 49. I got written

00:56:56.219 - 00:57:18.649

down. That's scholarship for you Jesus Christ. Yeah, OK, um. Were you privy to uh discussions around the slate in the election in November? Did you go to those meetings at the, uh, you know, the the Assumption Church in Paharo, you know, when they were trying to

00:57:18.649 - 00:57:38.270

hammer out a unified sleigh where everything kind of went badly. I wouldn't really expect you to be. I don't think I was. I don't think I was. I know. Uh, you know, I was, I was fairly responsible about the fact that I wasn't a, it was

00:57:38.270 - 00:57:57.639

none of your business, yeah, and, um, uh. And so like that's strike support committee and and kind of an adviser to Joe or Joe and Jose and um. I did some some sort of night work, you know, along with everybody else. So much of the, the

00:57:57.639 - 00:58:12.270

bad vibes, I think, you know, especially on the left press. I'm thinking in particular that that article that the Times ran centered around why couldn't they have a unified slate, you know, ah, just nothing but sectarianism and so forth and so on, and, um, I mean,

00:58:12.310 - 00:58:32.510

I. Joe told me that you know he and Jose had a falling out. Um So it wasn't even like there was a unified TDU slate. Joe wound up running his own campaign, pretty much, and Jose just put his name on the TDU leaflet. Um, Manuel told

00:58:32.510 - 00:58:52.159

me that, um. I think he's probably confused. He thought it was Joe, but it wasn't Joe. Joe had no desire to run for the top slot, but Jose did, and that pretty much poll a negotiations. I just had the feeling and Ah, that the time was

00:58:52.159 - 00:59:10.469

simply not ripe. For uh. Everybody wanted it to happen. Everybody thought, now King's out of the way we run this union the way it should be. But that you just it takes a lot longer than that to build up an effective political machine that can take

00:59:10.469 - 00:59:28.320

over a union and run it right, and you can't just do it just because, you know. King has shot his bolt. Um, and one thing that a couple of people have told me is that, you know, it was really. A mistake leak people that it was

00:59:28.320 - 00:59:38.560

kind of a left er to kind of try to run a complete slate and pushed Gloria for the top spot and Manuel said, well, whether we'd wanted to do it or not, Gloria was determined to do it. You know, she wanted, she said it was time

00:59:38.560 - 00:59:52.179

for a woman to be running the union, you know. So I, you know, that's kind of my assessment of it at this point if you think I'm wrong. No, what I was thinking of when you were talking about was, um, I remember when I was in

00:59:52.179 - 01:00:16.310

your position, it just really reminds me of that, you know, um, and, and I, and I'm, I'm in the interviewee position and. I can't really remember at the time. I kind of think. That it is a Uh A bad mark against the left that there was

01:00:16.310 - 01:00:39.429

in the United States. Um, um. And I mean in the same way that, that, um, um, Manuel says, you know, we should have been found a way of working together. But we should have found a way to have a united late, I think, um. Um, I

01:00:39.429 - 01:00:56.530

understand how it happened that we didn't, but do you remember Joan Walsh's article at all? I mean it was. You know, she gave a fairly, fairly accurate if perfunctory account of the basic issues of the strike and so on, and then the entire second half of

01:00:56.530 - 01:01:16.919

the article was devoted to talking about, um, A factional struggle within TDU the way she represented it. Um And uh How the issues were nothing but sectarian and it's of more than prurient interest because it's sabotaging the chance for the workers to take over the union

01:01:16.919 - 01:01:34.830

and so forth and so on and you know, ah, as far as she was concerned, it was just another example of the league, you know, and it's, it's, it's sectarian behavior, but she She quoted Joe. Uh, she also attributed a, a statement to him which he

01:01:34.830 - 01:01:52.370

did not, he says he didn't say, and I believe him, which is that. You know, Fahey points out that the league's record of sectarian behavior in the anti-apartheid movement in Berkeley. Joe had absolutely no interest in Berkeley, he would not have said that, you know, and

01:01:52.370 - 01:02:13.530

Joe said, no, I didn't say I didn't say anything at all about Berkeley, you know, I wouldn't say it, you know, um, so it was clearly, you know, I don't remember. I don't remember. I think um. There were different positions. I mean there was, there was

01:02:13.530 - 01:02:34.459

a, there was a really big disagreement about um. About Before the election about working with the officials. Mhm. I mean there were, there were people on both the TDU and the People Slate. They were, they were endorsed by both of them, you know, Semenez and uh.

01:02:35.669 - 01:02:51.979

Ah, I mean there were differences. I, it wasn't just, it wasn't just disagreement about like what happened in China. Yeah, I mean it was there were, there were legitimate disagreements about how the strike should be run and, and, ah, what the tactics should be, and it

01:02:51.979 - 01:03:08.919

would have been a hell of a lot better and I think it was historically possible if those disagreements could have taken place within inside one. I think the biggest fiasco is that, you know, the guy was gonna run against Sergio, you know, Gloria's brother, got cold

01:03:08.919 - 01:03:24.750

feet, you know, depending on who you listen to it because he, his wife. wanted nothing to do with the strike or anything, didn't want him being active or because he was basically kind of a reluctant candidate to begin with or because he didn't feel like he

01:03:24.750 - 01:03:40.840

had You know, the smarts to run the union, probably all three, yeah, yeah. That was another thing that I remember thinking in the book. I would always think about. Now was it this happened because of this or because of this, and then I'd think about it

01:03:40.840 - 01:04:08.709

for a month and I'd say, oh, it's both, yeah, yeah. I mean, I, you know, there's somebody else I probably ought to talk to. I mean, Gloria gave me his number, but she said good luck getting his wife, you

01:04:08.709 - 01:04:18.239

know, you know she's gonna hang up on you and you're the one I mention that. Alex said, look, you know, I think you can beat Sergio, probably, you know, you're popular, you're a good guy. I think you'll do a good job, but you know what, it's

