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OK, we're on the air. This is Joe Fahey and it's uh Saturday in July. 18. Well, um, and you know you can do this with or with it on or with it off, but I was just gonna ask you a little bit in terms of what,

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what you're doing and why and why now and. Well, the now is easy. I'm finally retired from the post office after 30 years. I was just telling people about it, you know, of course her ears perked up when I said retired. Um, yeah, she's heading for

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the finish line herself. Well, you know, it's a lousy time to retire to think. I mean, um. All the money I had tucked away in the post office is wonderful for savings plan kind of went bluey, you know, I imagine I'd be better off than a

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lot of people, so I don't complain, but. My wife is still working. She's a special ed teacher, so I can have her taking too much of the time. But this is something I wanted to do for a long time, you know, I've always thought somebody needed

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to write. She don't try and 30 years now, 20 years have gone by and now and it's done it and um. I think I wrote, I was, I was editing the section here. OK, OK, so you were still working as a, you were still a post

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office and they didn't, they didn't pay no salaries. All the money went into the fancy production. I was thinking about I was thinking you were the editor of the entire magazine. I thought, well, that's not a the editor of the witch. The entire unity, but that,

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that, that would have been a bigger job than uh a full-time postal worker could do. No, I, I could not have managed that I wouldn't have jobs. Um. I guess the best known person who had that job was Reese Eli. He's still grinding out some pretty

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good books actually. I wrote one about it, uh, Cuba which I pushed on my kids. They took me down to Havana for my retirement party, you know. Now, um, we actually had some very interesting stuff to say about it just because of the kind of. Choices

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they've had to make, kind of mistakes they've had to make and correct and so forth and so on, you know, you rarely see that kind of discussion, you know, of what happens when people try to figure out what it means to quote build socialism unquote. So,

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but um. So this will be your first book? Actually, no. Um I was at San Francisco State during the big strike in '67 668, 69, and I co-authored a book about that with Bill Barlow. We worked on the campus alternative paper together and um. You know,

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We thought it was gonna touch off this whole new wave of campus protest and it didn't quite happen that way, but I still think that you wrote it at the time, yeah, 21 when we published it. And I don't think you can find it except maybe

00:03:09.470 - 00:03:21.580

on the internet anymore, even in the San Francisco State Library, it's like. They had 12 copies of the book in there and they were all stolen, so we got to go to special collections to read it. And, and how old are you now? I just turned

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61. OK. So you were at UC Santa Cruz? Yeah. And when did you go to Watsonville? As soon as I was done, well, so actually I was, I was, while I was, well, yeah, well, let me ask you a couple more questions. I just sort of

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to get to know like who I'm talking to and, and I guess you have a like, do you have a general thesis of what you're trying to do or or or approach or what I really wanted to do was have this good straight, you know, narrative

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account of the strike, you know, as close as I could come to reconstructing and not I mean day by day it's pretty ambitious, but. As much as can be dredged up from the memories of people around you are, you know, willing to talk, of course, the

00:04:05.979 - 00:04:19.720

more, how it is of research, the more of it you do, the more you realize how much more complicated it is and you think, I mean, I. Just got through talking to. Sergio Lopez, frankly was worried he might not want to talk to me from some

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of the advance notice I got, but he was more than willing to talk, uh, wants to continue it on Sunday if I've got the time. And before that, I guess I wrote you, I talked to Alex who who told me all sorts of shit. I had

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no idea what was going on at the time. I mean, I knew that there was a lot of behind the scenes stuff in terms of Wells Fargo Bank and so on, but. I guess the machinations that went on inside the Teamsters hierarchy over this stuff and

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how that sort of thing became my. Kind of a pawn in the faction struggle between Jackie Presser and the guys that he succeeded, you know, uh. Yeah I did I send you a copy of the, the, the interview transcript I did with him with? Yeah, no,

00:05:03.640 - 00:05:25.959

no, no. Well, I probably should. Probably should should do that because that's what I was thinking is because what You know, whether it was TDU and The teamsters hierarchy or the league or. Different support committees or whatever. I mean there was a whole bunch of groups

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all talking to each other about the other groups, so it's very, I mean it just seems like an ambitious thing because it's sort of like, you know, you probably know what Alex more what Alex was thinking. Than I do because, or you know, I mean, even

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the stuff that you said, the couple of lines you said in your letter, it's like oh I didn't know that was going on. I mean it doesn't surprise me that it was going on, but part of the part of the factionalization you know of of things

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meant that people didn't talk to each other. So it's very so on another level everybody's got a very. Specific point of view that's not really based on everything that was happening. I mean, so it's like I don't know how you, you know, overcome that. I mean,

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I mean other people have done it with like, like Taylor Branch and stuff like that with all these separate interviews, right? And then you try to build a narrative, but it's like, I mean there were so many, there was more than one strike going on. I

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mean there was always, well, the only one I know is just to sort of plunge into it and see what comes out, you know. I think any kind of, I did. I spent a few years at Berkeley, and I got trained, you know, as a historian

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there before I dropped out. And one thing I learned is that, you know, research is a terrible crapshoot, uh. You can start out with a thesis and wind up with something completely different. I know why I consider the strike important, you know, if for no other

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reason. It was like one of the few big victories in the 80s, the time when you know, organized labor was getting its butt kicked and I know that it had every reason to expect failure, you know, that the strikers had everything against them when they started

00:07:03.890 - 00:07:26.529

just about. Um I have I wrote up a little research perspective, you know, with the idea I might try to get funding. Gave it to uh Bob Russell, you know, the. Labor and Working Class History Association up in Eugene, um. But um The three factors I

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laid out was one, the fact that the strikers were able to set up their own kind of independent, you know, committee, you know, which took this fairly more of a local and kind of revitalized it and they kept together during the strike. The other was the

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Teamsters realized they could exert all sorts of economic leverage on more console, you know, by using their pension funds, and it had not really been done before in that way. And the third was that um Um The third was the recertification vote, which I think even

00:08:00.230 - 00:08:14.269

at the time, I think that's one thing everybody would agree on is that was an amazing, you know, that was really the big turning point. And I was hoping, you know, talking to some, I was gonna actually meet with a few of us. Old strikers committee

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people tomorrow to see how they did that. what was involved. I, I hoped to get a hold of Chiella while I was down here. I left a message on his tape that I, I'm assuming he's out of town or something. I tried calling him once about

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something and. Um, and then. Um Which doesn't mean that much by itself, but then there was another time where there was a, I don't know, 2 or 3 years ago there was a commemoration of the school and I saw him and I had intended, you know,

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as soon as the thing was over to go over and say hello and talk to him and stuff like that because we used to work together after at in the local he was a business agent, not as a president, and Um, He was gone quickly. So,

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so it just, it just put a question in my mind how much of this is well behind him. I get, I get the feeling there's some of that, you know, that there are still some old grudges in there, and there are also a lot of people

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who are reassessing and forgive and forget. I mean, I, I called Oscar Rios and his overall buddies now, you know. He, he still rants and raves about John Silver's movie, that lying film, but, you know, but his were friends, you know, so, uh. I, I remember

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Shavela was a very nice guy. He was the one person in the striker committee that I had some contact with and I went back to the labor notes conference with him. It's funny. He was supposed to speak at the banquet, and I think they gave this

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banquet, uh, ticket to Fernando uh Going dad, you know. Didn't know he already, he already had a ticket, but he just took it and he. He figured out what was going on, you know, but uh. Yeah, I, I remember him as a very nice, very gentle,

00:10:02.760 - 00:10:20.150

very unassuming guy, and he's not the sort of person I would expect to be. You know, Well, I didn't mean it was a grudge per se, but it was hard for people. I mean it was really, really hard and so I think, you know. And so,

00:10:20.880 - 00:10:31.489

I don't know that he, you know, how much of it's angry and how much of this is he's done, you know what I mean, that part of my life is over, right? Yeah, I, you know, whatever. So I, I, I don't know, I, I'm just curious.

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I mean, you, you were an officer. In local 912 for must have been an incredibly difficult time, you know, and frustrating and um. I can What's he doing now? Is he retired I think he's retired. He's a landlord. He has like apartment buildings in Caskerville, and

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he was always very smart. I think he was very smart about money and saving and investment and that kind of stuff, and he's a mechanic, so I'm sure he does. He's able to do a lot of the maintenance work, but I haven't talked to him for

00:11:03.989 - 00:11:23.130

a long time for a while, I guess after he and Sergio retired from the local at the same time. They were And they were friends for a while. unless you need more information about me. I don't know. 01 more thing, yeah, and then talked about, and

00:11:23.130 - 00:11:35.059

you know he wanted to direct this in a certain way. One thing I learned talking about Sergio and Alex is that. They had a certain stick they wanted to give me. They had a certain perspective they want to put that across and my asking them questions

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kind of got in the way. This is better just to sort of let them talk, um, if you wanna play it that way. Well, what I thought was I would try to address the questions that you had in your letter. Yeah Mhm. No you have there?

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I do actually. Um, because that's, I mean, you sort of asked them in chronological order like what was I doing before that so I could just go there and, and feel free to stop me or ask questions. So we'll see, we'll see how it we'll see

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how it goes, right. And I might say, OK, um, and you might ask it now while you're thinking of it, and I might say, well, let me, let's let's write it down and come back to it or something, but let's just we'll figure it out, um.

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OK. So, um, I'll just give you a quick synopsis of sort of like how I got there, um, which is interesting, um. And so I became interested in social change, probably at Around age 6, And it was just because of the way my life was going,

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um, uh, this is in Southern California, Los Angeles area, and, um, my mom was, um, mostly institutionalized for most of her life, um, starting when I was around 4, and then, um, and so I was mostly raised by my dad, my brother, my younger brother and

00:13:11.200 - 00:13:33.520

I and my dad, and Um, then my mom married, uh, um, Uh, a black mental patient, another black another mental patient who was black and um Who she met in LA County General Hospital and so um then they ended up getting married and having a child

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and um and they were institutionalized the whole time. No, they were, they got out and they got married and moved in together and had a baby and I visited regularly and It just, it was there was racism for a, you know, a white kid growing up.