01:04:18.239 - 01:04:38.949

really critical that the international support this struggle, and you're going to be red baited if you win. Why don't let Sergio do it? He's fine. Wow. Yeah, take your pick. Alex told me that he taught, you know, to Manuel do it, it was his wife's fault

01:04:45.520 - 01:04:56.159

but this is what I mean about Alex kind of behind the scenes shit and you know. From his point of view, he his priority was to keep the engaged with the strike and make sure it got the support it needed to win from the international, and

01:04:56.159 - 01:05:13.770

he was afraid that if if if Sergio was defeated, it would look like, ah, the loonies had taken over, you know, so. And he had a good enough relationship with Armando that he could persuade him not to run voluntarily rather than slandering, you know, so, uh,

01:05:13.780 - 01:05:37.770

we look at that. Um, OK, enough of the election unless you've got something you want to add. Um, I want to talk about Uh, the Right after the election there was the uh what became Teamsters United Local 912, the organization that Joe was prosecuted for presumably

01:05:37.770 - 01:05:53.870

being the leader and instigator of. I've got the transcript of his hearing, you know, for Joint Counsel 7, and I guess you and Gloria both testified for him on it. Is this, uh, I, I, I have very little recollection of it. I remember going to, I

01:05:53.870 - 01:06:10.500

remember going a couple of times up to the, to the Joint Council seven headquarters. One time was about our election. Right, and that was in '82. And then one time was after the, after the other, yeah, I, I, but I don't remember anything about what the,

01:06:10.639 - 01:06:27.459

I, I don't remember anything about what the issues were. Well. There was a group that started. It had a big meeting on February 8th, and it was supposed to have like a week of action. Starting on the 17th of the big rally and define the injunction

01:06:27.459 - 01:06:43.300

and ending up with uh uh one of the food rallies that you know and when was when was this February it was it and it it it got started before the Shaw settlement and then the Shaw settled right before the 17th and in Joe's opinion that's

01:06:43.300 - 01:07:00.530

why things got so ugly on the 17th is people looked out of their minds with frustration. You know, the way the Shawal went, um. It was this, you know, I mean. According to your testimony, people started meeting right after the first of the year, right after

01:07:00.530 - 01:07:20.020

the new officers were sworn in. Uh, there was a leaflet that went out, uh, urging people to participate in this new formation to kind of inject some life into the strike. Ah, the TDU stalwarts like uh Esperanza Torres and her husband and um. Fidelia signed it.

01:07:20.669 - 01:07:38.129

Joe signed it also Gloria, Shavelo, Aurora Trujillo, and um. What was it, was it a new organization? He eventually adopted the name Teamsters United Local 912. And I think it was an attempt probably to kind of salvage something from the wreckage of the election, get some

01:07:38.129 - 01:07:52.050

kind of a united front thing going. That's what it looks like to me. Nobody has been able to tell me much about it. What I know is mainly what I read from the transcript. I do know that there was this big meeting held. Uh, that the

01:07:52.050 - 01:08:04.270

leaflet that went out had the teamster, the horse's head on it, and that Joe was called on the carpet for that because it made it look like it was an official Teamster thing and it wasn't. Uh, I think Chuck let him off with a rap on

01:08:04.270 - 01:08:28.370

the knuckles, but you know, he had to do something to dissociate the union from it because it ended in a lot of trashing on Main Street. Um Yeah Do you recall what happened on the 17th? Is that the big riot day, the big riot, yeah. He

01:08:28.370 - 01:08:43.979

was President's Day is that is that is that what I got indicted for like, you know, when, when I was on trial with other people. I think it was that people were arrested. I wanted to ask you about the Watsonville 19 because I've heard you use

01:08:43.979 - 01:08:59.608

that phrase and I, I get the feeling that some people were arrested before. I was I was arrested. I was arrested, they busted my ribs. I was arrested the day after it. Mhm. The next day or the next day after that, after it was a big,

01:08:59.688 - 01:09:15.008

a big, they wanted to get me off the street for that day or something, and um they, they knew exactly what they were doing and they, they handcuffed me outside the cop car and then instead of putting me gently down in the way they do into

01:09:15.008 - 01:09:30.939

the backseat, they threw me against the and because I handcuffed my ribs were exposed anyway anyway, um. We were all that was before the 7th rally on the 17th I think so you would have been if they wanted to keep you you weren't even there when

01:09:30.939 - 01:09:56.660

it happened. Yeah, yeah, but I, but I, I don't know the timing of it. I'll tell you I have a memory, right? I have a memory. Um Uh And I can't place the time. It was. It was a rainy day. And it was a fairly big.

01:09:57.830 - 01:10:19.959

Writing. Mhm. And I got a phone call from Joe, so I wasn't in jail yet. And Joe was in the union office, and Joe said, Frank, this is getting ridiculous. Where is this going to stop? Somebody got hurt and the ambulance came to pick them up

01:10:20.259 - 01:10:38.759

and they're throwing rocks at the ambulance. And I said, Joe, I, I, I, what do you want me to do? Come back, come down there and tell people not to throw rocks at the ambulance? I mean, he was very upset, very upset. Yeah, oh yeah, no,

01:10:38.799 - 01:10:53.720

no, he was legitimately upset. Um, but he associated me with The militancy or quotes militancy, but if you were laid up with a couple of broken ribs. I think this may have been before. Yeah, I could probably find out, you know, I don't remember. All I

01:10:53.720 - 01:11:25.109

know is that that day there was a big event going to happen and my feeling was they just want to get me off the street and then. The incident, there was an incident where people were throwing shit at at the police where I was there. And

01:11:25.109 - 01:11:48.459

um And Jose Lopez was there. And I forget who else was there, a bunch of other people were there. And and we were busted. And but I was, I was not busted that at that time. I was busted the following day. I can't, you know, if

01:11:48.459 - 01:12:07.399

I can nail down, he defended everybody probably has all the records and stuff. Maybe you can remember it, yeah. But he got everybody got acquitted. I know that um Silver was arrested because he filmed it in the film, you know, Michael Moore style, and I know