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It just made racism just in my face on a very daily basis because nothing had prepared my dad either for raising two boys by himself or being sort of replaced by a black mental patient. And so he, so anyway, so there was just, you know, lots

00:14:09.580 - 00:14:29.650

of racism spewing around me all the time and um and I loved my um. Stepfather and my half brother and So it just made, and, you know. And I was aware of the fragility of this family, and Um And I knew that the world had to

00:14:29.650 - 00:14:47.690

change for my family to be OK. So, you know, and then I just had a variety of different Fantasies, you know, including being, you know, like baseball player, you know, hero imprisoned at the height of his career. I mean it was something like Sandy Koufax slash

00:14:47.690 - 00:15:06.640

Muhammad Ali fantasies, um, very, very early on. So what's that? I'm 52. I'm 52. I was born in '57. So, so, and you know, I got a lot out of the civil rights movement, you know, as a 6 or 7 year old boy going into daycare

00:15:06.640 - 00:15:23.140

every day and looking at the LA Times and Just the fact that there was somewhere, there were people who were On the same side of me, you know, and I've often speculated, you know, or whatever. question myself about what my life would have been like if

00:15:23.140 - 00:15:42.179

I had the same background and I've grown up 10 years, I would have been born 10 years earlier or 10 years later, in terms of not having Not being able to see other people fighting for what I believed in, you know, even if it was newspaper

00:15:42.179 - 00:15:53.820

captions in Memphis or Montgomery or wherever, and so anyway, so the question became, you know, so the question evolved in terms of what, how do I, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do? what do I do, how do I change the

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world? And so I thought I wanted to be a psychologist. Well, first there was a baseball player, you know, you know, and then. Then there was gall, you know, and then I couldn't um I didn't, I was late at puberty, so baseball career suddenly wasn't gonna

00:16:14.309 - 00:16:32.090

be possible. I'm not saying it was ever really possible, but, but, but, but you thought about, you know, it was a boyhood fantasy, but you know, I mean, at some point reality impinges and that happened when everybody got bigger and then, but I, I, I discovered

00:16:32.090 - 00:16:46.159

sort of by accident that it doesn't matter how how big you are to hit a golf ball. I mean it's all about. It's all about technique really or luck in the case of somebody screwing around and so then I thought, oh, OK, I could be a

00:16:46.159 - 00:17:00.669

golf or singer and You know, who goes to prison at the height of his career, you know, whatever. So there were all these different things and then the first job I thought about was a psychologist and then I had a good experience in high school, on

00:17:00.669 - 00:17:16.759

teacher 80, and, you know, an incredible and I could just see kids. Where did you go to high school? I went to high school. I started in, I did 10th grade in North Hollywood High School and then I, um, my father remarried. And uh we moved

00:17:16.759 - 00:17:33.630

to Orange County Huntington Beach. I did 11th and 12th grade there and that was really hard, especially for me given my, you know, I mean actually. I, I, I talk a little bit more about the history in terms of In relationship to race in a book

00:17:33.630 - 00:17:52.180

called White Men Challenging Racism, um, and, and, um, so I talk I talk about my work and it was Cooper Thompson was one of the editors. And I can't remember, he's the person I talked to, and there were two others, Harry Broad, I think, B R

00:17:52.180 - 00:18:09.579

O D. And it's there and so uh It's interesting. I mean, I, I haven't read the whole thing, but the old timers, I really liked it, um, Studs and Kennedy, who infiltrated the Klan. Oh sure, I've heard his name. I know Studs Terkel interviewed him, yeah,

00:18:09.890 - 00:18:23.609

and hard times I think wasn't it? I don't know. I'll have to go look it up and yeah, he infiltrated the Klan and Um, would give away the codes to that Superman show and things like that. That's a classic Studs Terkel, and then, right, and then

00:18:23.609 - 00:18:46.260

also, um. Herb Ap Decker, who talked about liberating camps. Uh, concentration camps. He was in the army. I actually had a cousin who did that, he never talks about it. So it made him into a frothing at the, yeah, so anyways, I'll, I'll just abbreviate this

00:18:46.260 - 00:18:59.270

now if you're interested that it's there and then um. I have one question about Huntington Beach was had had Orange County become like a Vietnamese exile ghetto at that point? It was still too soon? No, I think it was the beginning, but it was more in

00:18:59.270 - 00:19:12.949

Santa Ana, Anaheim Santa Ana, which has always been a lot more people of color and more working class and poor, but in Huntington Beach, it was closer to really closer to Fountain Valley, and it was, I don't know, it was just hard. It was a hard

00:19:12.949 - 00:19:31.099

place to go, but what I was gonna say is in the book I talked about having felt closer to people of color. Most of my life and talk about that as a Struggle of people who are fighting racism often have is they'd rather be with the

00:19:31.099 - 00:19:47.689

you know they'd rather whatever and and and but it's not really. I mean it's understandable given how I grew up, but it's something that I sort of struggle struggle against. And anyway, so, so especially going to a place where it's a community based on people who

00:19:47.689 - 00:20:06.900

are afraid of people of color and specifically and basically afraid of people and trying to figure out community, you know, when you're. 15 years old, you know, in a community that's based on fear, really. So anyway, but this is, this stuff is actually important, I think

00:20:06.900 - 00:20:19.439

even though it's not pertaining directly to the strike I don't feel like you have to curtail it again you can come back and ask more questions, but I just wanted to give you as much of the first round. So anyway, so then I had an experience

00:20:19.439 - 00:20:34.089

in a school. There, um, in which I could just see kids sort of transformed and kids who had not tried in school, all of a sudden trying. And so then I thought, oh, I don't want to be a psychologist anymore. I want to be a school

00:20:34.089 - 00:20:54.079

teacher because I had that vanishing. But creating the conditions whereby a whole bunch of, so that's sort of where it's about, it's not so much about. Helping individual people or something, but it was about creating conditions where everyone could do well, right, and that that seemed

00:20:54.079 - 00:21:13.010

to have more leverage and that was always the question is where's the leverage and then I went, I transferred after two years in uh living at home. Living with my parents in Orange County, then I transferred up to finish my college career, um, at UC Santa

00:21:13.010 - 00:21:33.819

Cruz and got into the teacher credentialing program. And it was a very political program, I'll bet. And uh And so you know, by the way I knew her. I had friends of mine knew better. I can see her taking you under her wing. I mean, she

00:21:33.819 - 00:21:46.729

did that with a lot of, you know, younger folk, yeah, yeah, I didn't. I mean, I was, I was sort of, yeah. I mean there's a bunch of class issues. I mean, I grew up really poor in poor neighborhoods, and there were a bunch of class

00:21:46.729 - 00:22:02.109

issues that I think would have kept me from. Even being in Marran's class, not that it was a bad thing, but it just I that's a pretty rarefied atmosphere for, you know, a kid from North Hollywood High. Even, even kids from well to do backgrounds tend

00:22:02.109 - 00:22:18.030

to freak out in that school from what I've noticed. So anyway, so then I went, you know, and that's where I started going to Watsonville because you had to put in some time teacher aiding and things like that and so I ended up going to um

00:22:18.030 - 00:22:39.810

Watsonville. And I don't know, and it was just so much easier for me to be in Watsonville at a junior high school than it was to be. At UCSC. And And so I got to be a counselor, school counselor, and Um, help teach bi, you know,

00:22:40.069 - 00:23:00.750

basically be a teacher aide and actually get to help teach you actually got your credential. Uh, no, I didn't. And like a lot of the Graduates, some of the top graduates of that education program, uh. I think we're, we're, you know, we made a pet. It's

00:23:00.750 - 00:23:15.819

a very small program, so it's very competitive, and there were several 100 kids wanted to get in and maybe 35 a year or something could get in. So, but I think what was funny about it is that the, the, the most political people ended up. Being

00:23:15.819 - 00:23:33.359

too political to want to teach. After they went through it and they weren't really helpful in terms of You know, actually how to teach or manage a classroom, and partly that's because that's the UC philosophy. It's all about. You know, big picture and not about like

00:23:33.359 - 00:23:52.510

hanging around, how does the overhead projector work or, you know, whatever, but um So anyways, so you know after we broke up my wife went into teaching. Mid mid career, midlife career change, that's what she's doing now. Go on. So, anyhow, um, so then I decided,

00:23:52.699 - 00:24:09.959

well, shit, now what am I gonna do? Um, and I still wanted to change the world, and I realized that a lot of teaching was gonna be treading water, and that it wasn't gonna be a great platform, and There was a lot of working by yourself

00:24:09.959 - 00:24:23.390

that you had to do. I mean, I like kids and I like, you know, I mean, I liked a lot of it, but I didn't like. Uh, the amount of work, the amount of work by yourself, the kind of Discipline that I didn't have, you know,

00:24:23.430 - 00:24:37.599

to be able to think of a, you know, to, to, to do that kind of work and then And also that it just seemed like you'd be treading water and it just didn't seem like necessarily the best platform to change the world. And so I read

00:24:37.599 - 00:24:54.630

a bunch about Liberation and continued to read and took basically about a year off. Um, I'm not a year off, I graduated now, but I took, I gave myself time to figure out what to do next, and so I read a lot of books and There

00:24:54.630 - 00:25:17.170

were some people in the Mideast trying to do. Um Dialogues and between Um, Palestinians and, uh, Israeli settlers in the occupied areas and I thought, well, that's, you know, I mean that was one of the things that was actively and pretty early on actually for that

00:25:17.170 - 00:25:33.369

kind of thing and there's very little of that stuff happening, this was in '79 or so and so that, so I thought, well, that sounds challenging and interesting and big. And I thought of moving to Chicago for some reason and near the near the water in

00:25:33.369 - 00:25:49.329

the docks or something, probably you've never been there, yeah, and then, and I thought about Watsonville, um, which was in and Watsonville won out, but I also read a book. You know, I also thought about the labor movement and you know, people that I knew and

00:25:49.329 - 00:26:03.410

loved and trusted had been around in the 30s and were a little nostalgic about the labor movement, you know, in terms of the, you know, during the Depression and post depression are people you knew was growing up in LA. Well, these are people that I've met

00:26:03.410 - 00:26:16.959

since being in Santa Cruz, you know, who lived in different parts of the country, and they were older people and stuff like that. And so I was sort of, so, and then I read a Steven Brill's book that came out in '78. It's called the Teamsters.

00:26:17.209 - 00:26:36.560

The name is familiar. He, he started court TV since then. He started what court television. Anyway, Steven Brill, and so it's basically chapters about Jackie Presser and Oh right, he's the expose of the, yeah, and there was a chapter about Ron Kerry who was at the

00:26:36.560 - 00:26:50.079

time the president of the Queen's, uh, you know Parksel local and stuff like that. And so I thought, oh, there it is, and so, you know, and I did what colors my parachute, you know, to figure out, you know, like what are all the things that

00:26:50.079 - 00:27:08.420

I liked and whatever. So I, I took this like what am I gonna do next pretty seriously and I worked as a maintenance man. At a camp in Aptos and. And uh And then, um. I tried to organize for the first time at uh Um, a

00:27:08.420 - 00:27:23.979

caterer in Watsonville, but I had, and you were on your own, right? You weren't working with anybody basically sort of. Yeah, and then I had a temporary job working as a caterer that catered to Paro Dunes because they had empty basically empty vacation rentals and then

00:27:23.979 - 00:27:40.250

that then the people would rent out to. Corporate groups or visitors or whatever like that, and so we would take, we cater food. Out to these places, and so I tried organizing. Them into a union like the first couple of days. I mean I'm like whatever,

00:27:40.369 - 00:27:54.630

20, you know, 21 or something and you know, I got fired and had my first experience trying to talk to the labor board and You know, because it was clear the reason I was fired, but, um, and you know, that's where I first went to the

00:27:54.630 - 00:28:10.030

Teamsters there, and I said, hey, you know, I'm working here and it's in Watsonville and blah blah blah and this is still 912. This is 912 and Dick King was King was there and I went to Richard or uh Fred Hi at the beginning of that

00:28:10.030 - 00:28:23.430

movie telling everybody to get out with John Silver and him to get out, stop filming. That guy and so it's just like I said I'm here to, you know, hey, guess what, you know, I'll help you, you know, organize this place and what are you talking

00:28:23.430 - 00:28:39.010

about, you know, get out, you know, whatever. I know almost nothing about harm except that Alex described him to me as a bump on a log, yeah, I mean. King, I always just heard was this sort of hopeless drunk, and according to Sergio, he wasn't always

00:28:39.010 - 00:28:52.599

that way, but he became that way toward the end, you know, he just. Well, but I won't get into that, but yeah, so anyways, but so that was, you know, so sort of like that was that. And then in '79, and I basically cut my hair

00:28:52.599 - 00:29:13.310

real short. Got a job at UPS um in the uh Christmas season of '79, um where they hired a bunch of casual help. And um. I think I only worked maybe the last week. Before Christmas Eve and then when I started working at the post office,

00:29:13.319 - 00:29:30.729

and then, and then in the interim I got this job at at Holzman and Daw which was the caterer, and then, and then I got called back on February 20th of 1980 to UPS for a part-time job in Watsonville, basically the entire night crew for this

00:29:30.729 - 00:29:58.010

small new facility, so I got to. Drive the trucks and. And you the packages and you remember in good standing 12 and I became a member. How many uh UPS people. We're in my 12. Um, I don't know, 75 maybe at the time. All drivers or

00:29:58.010 - 00:30:19.709

no, about half, um, about half were drivers and about half were part-time. OK, OK, and so then. And I knew something about reform, you know, I mean, because that was part of what motivated me to want to be a team, so I go, oh, OK, on

00:30:19.709 - 00:30:34.780

the one hand, it's just a, a union, it's a regular old union, so it's the point of production and industrial working class, all that good stuff. But then on the other hand it's like this really kind of screwed up organization right and so and so the

00:30:34.780 - 00:30:46.619

idea of being, you know, wanting a big challenge and wanting something that I didn't have to. You know, that could be a lifetime of work. When you say screwed up, you mean nationally or you mean local 912 I mean nationally. I didn't know anything about but

00:30:46.619 - 00:31:07.119

nationally, and you basically had read Stephen Bra's book. And that was your main, that was my main evidence for there's corruption and. Whatever. You know, and I think they were in, I think, yeah, and they were in, you know, by that time they were in with

00:31:07.119 - 00:31:23.729

uh Reagan and all this other kind of stuff, right? Like presser was presser, you know, was, you know, and they've been, they've been for the Republicans since Kennedy. Oh yeah, yeah. So anyway, so it was like, oh, OK, that sounds good, you know. You know, it's

00:31:23.729 - 00:31:40.229

like not only it's a union, but it's a really screwed up union. OK, I'm, I'm in and that that would be that would be kind of an oppositional mindset. I don't think it was oppositional in the sense of. You were there to clean the union. I

00:31:40.229 - 00:31:54.349

was there to make change, yeah, yeah. The way to do it would be to change the union to make it better. Yeah, I mean it's two things one is you're dealing with the employers, right, and in the other you're dealing with the union sort of like

00:31:54.349 - 00:32:07.579

you're basically trying to make the union stronger so that you can do a better job dealing with employers. But I always thought that the main job was the employers, but it's like there was a challenge on both. On both of these fronts, and that's what I

00:32:07.579 - 00:32:22.020

was looking for. It's a challenge. Wasn't your sense that, you know, there was room to maneuver in 9-12, that there was room to worry again, I didn't, you were too green. I was, yeah, I, I wasn't, I didn't analyze local 912 at all, at all. So

00:32:22.020 - 00:32:36.329

I had an impression when I went, you know, and asked them about, you know, this place I was trying to, I was working at, I was trying to organize, and the impression wasn't good. But that wasn't going to discourage me because I knew that the Teamsters

00:32:36.329 - 00:32:53.339

had problems from reading Stephen Brill's book. So of course they have problems. Now at UPS you are actually covered by a national contract, right, right. Um, so 9/12 just, which I mean 912 is like an amalgamated local and it covers a whole one contracts, some of

00:32:53.339 - 00:33:13.890

which are negotiated upstairs and as a UPS driver you were basically working under a national agreement which 912 is responsible for enforcing, yeah. So, anyway, that's how I got there and then somewhere along the line, I was in Alberton's near Sergio's house actually out on uh.

00:33:14.790 - 00:33:33.250

I was out on Freedom in the Airport and I saw this sign and I've been working for UPS for a little bit. And I saw this sign. Well, first of all, I got my probation, so I passed, I wanted to pass my seniority and not mention

00:33:33.250 - 00:33:44.770

a word of this to anybody and My words with supervisors is how fast is someone going to be a driver and what's the fastest, and do you guys have record books because I want to break the records and I was gonna be the best thing that

00:33:44.770 - 00:34:00.130

ever happened with UPS and blah blah blah. So anyway, so. But I was very aware and I didn't wait for the money starting to come out of my dues after I had my 30th day counted, you know, of of work of seniority. I went down to

00:34:00.130 - 00:34:20.090

the Teamsters and paid my dues and started recruiting people from UPS into TDU. And I got some of my part-time people in Santa Cruz, where we loaded the trucks every night together when I drove the Waal stuff over. I got some of those people to do

00:34:20.090 - 00:34:36.800

it and then these are people you know. No, these are people that I've met while I was working there. But you say they were people from Santa Cruz. You don't mean the campus, they were in Santa Cruz. There were two buildings and Uh, UPS locally. One

00:34:36.800 - 00:34:49.729

was Watsonville, which was a small satellite where I worked, and then a larger hub where you actually had big 40 ft trailers was. Tell me something about the kind of people you were recruiting. I mean, were they older than you? No, they were my age. There

00:34:49.729 - 00:35:07.610

were other part-time workers who worked on swing shifts, the second shift, young guys basically working young guys and gals, yeah, and so, and so, you know, so we, I tried to recruit them and was successful at a couple of them and then. One guy, Howard, um.

00:35:09.050 - 00:35:23.300

I left something for him like a uh a blank form. He says, oh, I think I left it on the counter. Like the counter that's like the public counter where the drivers check in and stuff and then it's like, oh shit, and then I got really

00:35:23.350 - 00:35:43.979

scared. That um I got really scared that the jig was up. Wait, before that, before that, there was one other thing that happened, which is another impression. I wasn't being paid properly, according to the contract. And this was sometime after I probably I made probation, past

00:35:43.979 - 00:36:08.060

my probationary period and before recruiting for PDU and So I went down to the local. And Fred Heim, the president, and a business agent named Bud Davis were shared two desks in a small office. And so, I went down there and um talked to them and

00:36:08.639 - 00:36:22.580

said, here's my wage stub, and this is what they're getting, what they're paying me, and this is what I'm supposed to be getting paid. And Fred was saying. No, no, that's not what you're supposed to be getting paid. And I said, Well, explain it to me,

00:36:22.639 - 00:36:36.510

and I was trying to get him to look at the book and to look at the wage stuff, and he wouldn't tell, tell, tell me. And so I said, Whatever, so I was sort of arguing with him and then Bud, the business agent says, well, let

00:36:36.510 - 00:36:48.419

me take a look at that. So then he looked at both of those and he says, well, you look like, yeah. I have to agree with you. I think you're right. This is what the contract says, and this is what you're getting paid, OK. You know,

00:36:48.500 - 00:37:07.899

I'll go talk to them. And so then I got in my old beat up car. And I was circling around, and I saw Bud talking to this big red-haired guy. It turned out to be Richard King. But I didn't know, and so they were talking and

00:37:07.899 - 00:37:25.370

then I went to work that afternoon at 5:30. And my supervisor, Tony. Go out I heard Tony, I think it was Tony Gonzalez. And he and I had a pretty good relationship, and so he says, Joe, I gotta tell you, I was, I was told. I

00:37:25.370 - 00:37:44.780

was told uh To find a reason to fire you by Christmas by my boss. And so, anyways, he said that um his boss got a call from the union saying warning them that they had a troublemaker working for them. And then this is pre-TDU or anything.