01:12:07.399 - 01:12:27.500

that Cruz was arrested because that that famous photo of her with a baseball cap on being hauled off, you know. Um, not guilty on all counts. I remember that. Well, I mean, I was gonna ask you when Gloria. testified she said. The cops wouldn't even let

01:12:27.500 - 01:12:42.020

us into Callahan Park. As soon as we set foot on the grass, they dispersed us, and she said at that point, you know, we split into small groups and everybody took a different route to the plant and they were there in forest there. That's her account

01:12:42.020 - 01:12:57.839

of it. Was that a rainy day? Yeah, yeah, um, on the other hand, the Poonian had a big photo spread about it, um, and there's actually a shot of Chivelo. Uh, kind of looking like he's emceeing, and there's a couple of guys with guitars, you know,

01:12:57.879 - 01:13:16.140

serenading the crowd, and it says that began with a peaceful rally at Callahan Park. So clearly that's, you know, what Gloria said is not. Completely accurate. Or maybe they broke it up after 15 minutes. I have no idea. I have no idea. I vague, vague, vague

01:13:16.140 - 01:13:33.319

memory. I got to try. Yeah, no, um. I asked Oscar about it the first time I interviewed him. And he doesn't really remember it either, except that he was convinced that people who were doing the trashing on Main Street were. From out of town, you know.

01:13:34.270 - 01:13:49.200

Uh, yeah, I remember that it was all guys, he says, and I've never seen him before. Pa Haron and actually interviewed a local teenager who said, Yeah, my parents are on strike. Sure, that's why I'm out here throwing rocks, plus it was President's Day, so all

01:13:49.200 - 01:14:06.589

the kids are out of school. Um The sense I got was that the cops would not let people congregate in front of the plant. They broke up the crowd, so it just. He just went through their rock somewhere else, you know, and they didn't and they

01:14:06.589 - 01:14:23.359

made no attempt to interfere with the crashing on Main Street. Bellegarde said as much inflamed things further. I remember the issue. I don't remember anything else about it, yeah. I remember the issue about whether they're out of towners or not. Whether they were out of towners

01:14:23.359 - 01:14:40.589

or not, I remember that being the defense. I remember that being the defense. I'm not, I think I'm pretty skeptical of that. We have plenty of people in town who are capable of. Um, I mean, I remember. Trying to write a story about it and um

01:14:50.720 - 01:15:01.919

we wound up focusing on what it was. Right, this is right after the Shaw, it was 3 days later, yeah, uh, and I know you know I guess the paper was due to go to bed, you know, I think in a couple of, you know, a

01:15:01.919 - 01:15:14.379

day or so and I was trying to write something up and then this crazy stuff happens. I remember calling. I don't know who it was I talked to, whether it was Manuel or Steve Moaizumi or whoever. I said, so what happened down there this afternoon? He

01:15:14.379 - 01:15:46.680

just said, Oh, people just went nuts. I said, can you be more specific I got to write this article. Not really, no, I just start acting crazy. Um. I mean, I think After that incident. I think there was a real reassessment. you know, in the league

01:15:46.680 - 01:16:02.459

internally about like this is, you know. There has to be more And John I think I wrote you a letter, you know, at one point you're talking about the middle, the middle way and stuff like that and I think the whole thing about we've got to

01:16:02.459 - 01:16:22.379

find a way to work with the union came along after that business in February um yeah no I I have the authority that happened to me. I know I'd know the dates and sequence of events way better than the people who are so informants, but I,

01:16:22.419 - 01:16:36.060

I, um. I know that in the summer that was written about it, which I read, you know, it says after this business in February, it was clear that was when the the top leadership of the organization started paying much closer attention and not just leaving it

01:16:36.060 - 01:16:50.290

to the local people to sort of do the best they could. This is an important strike. A lot of people, our people are getting demoralized. We've got to figure out some way to what would it take to win. And um. There were a bunch of conditions

01:16:50.290 - 01:17:12.259

that had to be met. One of them is if we can avoid. Giving the teamsters excuse to cut loose from the strike, keeping them involved. And I think there was a much more attention given at that point. To Weighing everything that was done in terms of

01:17:12.259 - 01:17:25.919

like how will, you know, how will the union react? Can we get some kind of a struggle relationship going with Sergio? From what I gather, Sergio rarely put up much of a struggle, you know, he was just whoever leaned on him, that's which way he would

01:17:25.919 - 01:17:39.859

go. And if the strikers can be leaned on him, he would go along with it. He made an issue with the fact that Chivelo had this independent relief fund independent of the union, and he actually had Joe call up Duane Beeson and say, Is this legal?

01:17:40.790 - 01:17:55.529

And Duane Deeson said, no, the union's responsible for handling relief, and you're legally liable if somebody else is doing it and they don't do it the right way. But nothing was done about it until the very end of the strike. Then Chuck Mack raised it. We're

01:17:55.529 - 01:18:06.549

very concerned about this. He sent Sarah Joe letter saying you've got to stop this, and it came around the same time he was making all these little noises about. I think Chuck was kind of trying to whip Sergio into line at the very end of the

01:18:06.549 - 01:18:23.729

strike, you know. Uh, and he was becoming much more heavy-handed than he had been earlier on, and I think that was one of the things I need to get out of the sun. OK, let's go, let's do that. Oh, you don't have to go. I'm OK

01:18:23.729 - 01:18:48.229

um. And ha So let's keep this near you. Not as heavy as it looks pretty easy. OK. Anyway, uh, that was the sense that people told me is that usually There was always a way around Sergio. You couldn't get him to agree to it, you just

01:18:48.229 - 01:19:04.189

sort of went around him, but he was not a really strong, assertive and that's kind of jives with what you said, which is whoever whoever pressured him, you know, was the person who had his ear, ah, and thinking about it, he had no power base of

01:19:04.189 - 01:19:32.100

his own in that union. Uh, that may have been true. That may have been true, uh, late in the strike, but, um, before the strike happened, I mean I'm talking about. Beginning, you know, 8, yeah, yeah, he really, and you talk to him, it's like it

01:19:32.100 - 01:19:46.649

was just between, it's like, uh, like Mao uh saying to Andre Malro being a Cultural Revolution. I'm alone with the masses, you know, it's like that kind of thing, you know, Sergio, I was just alone with God, you know, the TDU people didn't like me, the

01:19:46.649 - 01:20:04.270

strikers committee didn't like me. Chuck Mac didn't like me. Those honchos that the international sent in didn't like me. They were just waiting for that little Mexicans foot to slip. That's the only reason they were there. I think he had. Some Some support from the rank

01:20:04.270 - 01:20:26.640

and file, uh, uh, not significant, but there were people, there were people for whom he had done favors. Well, I think that probably that is probably old by the by by mid strike. That's probably true I think. Everybody in his position relies on that, you know,

01:20:26.720 - 01:20:49.930

I think loyalty becomes such a big deal when you're out there, you know, the way he was. Who can, who can I trust, you know, but I'll call in a few chits Captain, you know, the steel balls. Yeah. So You have no recollection really of Teamsters

01:20:49.930 - 01:21:09.569

United 9-12, how it started. I, you, you don't hear anything more about it after the 17th. Yeah I'm sorry, I mean, I, I just don't remember. I, I remember being on trial. I remember being busted. I remember being in the in a in a. In a

01:21:09.569 - 01:21:29.740

crowd of people in the rain. That sounds like the big demo where, where, um, uh, the cops were scared. The stuff that happened on Main Street happened late in the afternoon. Yes, you'd already gone home by that point. I, I, I have no idea. I don't

01:21:29.740 - 01:21:50.399

remember I just um uh we were, I don't know whether I was home, but I certainly wasn't there. I just remember the pictures in the. And then people trying to say it was out of towners. I never really totally believed it was out of town, but

01:21:50.399 - 01:22:09.160

on the other hand, it wasn't Joe. It wasn't Joe Fay, nor was it hey. Um, a plan. Yeah. People were just really, really, it looked like we lost. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll have to ask Oscar about this when I talk to him again, but I think

01:22:09.160 - 01:22:31.180

some of the people who were in town at that point were starting to wonder too with this in the future. Um, And uh You know, from Alex's point of view, He thought the whole key to winning the strike against Weser Bill Canning is to take Shaw

01:22:31.430 - 01:22:45.370

out of the picture, that he should never have been struck in the first place, that it would not have happened if Richard King had not given him that given console that. 40 cents an hour wage that it was just incompetent leadership that it put in an

01:22:45.370 - 01:23:00.220

impossible situation that it basically allowed consul to try to position himself to drive Shaw out of business. And it looked like the union was in bed with Conswell and driving Shaw out of business and that they had to mend their fences with with Shaw. They had

01:23:00.220 - 01:23:16.790

to do what they could, you know, to make sure he didn't go broke because he really was in danger of going broke in Alex's opinion. He was way the hell overcapitalized. The market was starting to shrink, and Console was paying. considerably less money. His labor costs

01:23:16.790 - 01:23:30.129

were considerably lower because the union had given him this big fat favor. So Alex's whole thing is let's get Shaw out of the way. Let's settle with him. Let's get that done with, and then we'll concentrate on winning the strike against Watsonville Canning. None of us

01:23:30.129 - 01:23:45.729

saw it that way. Yeah, no, I mean, the first part of all that, the lead up is absolutely right. I mean, it was, it was, it was the concession that that um the council got from King which caused the strike. It was when they put, they

01:23:45.729 - 01:24:00.779

put, you know, and then the phrase they put wages in competition. And um The extent to which that was a reflection of increasing pressure from Mexico, I don't know. That's, that would be the one thing that you might have left out. I mean, there had not

01:24:00.779 - 01:24:20.689

been any new frozen food plant built in the United States in a long time. Birds Eye had already gone to Mexico, um, uh, was there. Um, already a struggle for survival here because of that, which forced council to look for that kind of concession because up

01:24:20.689 - 01:24:45.470

until then it didn't seem like all the wages weren't in competition. Well, Alex's for the settlement was nothing to be proud of. I'm not talking about the strike all of that I agree with you. The settlement is a different question. Uh, I think that, that, um.

01:24:46.459 - 01:25:07.169

Now, I'm kind of interested. I didn't remember. They got scabs into, into Shaw's with a significant production coming out of Shaw's. Um, I didn't, I didn't remember that. It wasn't. Well, you were the one who told me. Yeah, the first time I interviewed said that everybody

01:25:07.169 - 01:25:23.850

worked. was a local person because it was the oldest plant uh and anybody who scabbed at Washingtonville Canning would have had to answer to his neighbors, but Shaw brought people in from. All over the area, it was the last plant to be established. The local labor

01:25:23.850 - 01:25:36.390

pool was pretty much exhausted. So people could just they if they cross the picket line, they get cussed out by the pickets and then go back home and then be cussed out again. But they wouldn't have to live with it day in and day out, you

01:25:36.390 - 01:25:53.950

know, when they got up in the morning and everything, and you said that was why you thought we saw strike this. You know, was broken, you didn't have the same kind of solidity, which seems like a good, it's a good, good. Um, I mean, why else

01:25:53.950 - 01:26:11.069

would you think that that strike was lost? Oh you said that it was lost. Teams sold out. I mean, no, I don't mean that. I mean, I mean that that that they were unable to, I mean, you know, uh. I don't know. I don't remember if

01:26:11.069 - 01:26:29.629

that strike was, if the teams, I, the way I the way I, I think of it up until right this second in. My current Understanding Not saying that my, my understanding the last time we talked it was probably Better because it was closer to the event

01:26:29.919 - 01:26:45.580

was that the Teamsters made a mistake the Teamsters sold us out, not that the strike was lost at Shaw's, but if the strike was lost at Shaw's, that would put that in a better context you and say that we didn't realize it at the time, but