00:37:44.830 - 00:38:03.489

This is just saying I'm not getting paid correctly so. I thought, OK, this is a problem, and Somewhere along the line, so this must have been in the fall. I, I'm assuming, but I gotta fire you about Christmas, this probably happened sometime in the fall of

00:38:03.489 - 00:38:33.139

1980. And Um, Yeah, and then at some point, and I don't remember exactly when. In this picture, but at some point I was going to the Albertsons on Airport in Freedom. And buying some groceries. And on my way out, I saw a flyer, that's probably in

00:38:33.139 - 00:38:53.360

Frank's archives. Uh SF states archives or whatever that basically said your dues paid for this and it showed it was a it was a very nice uh pencil drawing of like a Lincoln in front of the local team. It says your dues paid for this in

00:38:53.360 - 00:39:17.600

Spanish and English and it was advertising right and and it and it and it advertised a meeting that was happening that Sunday at a, at a local church. So I went to that meeting. And it was all in Spanish, and mostly in Um, Most, almost, I

00:39:17.600 - 00:39:44.500

think everybody was a cannery worker. Who's at that meeting. About how many people were there? Uh, I don't know, 50. And I had As part of trying to be a bilingual teacher in in uh Watsonville. As part of the student education thing after my last summer,

00:39:44.580 - 00:40:00.040

I'd gone to Guatemala and learned Spanish fluent. Well, I was pretty fluent, but I wasn't, you know, I You know, all my training had been like talking to people one at a time, high school students one at a time, and so people talking fast and talking,

00:40:00.159 - 00:40:19.250

using a lot of slang that you know was new to me because it was Watsonville, you know, and so you know the person who I understood the most easily was Frank, you know, and um. You know, and I'm like 20, whatever, I'm 22 years old, so

00:40:19.899 - 00:40:38.409

I, I was just, and Frank was extraordinarily confident, and that was one of the things that attracted me about him, was he was just extraordinarily confident. Yeah, I, I actually knew him well, he was actually uh Uh, I knew him from knew who he was from

00:40:38.409 - 00:40:56.370

Stop the draft week. Me and Reese Ehrlich were actually co-defendants in that, uh, but then I took a class with Paul Jacobs at San Francisco State and Um, do you know who he was? He was an investigative reporter and kind of a local San Francisco character.

00:40:57.020 - 00:41:15.290

He used to call himself the house radical, you know, he was always being written up and heard of Kane's column, but he was 5 ft 4. So, completely bald with this very tough kind of. New York Jewish gangsters air about him and um. He ran for

00:41:15.290 - 00:41:33.790

centered on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket in '68. And, you know, he's an interesting guy. Uh, an old Trotskyist who actually had been involved in the CIO and driving the left out of the CIO and had since come to regret it. But, you know, Henry

00:41:33.790 - 00:41:50.800

Bridges never forgave him. Uh, but he was a big, he was one of the older people who was around in '68, 69, thereabouts, kind of helping the new left and Um, He taught a class at San Francisco State, which I took half the time he didn't

00:41:50.800 - 00:42:05.270

show up and when he didn't show up, Frank taught it, so I think Frank was a protege of his at that point. So that was my first real contact with him and we talked a lot during the strike because, you know, he remembered me. You would

00:42:05.270 - 00:42:19.560

argue a bit and it was always, I always enjoyed talking to him, even though we rarely saw things eye to eye, you know. But I'm, I'm looking forward to talking to him again actually, and when he gets his damn book finished, but go on. OK, so

00:42:19.560 - 00:42:35.189

anyway, so I was this, you know, young, you know, young guy, and it's like, here I am and this is already going on and And um You know, and so it became clear, like, the best contribution I could make to this, you know, that that the

00:42:35.189 - 00:42:50.060

cannery workers were getting organized, and they were going to meetings, and A lot of it was just like letting people know that there's these meetings that happen once a month and everybody can go and you can vote and You know, because basically there hadn't been any

00:42:50.060 - 00:43:05.610

meetings for many years, 12 union meetings. And then, you know, when people would make things, you know, and they, you know, would pass agendas like, you know, they passed in a, you know, they passed by they had bylaws, you know, told them they had bylaws and

00:43:05.610 - 00:43:19.760

they can change the bylaws. You know, and then King would like be oppositional and like, like, uh, you know, read the mail and just try to, you know, I mean like that would be the, you know, he would like read the, the, the telephone bill or

00:43:19.760 - 00:43:33.239

something, you know I mean it was just basically to try to like um make people go away. And he didn't really know how to deal with it, and so that's what he did. And so, and then, you know, and that would launch other, and that would

00:43:33.239 - 00:43:49.090

make people mad, and And you know, and then they would have meetings and decide what to do next and so there were some bylaw campaigns and and I worked at night so I couldn't go to any of these union meetings. Yeah, so I'd go to the

00:43:49.090 - 00:44:06.889

Sunday meetings, you know, I Talk to Frank and um But I thought the best thing that I could do would be to try to organize other People in the smaller, I think there were, I think in '82 we we The numbers we had, there was like

00:44:06.889 - 00:44:27.750

8200 people in the local, 8200. In like October of '82, um, but in Um, So that's, that's the first thing I remember about TDU is they were having these meetings and then they had like these bylaws campaigns and they got they won childcare um at the

00:44:27.750 - 00:44:43.280

meetings because most of the folks were female that went to the meetings. Um, and I mean, impediment to childcare and um there were so many. Almost all of these 8200 people are cannery workers, and many, you know, when there's 3 shift operations in all of these

00:44:43.280 - 00:44:59.929

plants, and so, um, That was one of the things that got changed is that the locals said, OK, yeah, the local would pay for the childcare for any children that were, you know, on Tuesday nights that needed childcare while their their mom usually went to the

00:44:59.929 - 00:45:15.060

meetings. So there was a whole bunch of, you know, so this was all really kind of fun and nice to get your feet exciting and all that kind of stuff. And so I thought, OK, well I'll try to get the. The The white guys, and they

00:45:15.060 - 00:45:33.330

were in a, in a division called the Heavy duty division. And there maybe were like 600, and so there were beer drivers and bread drivers. Um, and cement mixer drivers and things like that. And so, mostly what I would do is I had a little green

00:45:33.330 - 00:46:00.879

diesel uh Volkswagen Rabbit. And I would drive around during the day. And Um, I don't know, my, my organizing style is always more like Just intuitively was like mostly listening just try to figure out a question that would get people talking and so I'd say, you

00:46:00.879 - 00:46:15.300

know, hi, I'm I'm new and you know and I'd just be this young, this young kid who's really trying to find out from people who are older and more experienced what's going on here because I talked to my co-workers at UPS about our union and they

00:46:15.300 - 00:46:31.139

say. And they say, you know, um, they don't get very good representation, and they assume that you guys do. So, do you? You know, and then people would go and they'd say, you know, what pieces of shit these the local union reps were, and they would

00:46:31.139 - 00:46:44.780

tell me stories and whatever. And then, you know, I'd make a second round and say, you know, you know, I'm I'm meeting them like behind the stores that they're delivering to and stuff like that. You know, I'm just stopping and talking to him cold. And then,

00:46:44.800 - 00:46:57.939

you know, I'm asking people who they respect. Who are, you know, at their own workplace, you know, is there anybody who's even more interested than you are in these issues and, you know, who should I talk to, you know, to try to get in cross reference

00:46:57.939 - 00:47:11.860

and try to pull together a group. I'm gonna break in here because I've got kind of an interpretive question. When you first got involved in local 912, you were thinking mainly in terms of changing the national union. It sounds like you had. I mean, I don't

00:47:11.860 - 00:47:28.639

think I was thinking about. I mean, the only real thing about I don't think I was thinking in those terms national union local union because now when I think about it, the union, yeah, because wherever you are, that's how I thought about it and so and

00:47:28.639 - 00:47:41.840

so I'll be part of this big. National Union, but I'm gonna do whatever I'm gonna do you knew about the Teamsters when you first started was based on the reputation of the National Union as this kind of right, and then then the example that inspired me,

00:47:42.610 - 00:47:58.270

you know, ironically was the Kerry example because here's this guy who's got like who's basically fought his way to detente with the New York mafia and the Teamsters. And they don't fuck with him because he's too big and too powerful and he's got too big of

00:47:58.270 - 00:48:17.889

a base of people who come UPS. He was running the, he was running a local, um, with the biggest UPS. With the biggest UPS center and he would occasionally wildcat and Um, you know, I mean, these are illegal strikes, and he had enough. There was enough

00:48:17.889 - 00:48:29.820

support, you know, I mean they're illegal, but if you have enough support, you can work it out so that you don't get you know, you don't get civil suit, you know, and all that kind of stuff. And so he was this big, you know, you know,

00:48:29.860 - 00:48:44.590

I mean I was, I mean that was my model. I mean, Muhammad Ali. Sandy Koufax and Ron Kerry, the loner, right, who takes, you know, Clint, I mean, it's Clint Eastwood, you know, versus the, you know, whatever versus the world, right? I mean it was a

00:48:44.590 - 00:49:03.459

very male loner kind of thing and So anyway, so, so it's like, OK, you know, so there's some version of that. You know, I, you know, I, I didn't know what to expect. It's just like, OK. This works, you know, so, so anyways, that's what I

00:49:03.459 - 00:49:18.870

was doing, going around talking to these white guys and trying to get them interested and trying to figure out their own path, um, so, so I would get them together and you know, and then so that was my thing, that was my contribution to the local

00:49:18.870 - 00:49:35.149

CDU and so we'd get involved around their contracts and help them go to meetings themselves and. Things like that. And so some of them, you know, one guy got fired. Um, you know, so there was definitely, you know, from his, uh, beer distributorship, you know, because

00:49:35.149 - 00:49:51.070

he was at a meeting, and, you know, there were, there were definitely repercussions. So, I mean, there was a way that I didn't know what You know, I was very new to this whole thing, and so there was some way that I wasn't. Aware of You

00:49:51.070 - 00:50:06.229

know, what we're really getting into, you know, and if you push a little bit, they, they push back and things like that, so. So that's, that's what was going on and then I think then the one part, you know, and I was interested in what was

00:50:06.229 - 00:50:21.479

going on in the canneries, but I didn't see myself I wasn't in the canneries, my Spanish wasn't good enough, and how was I going to quote unquote compete with Frank. I was actually working in the cameras at that point. Frank was working, yeah, he was working