01:26:45.580 - 01:27:04.339

that strike was. would not have been able to settle down if the strike weren't seriously weakened. I think that probably came from Joe more than from me. That would be my guess. But um but uh you know something like that. Well, that's that's, that puts the

01:27:04.339 - 01:27:36.790

mistake in in a context. Well, no, I think Alex had an agenda from the get go that. You know, um, the main enemy is console, uh. Fight only one battle. Never try to fight two battles at once and it's not necessary. Consul and Shaw hate each

01:27:36.790 - 01:27:54.709

other's guts. Shaw's willing to work with us. Conso isn't. Yeah, that could be an argument you know over 3 years ago. We really haven't, you know, we owe him something, you know, that was kind of his reasoning, and he felt that if Shaw could get producing

01:27:54.709 - 01:28:29.569

again because they produce virtually identical stuff that it would just. Uh-huh, and, you know, I mean it's a classic collective bargaining, you know, yeah. Well you know that whole thing where they opened up his books and you know I ain't there. Yeah. I mean, I, well,

01:28:29.580 - 01:28:48.209

that does bring into the whole question of Mexico, which I, which I undervalued at the time. Actually, Sergio told me that he sent Shavalla down there. After Shavela became a business agent to just sort of check out some of his Mexican plants and see. You know,

01:28:48.270 - 01:29:06.330

if they might possibly be organized by the Teamsters. Um that was probably in the glory days when Ron Kerry was in office. Sergio had big ideas about what was possible, you know, for him to do his team's jurisficial. Well, you know, I mean, you try to

01:29:06.330 - 01:29:24.310

do it. I mean, a number of people have tried to build, and they have built some solidarity with thought. I, I don't think it's a totally a totally um crazy idea. I went down. Once again, conceivably if Kerry had not bucked up so badly and stayed

01:29:24.310 - 01:29:37.790

in there and he somebody might have prevailed on to if I'm not mistaken, it was when he was in there that stuff started happening in Pasco, Washington too, and then when he lost. I think that's destroyed, you know, I think that's true, not that that was

01:29:37.790 - 01:29:52.180

the reason. Yeah, there's a very interesting book about that struggle called Breaks in the Chain. Oh no, I don't know that it's um. It was written by an academic and it's, it's just full of academic gobble goo, but he did hours and hours and hours of

01:29:52.620 - 01:30:13.870

tape recorded interviews with people who participated in that from all sides and The 1st 5 chapters are just devoted to his quoting from the interviews and then parsing them in. What's the word, deconstructing everything they say and using words like hegemonic and, you know, it's, it's

01:30:13.870 - 01:30:34.339

a deadly read, but the last chapter. Yeah, and the interviews speak perfectly well for themselves. You don't need to reinterpret them in language that nobody else understands, but the last chapter. You know, he says, you know, The problem with it is that TDU's whole approach in

01:30:34.339 - 01:30:53.879

that plant was make the union democratic, make it fight mi. Uh And it's not enough to sustain its trouble, especially when there's high turnover, all these union busting laws and NLRB is sitting on its hands, and there was already a conflict in the plant, and the

01:30:53.879 - 01:31:07.680

international wasn't giving it the kind of, you know, it was kind of became a factional football in the international, but what really would have sustained the organizations they had what 90 has or what the Kunon up in Oregon has, which is basically combined the union with

01:31:07.680 - 01:31:21.379

functions of immigrants' rights groups. You know, if theun has a a Spanish radio station, they maintain they do housing, they do this, they do that. They turn people out for the May Day demos anytime Lamigra gets out of hand and you know that's what they would

01:31:21.379 - 01:31:48.359

have needed to sustain their organization. As it was, you know, but the whole union was decertified. You know, I mean, I think it was from Esperanza. That People had to sign it, had to pay a big initiation fee. And um toi in the union when they

01:31:48.359 - 01:32:13.120

like when they, when they went to work. And yeah. And they um They uh Didn't the season wasn't very long and they lost a whole bunch of money to the union, the first couple of checks or something like that, and people really hated the union, which

01:32:13.120 - 01:32:29.799

is kind of what you were referring to before. When you take over, you damn well better be ready to make any mistakes. Yeah. Um But anyway, I, I, I, you, it's called Breaks in the you can swallow all that academic, you know, gobby. The interviews are

01:32:29.799 - 01:32:49.270

good and it, it has a lot of stuff about. Most of the people in that plant were undocumented and they describe the the the voyage up from Mexico and what they went through and it's, it's hair raising stuff, you know, he got some great interviews with

01:32:49.270 - 01:33:09.720

people, so if you have time on your hands, get tired of reading Mark Twain, you know. I want to see, I think I'm about at the end of my questions. Did you, did you? I, no. Yeah, I think I write that chapter about the strike and

01:33:09.720 - 01:33:27.310

I'm gonna, yeah, I mean. Whatever misgivings I have about that movie, it's got some terrific footage in it, and I think nothing is better than that meeting. I'm really glad he was able to report that, you know, and I, you know, when I think of it,

01:33:27.850 - 01:33:46.660

I think of Esperanza Contreras, you know, just railing away, um. And you're right. I mean, Chevelo does not come off looking good in that scene. He looks like, you know, he's trying to put the lid on, um, believe me, believe me, it's hard doing a strike

01:33:46.660 - 01:34:10.040

me, it's true, that's true, it's hard. Well, You know, once again, I think All the people, I think Sergio and uh Alex pretty much, you know, the negotiations and they kept the strikers committee in there for window dressing. I don't think any of them really realized

01:34:10.890 - 01:34:27.020

until Joe exposed to the meeting that that that that that by treating them as new hires they would all lose their health benefits. Um, Uh When I asked Gloria about it, she said, you know, there's no way in hell we could have gone back to work

01:34:27.020 - 01:34:43.080

without our help. I said, Were you worried about an unsanctioned strike? She said, Of course. You know, you know, you've got to do what you got to do, but I think they were totally unprepared in that meeting. they were even aware of it, you know, and

01:34:43.080 - 01:34:56.500

you know. How well do you think on your feet? I think Carlos saw it on his feet. He didn't say, ah, let's vote no, screw the teamsters he said let's vote to have them negotiate a little longer. Which was sort of a face saving out for

01:34:56.500 - 01:35:13.950

everybody. I mean realistically it didn't make any difference because the teamsters pulled out anyway but at least it looked like they weren't defying the union, you know, um, Carlos was the one who had the presence of mind to do that, you know, um. But Joe, Joe

01:35:13.950 - 01:35:31.430

had the presence of mind and the guts to say no. No, I think Joe, I think what that meeting was that was it made all the difference, all his best moment that was one of the big turning points. I also think that the The recertification boat,

01:35:31.479 - 01:35:45.359

you know, whatever you can say recertification boat was huge. Yeah, no, I mean, I, you, you hate to think that a lawyer would win a strike, but you know, you know, Beason does not strike me. I, I, I suppose he's a great lawyer, but he's not

01:35:45.359 - 01:36:00.330

the sort of guy who's going to lead us to the barricades, but. You know, I think he really That was a life and death moment there and he made sure that we stayed alive. Yeah, now, of course I think that the I remember at the time,

01:36:00.370 - 01:36:19.229

I don't remember that saying, but you know what, this legal decision is not independent of all the support that we've managed to, you know, and it's like. You know, why either or? Yeah, right. There were a lot of things that broke the right way. Some of

01:36:19.229 - 01:36:33.819

them came from below, some of them came from above. Uh, There are a lot of people who contributed. They may not be the sort of people you would want to trust in a pinch, but they did the right thing for whatever reason, um, I mean, this

01:36:33.819 - 01:36:46.129

is why when I the first time I met with Joey says, I think it's really important that you do this because. We were so suspicious of each other we never really shared information, but the fact is everybody was contributing on some level that's Joe's, yeah, yeah.

01:36:46.959 - 01:37:19.870

Yeah, and it has some. Um It's a little bit, um, uh, it's a little bit, uh, wishy-washy. There are differences. There were differences about about how the strike should be fought. Um They were real, uh. You know, Frank, I don't know. I, I, I think we

01:37:19.870 - 01:37:31.750

do need to talk, take this up before we wrap this up because you've got a split soon. I've been asking people about the assertion you made back there in the kitchen that there were no, that the strikers meeting did not have any more mass meetings once

01:37:31.750 - 01:37:47.089

they were selected. I've been asking people about that, and I am not at all sure it's true. Um, I think the meetings were a lot bigger at the end of the strike, you know, and when they were talking about the Wells Fargo boycott and stuff. Um,

01:37:47.100 - 01:38:04.629

and you had 70 to 100 people showing up regularly, you know, but, um. They were having meetings in the union hall as almost as soon as, you know, from October on. Uh, Gloria said so anyway, but you know we started meeting her right away. King didn't

01:38:04.629 - 01:38:19.060

like having us there, but he wasn't going to, you know, there was no way in hell he was going to make us leave. My impression is that all of those were invitation meetings. That that there weren't, there wasn't like a leaflet. I'd like to see the

01:38:19.060 - 01:38:37.790

leaflet where they call an open meeting. No, I haven't seen it, but I've got what you've got in your so yes, they were meeting with people. I'm not saying they were, but there wasn't the strike committee holds an open meeting to discuss strategy. invite everybody to

01:38:37.790 - 01:38:54.270

come. They certainly mobilized a lot of people to get on the phone and get everybody did, they did, but there's there's there, it's not, I don't, it's not a huge thing, but it's, it's um. It's reflective of their outlook. I think that I don't recall seeing

01:39:03.799 - 01:39:15.490

with people. They met a whole lot of people. Yeah, no, I think they lied and you told me this too. The word of mouth was, you know, was absolutely critical in that strike, you know, and I asked how the hell did they get people back to

01:39:15.490 - 01:39:40.560

that recertification vote they said because they had a good grapevine. Yeah, there was, and the more I researched this, the more I've realized it's like. They did the strike committee did a fabulous job in the decertification. Yeah, yeah, fabulous job. You know, I mean in terms

01:39:40.560 - 01:39:58.370

of this business, let's go, let's go back. So I don't know about that. I'm just telling you what I know. I mean, and I think it's a difference about yes, everybody's, they're meeting, but it's, I don't think you know, you know, no, no, I think I

01:39:58.370 - 01:40:12.850

don't think any call out. If it did, I never heard about it. I, I, they were meeting, but in in in invitation meetings meet with this group of people, meet with this group of people, right. But let's talk. I, I'm a little confused about this thing,

01:40:12.930 - 01:40:34.310

about my, on my own position on this business about Joe's view that everybody together, everybody did their own thing and people were all those I agree with that. But that mustn't, that mustn't, um. That doesn't obviate the fact that there were political differences. There are differences,

01:40:34.669 - 01:40:51.080

differences that were related to strategy in the strike, and, and it's OK for people to fight about those things. You hope that people fight about them. You hope that people fight about them um honestly and openly and um but you realize that people are people and

01:40:51.080 - 01:41:07.299

they're not always going to do the right thing but um but and you hope that it'll all be open and above board and and fought out in principle terms, but um. But it's OK for people to be to fight in the midst of a strike about

01:41:07.299 - 01:41:30.609

the direction the strike should go. You want people to have differences of opinion because out of those differences of opinion, that's the way real unity gets built, um, you argue things out, um. Um I think, I think that's, I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's certainly. ideological

01:41:30.609 - 01:41:50.509

on my part, you know, like trying to be, that's my, that's what I believe politically. I am a deep, deep, deep democrat. I think you build unity by By, um, actually in face to face or in in in continued discussion, you convince each other of of

01:41:50.509 - 01:42:03.430

what should be done and then you try it, and then if it doesn't work, you come back and try to convince each other again and think about the next thing to do. And then the people become leaders are the people who are mostly right. People look

01:42:03.430 - 01:42:19.390

back and say, hey, you know what, Jose was right about that. We can trust Jose. Um Uh, and there was a hell of a lot of that during the strike. There was a lot of that during the, during the strike because people are standing, sitting on

01:42:19.390 - 01:42:32.049

the picket line and what are they talking about? They're talking about the strike and what they should do on the strike. So, you know, if the injunction gets. At some point the injunction there was an article I came across in the city on the hill I

01:42:32.049 - 01:42:50.859

guess one of the Santa Cruz appellate judge threw out the injunction. I think that's true, but they still didn't have the kind of mass picket lines that I mean they still couldn't. Yeah, I think that might be true. I think the gates and it wasn't until

01:42:50.859 - 01:43:10.259

the strike was officially over that people could start massing in front of the plant, you know. Uh, yeah, you don't recall the So the injunction would have been modified by the appeals court. It wouldn't have been eliminated then. Yeah, I think that I, I don't know.