00:50:21.479 - 00:50:39.520

as a lumper at first would uh. That was basically there were uh people would load and unload trucks, so he was working as a lumper lumper, yeah, L U M P E R L U M P E R. And he was working in various, he worked

00:50:39.520 - 00:51:03.129

in the back of Green Giant. He worked at various, it got him into different places. So he moved around from Cannery to Cannery. He wasn't at all. He wasn't watching. No, I don't think he ever did it. And Most of what, you know, And But what

00:51:03.129 - 00:51:18.290

it looked like, so I, I just didn't, you know, I, I, I didn't feel like I had very much to offer on the cannery worker side. I went to a TDU convention. I brought Juana Reyamosa, who was this green giant worker, and This is maybe 81

00:51:18.290 - 00:51:35.580

or something like that, and I was supposed to translate for her, and I couldn't really understand. Everything she was saying, so I was filling in blanks, you know, through my guessing. Yeah, so that she was somebody you met, how, well, she was in TDU right and

00:51:36.300 - 00:52:00.330

Um, and also, I would say that this was like the first. Spanish speaking, this was at the time, I would say this is was the biggest Spanish speaking. Um, Area in TDU. You know, nationally, right. So it was really the first sort of bilingual. Or and,

00:52:00.449 - 00:52:20.050

and, and certainly Spanish speaking, um, how big was the TDU vocal at that point? The CDU chapter, um. You know, I don't know. Mike said he thought, you know, maybe a couple dozen people, about half of whom were really active, you know. I think that there

00:52:20.050 - 00:52:36.010

were probably more people I think there were more people who were active than who were members, but I don't, I don't really know. The number when you said that the number 55 popped up the number 55 popped up. I mean this occurred to me, but that's

00:52:36.010 - 00:52:59.280

not a. That's not even a guess. There was, there was a substantial organizational way getting things done, and I know that Frank came fairly close to unseating Dick King. When was that? And I ran as recording secretary, which was a part-time job and there were a

00:52:59.280 - 00:53:13.030

couple of people who were vying for a full time job, business agent, but I wasn't one of them. I didn't think I was ready. Or interested, but you made enough of a showing that it looked like it might be possible yeah, I think we got 44%.

00:53:15.399 - 00:53:31.340

That was in 82 in November, right? Right. That scared that scared them. It scared them and it scared us, right? I mean, well, Frank, Frank and I was like, fuck, you know, I'm trying to think of. Well, here again, I think this is something Mike said,

00:53:31.379 - 00:53:45.800

it's like Frank was a guy who'd been. Kind of an agitator for most of his political life, and the thought of actually being responsible for running the union was kind of a daunting thought for him. And he's honest. I mean, I, I, I, I have differences,

00:53:45.979 - 00:54:00.959

you know, I mean, it's like I have difference with the d you know. Um, I love Frank and have, you know, had differences with him, but I think he's very honest and no, I, I think I agree with him. Yeah, no, I've, I've always. Sergio said

00:54:00.959 - 00:54:12.219

the same thing about him. The guy always tell you exactly where you stood with him, you know, perfectly upfront, you know, no sneaking around, nothing, you know, even when he infuriated him, he always knew that he was getting the straight dope from the guy, you know,

00:54:12.360 - 00:54:30.709

so yeah, I, I agree. Go on. So anyways, by the way, this is, yeah, that was the label, yeah, I believe, yeah. I mean, it might have been, no, I think it was Teamsters, it's time for a change or something. But I don't think we hid

00:54:30.709 - 00:54:50.600

the fact that we were 44% of the vote. And it was a false like. And what were the main issues in that election? Um, I don't know. There's a poster. I wonder if Frank's got it in this thing. Well, I've actually seen him and all we're,

00:54:50.800 - 00:55:08.570

we're, we're, I mean. And we're all guys, and that was the other thing in terms of when, when Frank decided not to do it and it became, I mean this is jumping ahead but it became more like Jose Lopez and I um. You know, Frank had

00:55:08.570 - 00:55:23.000

a lot more confidence than I did in terms of bringing people together and knowing what to do with them once he got there. He also had, he also had a fairly clear idea of what he needed to do and I didn't. And also, you know, um,

00:55:24.229 - 00:55:43.649

A lot of the most active people, when Frank was Involved were like angry, angry men. Yeah, and And there's all the, you know, and that's not where, you know, I'm not, you know, I'm not as angry as Frank. And I'm not anyway, that wasn't, and I

00:55:43.649 - 00:55:55.919

don't have, you know, I didn't really know what to do with them. I, I wanna break in for one sec because there's something I want. Frank, I guess when he left Berkeley and he went down to, you know, play ball with the farmer I guess was

00:55:55.919 - 00:56:10.290

associated with the uh. The revolutionary Union at that point, I don't know if he ever talked to you much about that. I don't know at what point he left them or anything, but. You know, I think, especially as time went on, he was way too sophisticated

00:56:10.290 - 00:56:27.840

for them. Uh, but, uh, when they first started, they had some fairly bright people in them in there and um. Um, But they did have that kind of call to the sort of the tough ass kicking, you know, white male worker with the sideburns and a

00:56:27.840 - 00:56:42.270

little mustache and stuff like that, and they affected a certain style, um. Person I was put off by it, but I didn't associate it with Frank, you know, because I remembered him from Berkeley, you know, in San Francisco State. But I that may have been where

00:56:42.270 - 00:56:55.949

some of that came from. I don't know if you don't know. Well, in terms of no, in terms of, in terms of why, you know, I'm just, I was just sort of observation it's like, I don't know what to do with these guys and like the

00:56:55.949 - 00:57:11.239

whole, I don't know if there was a certain sort of machismo and all that kind of stuff and it just looked like the people. The real power, I always thought I always thought the real power was the women, you know. Um, yeah, I mean just intuit

00:57:11.239 - 00:57:24.500

just on a gut level but they didn't say a lot and they didn't strut the same way. Or stick their chests out when they walked or, you know, all this other kind of stuff, and And it wasn't about posturing, but there was just there was just

00:57:24.500 - 00:57:39.530

there was just some kind of cohesion among these women, and I, you know, and I would say it's that has borne itself out, you know, not only in the strike but after the strike, you know, in all the years since the strike that, you know, the

00:57:39.530 - 00:57:59.770

women are the real power. I mean they're also the biggest group. You know, and they work together and Anyway, You know, so I, I, and I didn't really know it. You know, so what to do with them, and then, um, the one our thing. I got

00:57:59.770 - 00:58:19.889

that. OK. And again, I was very Uh, remotely involved in it at first, um, I have no clue what this is about. OK, that's fine. So there was at Watsonville, so they're having these meetings, you know, once a month, I think on Tuesdays, the union meetings,

00:58:19.929 - 00:58:38.550

and so they have Sunday meetings. Um, the afternoon, the Sunday afternoon prior to the Tuesday night meetings, and so, you know, and they're talking about issues, you know, different, maybe their workplace issues, maybe their union issues, um, they're often workplace issues, etc. and so at one

00:58:38.550 - 00:58:59.850

point. Um, This guy named Juan Parra, who worked at Watsonville Canning, there's a fellow name for me, A R R A D A R R A. OK. And he um I don't know, I think he was Working in the receiving yard, you know, where they receive

00:58:59.850 - 00:59:21.520

products and stuff. And There was a guy Who was a for his foreman, he was having a problem with his foreman. And his foreman's first name was Ken, uh, Miller, Ken Miller. There's a video of a play was done about this whole, I think I have

00:59:21.520 - 00:59:38.989

a copy of it, yeah, and it was uh. I don't wanna say Hawkins is not it, but Ronnie Somebody was the director, one of the co-founders of the San Francisco Mining troupe, Davis, and he directed it. And Frank wrote it. And uh then I haven't, I

00:59:38.989 - 00:59:51.270

don't have a copy of the play that's it's it was written by some Chicano playwright got published and I've got a copy of it that somebody laid on me and I haven't read it yet. That it seemed more of a sort of a mystical, you know,

00:59:51.389 - 01:00:16.760

metaphorical kind of event lancing but go on more agit prop what you're talking about. Yeah, OK, but anyway, that's that's that's, that's a few years later, so, um. Yeah, that was the whole funny thing. So, um, what happened? OK, so what happened with Juan, so anyway,

01:00:16.840 - 01:00:37.169

so, so this guy keeps is harassing him, and one, you have to like see this guy to believe it. I mean the guy is like the most sweetest, unassuming, humble, friendly, you know. I don't know, maybe a little slow. You know, kind of, but just the

01:00:37.639 - 01:00:53.770

sweetest, nicest. Guy, you can imagine and this guy was just like, you know, calling him names, calling him lazy and whatever and so he tried to go to the local at once. He'd never been to the union and it was like 25 years and this guy

01:00:53.770 - 01:01:08.620

was harassing him so much that he went to the union and nothing happened and then he came back and at some point the guy was pushing him and so he So one, this is in the trailer that he's sweeping up and one pushed back and then

01:01:08.620 - 01:01:28.879

hit the guy over the head with his broom. So Watson will call Canon calls the cops. Nothing happens to Kim, but one is uh. Uh, arrested, taken away, thrown in jail, and, um, charged with assault with a deadly weapon to blame. Yeah, broom broom is deadly

01:01:28.879 - 01:01:50.219

all right. And so then um OK, so now we're gonna mobilize the, you know, around his grievance to get his job back. They do that, and they're gonna go, and they're gonna go basically get the. It basically we're gonna make the preliminary hearing, which is normally

01:01:50.219 - 01:02:09.959

just a formality. We're gonna make it we're gonna make it a big thing to you and so um and so Frank calls his buddy Dan Siegel and Dan comes down and talks and you know Dan, you know, also sort of talks a good game about, you

01:02:09.959 - 01:02:26.350

know, we're going to put Watson book Canning on trial, and you know that whole thing. And so um it's all right. I knew, OK, yeah, and, and so, you know, and again like I'm 22 years old, right, and all this stuff is going on it's like,

01:02:26.360 - 01:02:40.770

wow, this is wow wow, you know, and so I'm getting all this like. You know, I mean, I was too young, right, for this, I was really too young for the 60s. I mean, in terms of being an active participant. But you're getting a nice dose