01:43:10.270 - 01:43:23.319

I don't know. I think it was modified. I think the injunction was modified, but I don't, I don't remember a stacks. I'll look through it and see if I can get the answer there. I really think that what you're doing is terrific. I really don't lose

01:43:23.319 - 01:43:43.879

faith. Well, I'll tell you, Frank, when I read your book, it did give me a little kick in the ass. I thought this was a much more I'm trying, you know. But, but it's worthwhile to think about these things and write it up and have it

01:43:43.879 - 01:44:00.759

be out there and not lost. It's already somewhat lost to me. Because in my memory, but I mean, you want it to be, you want it to be the Watsonville strike is a significant enough social event so that it should be remembered. Well, you know, it's

01:44:00.759 - 01:44:12.379

um. I waited too long, you know, to take care of some of this shit. I mean, it's like Shavella has passed away last year and I had a pretty good interview with him, but there's a whole bunch of questions that I ask him still, you know,

01:44:12.470 - 01:44:24.299

it's like I keep coming back to talk to Joe. I keep coming back to talk to you, you know, I've had several conversations with Manuel now and it's like every time when you sit down to write, you realize how much you forgot to ask the last

01:44:24.299 - 01:44:40.990

time you talk to someone. Yeah, yeah, you just have to get it down. It's so much easier now that I'm living down here, of course, you know, I mean, it's like. What I do up in, in, I wrote two chapters up in Portland that didn't require

01:44:40.990 - 01:44:54.629

any real on the scene research or interviews with people pretty much. You know, one was kind of like a history of the Teamsters and one was like a history of the frozen food industry, you know. The the the the background shit that you can learn in

01:44:54.629 - 01:45:09.759

the library or whatever and you know I got a few interviews on trips down here but it's like typically I'll be in Oakland dealing with family shit and then one day I can get the car and drive down here and you know. I'd catch up with

01:45:09.759 - 01:45:22.560

Gloria. She'd take me to the senior center and introduce me to a bunch of people, and then she would translate what do you do with your interviews them up, you know, I started to. Joe insisted that I type it up before he would talk to me

01:45:22.560 - 01:45:37.069

anymore, and so I gave him a complete transcript, uh, and it's actually good having it, but it is so fucking time consuming to transcribe, and I'm not real good at it because my hearing is not that good. I find I can listen. To an interview if

01:45:37.069 - 01:45:51.129

it's a decent reproduction. I've got it all on, you know, CDs, uh, and I've got about half of a transcript of one with you because you said I'd like to see what I said and see if I still agree with it. Uh, but I never finished

01:45:51.129 - 01:46:08.250

it. And if you want to, if you want me to do it, I feel like I owe it to you. No, no, no, I wasn't for me. I've got. I wasn't thinking of me. I was thinking of it for you because um I found that. Even

01:46:08.250 - 01:46:32.390

though it was incredibly time consuming, typing up the interviews was a time of like kind of reflection and um and uh it helped me a lot in terms of um. doing the writing. Yeah, that's an inconvenient. You don't have to type them up. You don't have

01:46:32.390 - 01:46:47.810

to type up everything can be selected. You can go through and listen and selections. Well, I've been doing that lately, you know, I've gone back to the the the tapes and CDs, you know, and I listen to them and I go through them and if I

01:46:47.810 - 01:47:04.060

come to a quote I want to pull it out or something and it's it is they really do bear. Repeated visits because you always miss stuff and in live interviews I really miss stuff because my hearing's not that good, uh, and because I talk too much.

01:47:04.350 - 01:47:16.609

No, you don't talk too much. You do you interview the way I do. This is exactly the way I interviewed. I argue with people, you know, I tell them what I think and see what they, how they respond, or, or, you know, or I'd say, but,

01:47:16.720 - 01:47:34.959

but, but, but Gil says that, you know. Well, I, you know, I was never really trained as a journalist, and, uh, I've done plenty of journalism, but I never got the formal training, um. And I, you know, I, I, I come at this as an as

01:47:34.959 - 01:48:02.129

an activist presumably as a revolutionary, so, uh, I'm not going to disengage from it. That's the way I did it. Yeah, that's the way I did it. So I don't know that's right. Well, I, I, I, I've heard a few other people that I I recommend

01:48:02.129 - 01:48:23.169

as well, you know, man, you want to get the dope on Esky and what's wrong with the Esky tramping at the vintage you're gonna find anywhere. My, my favorite was um Pam Taoli, who came out of the Chinese Progressive Association. She was on it. Uh, she

01:48:23.169 - 01:48:35.649

went to work for local too and, uh, was put on the staff, and I'll never forget this meeting where she was reporting on the experience, you know, last one of our people gets this responsible position in the union, and she was describing how they operate in

01:48:35.649 - 01:48:47.089

local too. Because they have a big meal, a big piece of butcher paper at the front of the room. You know, all these people raise their hands, give their ideas. They put everybody's ideas down on the butcher paper. Then after that you thank everybody for their

01:48:47.089 - 01:48:57.390

input, you know, you say we're going to win this thing, and then as soon as they're out of the room, you take down the butcher people, throw it in the trash and do what you planned on doing all along. Yeah, that's, that's it in a nutshell,