01:02:40.770 - 01:02:54.209

of 60 days I was in Watsonville, you know, with people, with other people who've never seen anything like it, like the cannery workers, you know, you know, presented by a couple of old Berkeley warhorses, you know, who led the People's Parks, right, you know, right, right,

01:02:54.570 - 01:03:05.610

you know, who've been there before, who've done something, you know, they just come in and they've rehearsed, you know, they've they've practiced, you know what I mean, and so it was like, and it was pretty anyway, so it was, it was exciting for me it's the

01:03:05.610 - 01:03:23.659

point, um. And so, So anyway, so I go out there because it's in the, luckily for me the preliminary hearing is in the day, unlike all these union meetings that I never go to because I'm working and so we go out to the preliminary. Hearing on

01:03:23.659 - 01:03:39.629

the Watsonville, the Watsonville courthouse. And uh who pulls up. So we've got all kinds of people out there and we've got witnesses and you know, I mean, and basically Siegel is gonna Piss off the judge and everything else and try to make this preliminary hearing into

01:03:39.629 - 01:03:58.030

a show trial, right? And so, um, so we've got witnesses and all this other kind of stuff. Well, guess who shows up like 5 minutes before the prelim starts. The INS shows up and, and the internal INS, the migra, they show up to court and they

01:03:58.030 - 01:04:20.939

go into the foyer because we've got a bunch of protesters outside. And holding up signs, that's where I was. But they go into the court and they grab the three subpoenaed witnesses. And they haul them off in handcuffs. And it's outrageous, you know, and So, you

01:04:20.939 - 01:04:39.370

know, and then the judge comes in, his name was Marlow. That was his last name. And, uh, you know, old. Good old boy kind of municipal judge. And uh we try to, you know, say if the guy, you know, the, the case should be dismissed, he

01:04:39.370 - 01:04:55.780

can't possibly get a fair trial and this when you're allowed, you know, when when people are coming into the courtroom and grabbing witness. And so Marlo, you know, says no and uh And whatever. And so then that became sort of a cause the lab uh nationally

01:04:55.780 - 01:05:17.439

in some ways. Ted Kennedy got involved in it. Stuff like that, and the cases were the case ended up did end up getting dismissed. And as a result, and uh, you know, and then TDU organized um meetings at the city council. To talk about this example.

01:05:18.649 - 01:05:32.080

And to demand that the INF come. And Frank from his days in the fields, and this is, you know, you should get him to tell you this story, and put this on tape. I mean he's a great story, you know, he was always trying, you know,

01:05:32.280 - 01:05:53.270

he was basically trying to educate workers when he was a field worker that there were only like 4 INS agents between like uh northern San Luis Obispo County and Um, All of Monterey County, all of Santa Cruz County, all of San Benito County, and part of

01:05:53.270 - 01:06:07.810

Santa Clara County, the southern part of Santa Clara County. 4 INS agents. And so he was always trying, you know, in the, you know, but the fear, so what he was trying to educate workers is the fear of the INS. Is sort of out of proportion

01:06:07.810 - 01:06:24.060

to the math, right? They can't be, you know, I mean that's. That there's a way that he thought that the workers thought that they were like ever present. You know, or that there were, there were more INS people than there actually were. And so, he was

01:06:24.060 - 01:06:40.790

always trying to, you know, You know, do stuff And so it seemed like in Watsonville, it, it sort of worked and so we had Jose Lopez who was at the beginning of the strike. He and I were the main TDU people. I remember his name. He

01:06:40.790 - 01:06:54.939

was a Watsonville canning person. And you know, and, and basically, so we, they had that, so the city council, which was all white, you know, all that kind of stuff, and very conservative. But they did have the INS, you know, because there was enough, I mean,

01:06:55.020 - 01:07:15.179

there was enough of a There was sort of broad understanding that it's not good for Everyday people, if witnesses can be scooped up, witnesses in court can be scooped up by the INS. You have to wonder who's Bright idea that was because uh it just it

01:07:15.179 - 01:07:36.350

was so. What's that that that, you know, arresting people 5 minutes before they take the witness stand, you know, like that, um, I mean, Jesus. Did you ever find out who, or we just assumed Watsonvillean because they were, they were the witnesses, of course they hired

01:07:36.350 - 01:07:53.860

these guys remember Washingtonville did, right, yeah, not the, but the people of the witnesses were people who were employees of Watsonville County. They were coworkers and they were gonna testify basically as to Juan's character and to Ken Miller's character because Ken Miller, the foreman had been.

01:07:54.889 - 01:08:10.270

Hi, his wife, I guess was having was a secretary who was having an affair with Mort Conall, who was, you know, the owner. So Con was already running the plan at this point. He was quite young, wasn't he told me he was about 23 years old

01:08:10.270 - 01:08:25.379

when he took over the place man died, dropped out of law school and took over the business, so console, so, so, so the story that we had anyway was that consul and, and, and Ken Miller's wife were having, you know, an affair, and then she got

01:08:25.379 - 01:08:42.419

him a job and so he first started as a first started as a mechanic. And he couldn't do it and he demoted him to something else. Truck driver or something like that and they couldn't do that either. And so then they demoted into like a foreman

01:08:42.419 - 01:09:07.939

of 50 people with whom he couldn't communicate and the guy had, yeah, and he had a bad, he had, he had a very short history and a bad rap um among workers for being abusive and. Racist and stuff like that and. So, um, I want, I

01:09:07.939 - 01:09:24.990

mean, I feel like maybe this isn't the best time to get into it, but the whole issue of. Undocumented people. I don't ever remember really ever coming up. In the course of uh strike, I don't remember ever being discussed. I know there are a lot of

01:09:24.990 - 01:09:41.199

people who Frankly, all the strikers I knew, you know, that I knew anything about their background with people who had been born in Mexico. Most of them had been in the country for quite a while or had gone back and forth for years. Um, the question

01:09:41.199 - 01:09:54.528

of who was a citizen and who wasn't, I never, you know, never seemed to figure, and I, I guess, I guess perhaps it wasn't such a big issue before, you know, Simpson has only came out and stuff. Well, I, I also think that this whole thing

01:09:54.528 - 01:10:10.029

that there was, there was a reaction to it that was actually, I think quite good because so then so then the city council, I mean, I remember going with Frank to the Selena's INS office and we subpoenaed these guys to come to court. For some other

01:10:10.029 - 01:10:28.589

thing and uh there is cracks. I mean it's like. You know, I mean, I mean, these are people who, these are people who are, uh, dealing with people with no rights, no rights every day, and, uh, so anyway, that was fun and then, and then, you

01:10:28.589 - 01:10:42.950

know, and so then they're calling a carpet and so you know we had like 250 people, almost all of them are undocumented, you know, basically, you know. Calling out the INS, testifying at the mics, giving their names and addresses and saying come arrest me if you

01:10:42.950 - 01:11:02.759

think I'm undocumented, whatever. So that that that that was a big. That was a big turning point, and so, and then um we ended up working with Leon Panetta. Um, Who was the congressman at the time? And now runs the CIA runs the CIA and he

01:11:02.759 - 01:11:19.529

ended up, and he ended up establishing an INS oversight task force for his district. And so, um, on more than one occasion, I mean, so he was basically letting them know that he was watching them and that they'd stepped over a line and that they shouldn't

01:11:19.529 - 01:11:44.149

be interfering with labor organizing. So, and John Silver was, you know, one of the permanent members of that task force. So, uh, you know, so all in all, it worked out well, and then, you know, they lost the grievance, and then Uh, With Siegel as a

01:11:44.149 - 01:12:15.779

lawyer, Paris sued Watson Vanni. For um Racial discrimination. Mhm. And the case kept getting postponed and postponed and postponed by the company. And then ironically, they were out of postponements. By the time the strike happened, so in the middle of the strike, he won. But he

01:12:15.779 - 01:12:33.660

couldn't go back to work, but he couldn't go back to work. We gotta got some money. And you got, you know, vindicated, and there's a certain sense. And, you know, part of this is later, but I mean, one of the ironies, I mean, and partly where,

01:12:33.790 - 01:12:51.290

I guess, Partly what I'm hoping, I guess out of this. You know, Your book's gonna be whatever it is, but in terms of wanting to talk to you about it, I guess what, you know, like my hope in terms of what it's from the transcript, whether

01:12:51.290 - 01:13:08.339

or not whatever gets used or doesn't get used, but from the transcript, I mean the things that I've learned, you know. Some of them happened during the strike, but most of these happen, you know, after lots and lots of organizing experiences after the strike that help

01:13:08.339 - 01:13:28.560

inform what I think was going on, and I would just really like there to be. I mean, I think that everybody who sort of participated, supported the strike, deserves credit for their role and the part that they played. Um, and we didn't talk to each other

01:13:28.560 - 01:13:46.120

during it. We talked about each other with, you know, with. You know, small groups talking about the other small groups. Um, but we didn't really speak with each other, but I think that there's more to learn from And that's what I've tried to think about, and

01:13:46.120 - 01:14:01.839

that's kind of like how I'm trying to approach it. It's like. What ended up happening as a result of The different people I mean we almost. Except for not communicating with each other, it's sort of almost functioned as a team, in the sense of like, I

01:14:01.839 - 01:14:20.180

think the TDU is very good at figuring out like What we need to do. I mean, when the question is, what needs to be done? In terms of those strategic points, in terms, you know, and helping people figure out something, you know, where there's Something that

01:14:20.180 - 01:14:38.229

needs to happen, what is it and how do we Mhm, get there, um. I think the I think the league people helped. There was a big point in time where the, I think not just the strikers committee but the broader workers were not willing to take

01:14:38.229 - 01:14:55.279

the risks that TDU or whatever might have been advocating in terms of spreading the strike because. Um, And it wasn't working. The, the attempts in terms of going to the fields and spreading the strike or whatever wasn't really working and so that there was a long

01:14:55.279 - 01:15:18.200

Frank because I know he had. He was promoting or I remember hearing that discussed, you know, internally in the league and it was like this is really. Spanish Yeah, yeah, and I think, you know, and, and we've been through it. I mean, in 1982 there was

01:15:18.200 - 01:15:33.520

the sweetheart deal with was canning. I don't know how much you know about that. Sergio told me about 40% pay cuts, 40 cents, yeah, 40 cents which put Shaw at a big competitive disadvantage sort of sow the seeds for the actually I'd like you to break

01:15:33.520 - 01:15:51.729

that down for me back to that though, just finish your point. OK. There's, there's er there's certainly. In terms of, in terms of all that it took to win, it was good to have all of these different people and groups and points of view, um, and

01:15:52.140 - 01:16:19.149

ultimately, in a funny way. That the strikers actually. Used at different points, they use different Ideas And there were points in time, like after the the decertification or the recertification vote. Um, like at the beginning of the strike, um, There were points where I think where

01:16:19.520 - 01:16:40.810

where our sort of strategic tactical questions, what do we do? We what this what was most useful to the strikers and And there were other points where You know, there was a long period that I call like picket and pray, you know, like 15 months of

01:16:40.810 - 01:16:57.149

the 18 month strikes the settlement was picketing and praying. It was just it was just like holding on, which sort of worked culturally. It worked with sort of Sergio. It's sort of like, and so, and I think a lot of what the strikers Committee and the

01:16:57.149 - 01:17:16.240

league. They were to keep people feeling good about themselves and connecting it to the, being able to tell their story, you know. Um, that there were, you know, that sort of that morale. I'm not saying it was just that, but that's the part that is most

01:17:16.240 - 01:17:34.700

clear to me that, you know, in terms of Just basically keeping people going. You know, not just with food, but with, you know, whatever, that this is important, that these people are important, that this clause is important, that they're fighting for people. Who they've never even

01:17:34.700 - 01:17:56.500

met, etc. you know, I think all of that. Help, I think Sergio's efforts to keep The international and. I think, you know. Max, Chuck Mack and Alex's efforts to keep Pressor from shutting down the strike and all that kind of stuff. I mean, in a certain

01:17:56.500 - 01:18:21.720

way. In a certain way, even though people were like, felt that each other was the enemy, like the TDU was the enemy of the of the teamster. I mean, in spite of that. In spite of that, all, everybody contributed. Well, And who was right? And Who

01:18:21.720 - 01:18:39.160

is right, who was wrong, if only this group had done that. Yeah, I mean, the blind men in the element, everybody's got a partial view, right, right, and, and, and what I've seen in non-political situations, I was, I was part of a team that was supporting

01:18:39.160 - 01:18:56.009

someone who had a heart operation. Elected she'd had like a. A problem and she was extremely healthy and saying, you know, in the like, I don't know, in her early 30s or something, and like, OK, and I had insurance and OK, now's the time I'm gonna

01:18:56.009 - 01:19:14.339

do this, of open heart surgery. And she ended up having One operation and then they they basically uh Uh, left, I don't know, something got contaminated on a valve from the first operation, so they had to have a second operation, and then it punctured a lung

01:19:14.339 - 01:19:28.120

and then they had a third operation. And so this, this young woman who was like in the peak of her health at the beginning was almost dead by the time she got out of the hospital. And what I saw was like a phenomenon and And it

01:19:28.120 - 01:19:45.490

was sort of like, oh God, everybody was like, OK, through the first one, but nobody planned the second one. For the 3rd 1, and Everybody gets real sure about what the right thing is to do when it's the more scared you get, the more the more

01:19:45.490 - 01:20:00.649

sure you are and you know, and I have in different situations I've been like, including the strike, but since then I really had an appreciation for the position of rank in the military like the idea like when something really, you know, when when the mortars start

01:20:00.649 - 01:20:18.120

coming in, it's like. There's going to be one decision and everybody's going to follow it versus having everybody make their own decision based on what they, you know, I mean it just, it, it, it gave me an appreciation for why I had it because otherwise you

01:20:18.120 - 01:20:34.319

have everybody doing what they do when they're scared and they're and they're different and they tend to be. Pulling in different directions. So there's, you know, and so like when I think about sex. I don't know, it's like, I feel bad that, you know, our relationship

01:20:34.319 - 01:20:53.129

is, you know, had as many ups and downs as it has, as many downs as it has. And how strained it's become at certain points and the history and or whatever, all that stuff. But I think, you know, We both had a particular Experience, you know,

01:20:53.250 - 01:21:14.169

that, you know, in a particular set of skills or behaviors, or whatever, that got us to where we were. And, and here's something we both care very passionately about. Like what the outcome is. And everything I'm saying seems to threaten. The way he's approached things. And

01:21:14.169 - 01:21:28.600

everything he's saying seems like wrong to me, right? So and so it's sort of like this, I, you know, it, it makes sense that you're fighting the most with the people who have the most stake in the outcome, and it's not necessarily doesn't have to be

01:21:28.600 - 01:21:44.899

a bad thing, and I think in in the Watsonville strike ended up being worse than it. Needed to be, you know, and I think again partly it was the communication and the groups and I don't know, but So what I'm hoping is, is that, you know,

01:21:45.149 - 01:22:02.549

somehow we can get. Well we can get further beyond that to say, OK, so let's look at all of these. Elements and let's look at this timeline and let's look at wow, you know, what everybody had to offer, you know, and I think there were things

01:22:02.549 - 01:22:18.859

that TDU offered, there were things that the league offered, there were things that the Teamsters offered. There were things that Um, the strikers committee offered, there were things that there were certain perspectives, and I don't think any singular perspective would have been as would have been

01:22:18.859 - 01:22:36.839

as good as all of those different perspectives, and it was just unfortunate that they had. It was lash as much as they did. It was and yet I think in the end. You know, It was a nice meshing of different elements, you know, and it did

01:22:36.839 - 01:22:46.959

turn out well. I mean, the fact that it didn't turn out well in the long haul had nothing to do with the way the strike was run. It was like just the whole something I want to come back to with you because he's kind of watched

01:22:46.959 - 01:23:03.680

that whole thing happen when you were president of the local. Um No, I, I actually, this is what struck me about the interviews I've done so far. Alex, when I talked to him really wanted me to understand the kind of maneuvers that had gone inside the

01:23:03.680 - 01:23:19.370

Teamsters. You need to get the international to support the boycott. And he really, he spent 4 hours explaining it to me. And I've been to enough union conventions to recognize that, you know, what he was talking about. You don't get stuff through by proposing it from

01:23:19.370 - 01:23:31.439

the floor. You have to know somebody and blah blah, you know, the NALC is not as top down as the Teamsters, but I've been a convention delegate. I know how freaking hard it is to get a resolution through, you know, even when the leadership agrees with

01:23:31.439 - 01:23:44.370

you in principle, but they have some tactical reason rather for not wanting to do it and you haven't got a prayer. So I, I understood what he was talking about and I actually appreciated what he was able to do because there's no question that it helped.

01:23:45.740 - 01:24:02.899

And actually, you know, Tom Ryan, right? You don't know him? I don't think so, um. Anyway, um, Uh, he was an old buddy of mine from liberation school who went into the league with me and was, you know, involved in kind of watching what was going

01:24:02.899 - 01:24:20.529

on in Watsonville. Um, I thought he might, he might know you. He, he would talk about you as though you had talked, but um there were so many people there were a lot of people. Um, Anyway, I talked to Alex, you know what, what Tom said

01:24:20.529 - 01:24:34.560

when I told him what Alex had told me, man, I wish to Christ he'd known that stuff when it was happening, you know. Uh, There was a sense that if there could be some way it could be arrived at to sort of bring the resources to

01:24:34.560 - 01:24:45.890

bear the teamsters in support of the strike or at least neutralize them so they wouldn't fuck everything up, it was really important to do that, and I think that was really a lot of the guiding principle, you know, in terms of the way the league was

01:24:45.890 - 01:25:03.560

handling stuff after the Shah settlement. This is kind of. Some kind of accommodation had to be reached with with Serra Jo and if there were any sympathetic people in the international, you know, whether it was Chut Mac or whatever. That had to be done, you know,

01:25:04.410 - 01:25:18.379

um. Yeah, that was a source of a lot of tension too. Well, let me, let me just say three very quick things just to get them on there and you know I was actually making a different point, but go ahead, but I guess the 3 things

01:25:18.379 - 01:25:42.910

about that. That The so there, I mean. The solidarity day before we did the solidarity day, this is October 6th. Well, two things. Well, maybe this is gonna be 5 minutes' worth, I think there's 3 things, but they don't make any sense about the contest. So

01:25:42.910 - 01:26:02.549

prior to I, I think beginning in August, it was, it was looking like, I mean, what the company was starting to um Shaws went first and Shaws was basically, you know, lowering the floor and, you know, making a horrendous proposal and negotiations in terms of, you

01:26:02.549 - 01:26:21.950

know, getting out of the. Master agreement things like that. So, um, and I think we were very concerned that the leadership of the union at that time would try to ram that through, right. Um, as awful as it was, because we've seen what they did in

01:26:21.950 - 01:26:41.770

1982 and in 1982, backing up. You know, that's when consul was able to break out of the pattern agreement and make a sweetheart deal and until you led the opposition against that. And it was voted down. The 1st time and voted for the 2nd time. And

01:26:41.770 - 01:26:59.009

I think they had to use the 2/3 rule, which is People pretty much saw Sergio as as Dick King's, you know, right Bauer at that time and again I wasn't in any of those meetings, so this is all very secondhand, but basically that's what in terms

01:26:59.009 - 01:27:19.470

of Marking it. That's, that's basically what had happened and so in the 2/3 rule in the Teamsters was used because it used to be before there was uh the, the one person, one vote, you know, and the, the, the consent order that allowed the elections. Um,

01:27:19.600 - 01:27:37.669

and then there was a sort of like an open convention in 1991. But this was a, a, a, a tactic that was used often when um to ram down bad agreements was the 2/3 rule so they had to have um 2/3 of the people. Which agreement

01:27:37.669 - 01:27:57.830

you're talking about now, the, uh, this is the, the sweetheart deal which they got 40 cents less than everybody else. I actually, I wanna, you have two other points you wanna make. I wanna make sure you make it, but I wanna come back. I'll come back