01:48:57.399 - 01:49:14.979

you know. Yeah, who was it he said to me the other day? Somebody said to me, I'm not going to go to any other fucking meeting where they put the butcher paper on. and write down what we tell them. It just said that. Oh, it was,

01:49:14.990 - 01:49:34.669

uh, it was a guy who was involved in teacher stuff. Yeah. Well, I, you know, I, I actually was. I was chairing the healthcare Committee of Portland Jobs of justice. I got. drafted to go to this weekend training session that they. You know, I guess I

01:49:34.669 - 01:49:49.439

don't know if they get grant money for it or what, but they brought in some hotshots from Saint Louis to train us in organizing. You know, with role playing and stuff like that, and it's about halfway through, all the students were in open revolt, you know,

01:49:49.609 - 01:50:01.459

what is this crap? I don't need this crap. Look, I worked with the Linsky organizers in Chicago. I don't need a belly full of it now, you know, find some naive kid to run this shit down. I refer to as the weekend it's, it's, you know,

01:50:01.470 - 01:50:29.220

I mean there's there's a germ of truth I think but you can't dismiss it out of hand because it's, it's how long it's been going since the 30s. Well, I think that it's really well suited to the way unions operate, and unions are very strangely contradictory

01:50:29.220 - 01:50:41.240

organizations. They're, they are mass organizations of the workers, and they also have to operate with the discipline of an army or they don't win anything, and there's no way you can completely reconcile those two things, and I think a lot of our the argument we were

01:50:41.240 - 01:50:59.069

on the verge of having earlier this morning about that. Yeah. Um, Do you remember Al Richmond? Yeah, sure. Long view from the left. Yeah. He actually, you know, I got started with the liberation school collective and we recruited him to teach a class, you know, the

01:50:59.069 - 01:51:14.250

best, the best attended class we had, and he was talking about the IWW, and he said, you know, There's a problem with the idea of revolutionary unionism. If you want to represent a group of workers in a workplace, you have to be able to represent all

01:51:14.250 - 01:51:27.959

of them. And they don't all have the same politics, and if you try to make all of them have the same politics, you're going to piss a lot of them off. You know, that's why a union cannot perform the function of a political or revolutionary party.

01:51:28.770 - 01:51:51.459

You know, um, that's, that's his critique of syndicalism. Yeah, well, there's, you know, as unionists, the lies. That isn't their biggest mistake. They, you know, they, they wouldn't sign contracts, right? Well, they didn't sign contracts. They didn't make no they they didn't accept the contradictory position

01:51:51.459 - 01:52:09.740

of unions and a capitalist system. They just didn't accept it. But I think you have to understand the Wobblies as basically a cultural organization. That is trying to build the sense of solidarity among the working class, that's what they did. That's, that's what they're interested in.

01:52:09.910 - 01:52:24.669

They didn't give a shit about they would get 5 cents more an hour, 10 cents more an hour. They believed in that. They would settle for that, but they, um, but they weren't interested in building unions as institutions. So to say, as labor historians do, that

01:52:24.669 - 01:52:39.029

they failed to build the union as an institution, they would tell. It's asking him to do something they didn't set out, and the reason the Wobblies got defeated was because of the Russian revolution, because there was this argument amongst people about how to the field defeat

01:52:39.029 - 01:52:54.910

capitalism, um, and then let him on the argument. And, and, and the crucial thing that happened to Wobbbies was not only repression, but Big Bill Haywood is the is the is the is the is the emblematic figure. He gets jailed as a Wobbbly. He comes out

01:52:54.910 - 01:53:11.350

of jail and joins the Communist Party because it looked like it looked like Lenin had the answer about how to beat Capitol. And, and that's so, so all oblies moved on mass en masse Wobblies moved into the CP. All their best union people see we were

01:53:11.350 - 01:53:35.049

all lies, including Pat Chambers, um, so that, that's what happened, but I mean, um, their goal was building uh ethic of solidarity among, uh, among working among working class people, and they did a really fucking good job. Well, Uh, but they weren't unionists. Well, I think

01:53:35.049 - 01:53:50.729

the point is that they, they may struggle at the point of production is like the key to everything in that sense they were unionists, um, and what do you do? You win a strike, what do you do? How do you consolidate your gains, you know. Uh,

01:53:50.939 - 01:54:07.089

if you, Williams. Foster actually wrote a little polemic against some of his comrades who he thought were maybe he thought they had too many old wobbly leanings because he got disenchanted with the Wobblies fairly early on. But the name it was called dilettantism in strikes. He

01:54:07.089 - 01:54:21.089

says nothing is worse than going in there, providing all this great leadership, and then blowing down as soon as it's over. Nothing makes us look worse, you know, if you win a strike, you damn well better stick around and make sure the terms are enforced, that

01:54:21.089 - 01:54:31.765

there's an organization there that can sustain itself, you know, and so on. Well, I don't think that's my reading of their history is that they didn't do that as much as the CP did. In the early 30s, that's what Foster was that he was struggling against.

01:54:31.774 - 01:55:42.910

That's why he had to write pamphlet and I think this is a phone call I want. I should get out of here. Just hold on a second. I'll wait. All right, so And Tell whether it's terrified or the doctor and so

01:55:42.910 - 01:58:15.810

that that makes it somewhat complicated to. Yeah Yeah. Mhm Right. No Right I So that's For

01:58:25.060 - 02:00:05.810

So I That OK. That's over. I'm trying to turn this thing off. Can't do it. I don't know, I'm a technologically challenged. Oh brother. Well, I do know what's going to happen if I don't turn it off,

02:00:05.879 - 02:00:36.009

which is that it's going to, uh, run the battery down and I won't be able to. Here it says play stop here. Hours, minutes, seconds, so we talked for 2 hours going this thing. You know what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna take a battery out. OK,

02:00:36.080 - 02:00:40.720

well, that's a good idea. I'll stop it. I hope I don't lose what I've got.