01:27:57.830 - 01:28:11.270

to yeah, so. In 85, it was clear what what was going on, and so there was going to be a meeting for the Shah people. And so, we organized around the shop things that that wasn't just going to be like, hearing the bad news from the

01:28:11.270 - 01:28:26.430

local, and then And then with no action, because we've been around them enough to know that they weren't going to lead any action. And that, you know, and it was important to mobilize energy, you know, from the strikers in opposition to this and make it clear

01:28:26.430 - 01:28:43.970

to each other that they were going to oppose this, etc. And so anyway, so we got them, we got people to attend the meeting. It was at the vets hall. There were several 100 people, 7 or 800 people, and then people, and then we had organized

01:28:43.970 - 01:29:00.700

it so that people brought like silk banners, women brought silk banners that were going to be the march banners. And so there were two, in other words, before the Solidarity Day on October 6th, there had been two other illegal marches. The TV would organize, but it

01:29:00.700 - 01:29:16.009

was among workers only. So it wasn't, it wasn't public, it wasn't, you know, there wasn't media coverage. But that there had been, I wouldn't find any mention of it in the Faharonian or anything like that. Maybe, maybe not, I don't know. There might have been, but

01:29:16.009 - 01:29:32.120

the cops were out. No, no. And I think Alex is wrong about Solidarity Day. I don't think anybody was arrested on October 6th. I don't know that anybody was arrested today, and I, I don't know it was a, I, I wouldn't characterize it as a quasi

01:29:32.120 - 01:29:44.830

riot. I was really scared that there would be a riot. Uh, because we're basically that's right. Alex describe it as a quasi riot, right in your letter you said that, and it's like, no, I think he might have confused it with what happened he wasn't there

01:29:44.830 - 01:30:00.209

explaining why he was sent down there, right? It was represented to him, right? And so he got it. So anyways, it wasn't a quasi riot. I mean, I think that, you know, that there were people stopped in front of the police lines on October 6th in

01:30:00.209 - 01:30:14.419

front of the plants for a long time and I was it was too long for my. Take, but I, I don't think that the workers were in danger. I mean, and the in-car people were like, you know, encouraging the workers to attack the police, and, you

01:30:14.419 - 01:30:33.629

know, stupid shit like that, but the workers are too smart. To do that. So, it was. Tense. There were tense moments, but I, I don't think, um, I don't think it was anywhere close to right. My suspicion would be that Dick King called Chuck Mack represented

01:30:33.629 - 01:30:49.509

to him that way. And Chuck, not knowing that sent Alex down to investigate and said the guy down there says they're having riots and stuff down there and the anarchists are taking over. Can you go check this out. So anyway, so there have been two marches

01:30:49.509 - 01:31:11.149

to that same park, um, I think one was for the Shah meeting and one was for the. Oh yeah I. Um, so anyways, so in some way, the solidarity day, the only thing was the invitation list was extended, it extended, right? It lasted a long time.

01:31:12.200 - 01:31:25.950

Well, I'm just saying the invitation list went out beyond Watsonville, went out to everybody in the Bay Area, but in terms of from the workers' point of view, they've already marched to without permits, etc. I mean, the strike had started and we're going to violate the

01:31:25.950 - 01:31:45.540

court order, but I'm just saying uh from from the worker's point of view wasn't. All of this stuff wasn't as. This wasn't a first. This was a first for the supporters, but it wasn't a first for the workers. To one gate, uh, plant gate and one

01:31:45.540 - 01:31:59.839

to the Richard Shaw plant gate. Well, no, we didn't, I don't think we marched the plants. We just marched from the veterans hall up to Callahan Park. And there were court orders against that. No, they weren't. I don't think there were, but it was illegal in

01:31:59.839 - 01:32:15.069

the sense of we, we, you know, we, we talked about getting a permit to use the park and they were denied. So, we were, we were, we were using the park, having a an event at a park without the permit. You know, we didn't make a

01:32:15.069 - 01:32:28.339

big deal about it. I mean, we just did it anyway. There wasn't really any prospect of the marches to be busted up by the police at that point, there's so it seems like kind of early in the game for that. And also what we did was,

01:32:28.669 - 01:32:47.080

and so when I came on the scene. 82 Or 85, excuse me. When I came on the scene, I started working stuff out to be able to. What it seemed to me like Jose and some of the other angry guys from the TU group, their approach

01:32:47.080 - 01:33:03.790

to these meetings was just to call the leaders' names like Richard King and Fred Him and be angry and make speeches and denounce them and it's like that's not doing any good, you know, and I just said, and I, my, my sort of contribution was like,

01:33:03.799 - 01:33:19.879

look, we need to figure out what needs to happen. We need to, you know, we need to lead this thing, we meaning the workers, you need to lead it. You get to go. So what if we have a march? From the plant to the Or, you

01:33:19.879 - 01:33:31.089

know, from the, from the meeting to the plan. Are you for that? Yes. OK. Do you think that's a good idea? Do you think, if, if they, if they proposed it, would you do it? Yes. Are they gonna propose it? No. Why don't we propose it?

01:33:31.180 - 01:33:45.160

And then we vote on it. Somebody make a motion. Somebody second. So it was all that kind of stuff. These are local meetings. These are local TDU. Yeah, I do. I have a leaflet that says, you know, it's a TDU leaflet and said this has been

01:33:45.160 - 01:33:59.779

endorsed by the workers of local 912, right? It's a really conservative looking leaflet. Yeah, that was my that was my idea. So because we wanted the we wanted the town to support these workers and so we thought, OK, so I found the most I mean this

01:33:59.779 - 01:34:16.229

is all like stencil ink kind of the day back in the day. So it says, OK, so what do we get? We get the conservative logo of the Teamsters, make that really big with the horses' heads and the wagon. We get the most conservative font. And

01:34:16.229 - 01:34:33.459

basically, it says, endorsed by the members of teams with Local 9-12, but, but in terms of impressionistically, it's gonna be looking like, oh, Richard King. Even good old boy Richard King says there's a problem. So there must really be a problem. You know, and so we

01:34:33.459 - 01:34:55.950

were You know, we were really trying. You know, I think sometimes we get characterized like before the strike as having been really super ultra something but we weren't, we weren't as, it wasn't that. It wasn't that ultra. I mean, having Having parades without permits wasn't ultra.

01:34:56.189 - 01:35:12.669

It was like the way that we had to do it and we did it, um, without incident. Um, it was, you know, um, so and then the other thing that we did was we went and talked to Chuck. So I guess says why don't we ask,

01:35:12.990 - 01:35:29.990

right, why don't we ask for support from the joint council. And so Um, We, you know, called Chuck's office and found out when he would be in the area and he was gonna be at some grievance meeting or something in Monterey. I think it was at

01:35:29.990 - 01:35:49.540

the High Hotel. We took a bunch of a group of workers. Gloria might have even been in that group. see you tomorrow. Yeah, OK. I don't know. She was. There might have been more than one meeting, but, and we, and we said, would you You know,

01:35:49.779 - 01:36:06.290

here's the problem, Richard King, you know, um, isn't used to anything like this. This is going to happen. We would like it to happen with the blessing and the endorsement and the participation of the joint council. Chuck said I can't local union autonomy. We can't do

01:36:06.290 - 01:36:24.959

it unless we're asked, but you know, but I, I'm just saying that there was more, right, and, and, and without much of an expectation, but with workers as witnesses that we tried, you know, that we thought having the official part of the Teamsters supporting it would

01:36:24.959 - 01:36:46.080

be helpful. Yeah. Well let me just finish this one thing and so then. And so then everybody Is coming, you know, from heads of labor councils from San Mateo and Santa Clara and whatever, so everyone is assuming that this is just. You know, a union event

01:36:46.279 - 01:36:58.700

and, and something that they're going to support and they're not gonna call Chuck up and ask what the union politics are, they're just gonna go and they're gonna expect them to be there. And he's not going to be there because he's got to balance it with.

01:36:59.629 - 01:37:13.290

The local and Jackie and all that kind of stuff. But the thing is with Chuck, I mean, Chuck is such a good politician, he's all things to all people. So he's, he's Jackie Presser's boy, he's the CP's boy. I mean, everybody, you know, you look at

01:37:13.290 - 01:37:29.740

every left wing magazine from the 70s and 80s and they've all got their arms around Chuck. So Chuck is all things to all people and, and so. And so, um, and so I guess, you know, so, so the first person they sent to Watsonville for the

01:37:29.740 - 01:37:48.259

march was at um Uh, Alex was, was, was, uh, Bill Walsh, who I've never heard anybody say anything he's the sweetest guy the one most wonderful guy and he comes down with the joint counsel van and says he would like to, he was offering to drive

01:37:48.259 - 01:38:09.350

the van and the. Parade. This was the day of the of the march. Did you do that on his own or did Chuck to send him to cover his butt basically, yeah. And so And so, I'm just saying, even though it was a different style. It

01:38:09.350 - 01:38:27.660

worked. The quote unquote TDU. Approach, it was a good united front of that is what you're telling me and you really pulled Chuck. We pulled Chuck in and Chuck, Chuck had something to and Chuck, Chuck had something. Chuck had skin in the game at that point,

01:38:28.560 - 01:38:45.129

right? I mean, if, if the Teamsters and Jackie had bailed out of the strike. There's a, there's a way, there were, there were, Chuck would be the one that would get all the questions from. The Bay Area Labor movement, you know, which is part of his

01:38:45.129 - 01:39:03.459

constituency. I mean, his constituency went way beyond the Teamsters in terms of his perception. Of himself and he was really being a labor leader he still is. He's a guy's a survivor. I mean he's. Been associated with a lot, you've already said so, but anyways, so

01:39:03.459 - 01:39:24.799

it's just to sort of say that, you know. So, it's oversimplification to say, You know, TDU was just this like ultra thing that said fuck you to the power structure and fuck you to the union. We wanted. You know, at one of these marches, the workers'

01:39:24.799 - 01:39:38.310

marches, Richard King came. You know, puffing and wheezing and all that kind of stuff and, you know, and it's like, it's like they're not going to lead the parade. They're not going to build the parade, but if there's a parade, they're gonna want to be in

01:39:38.310 - 01:39:54.000

it. And and and and that's more broadly, you know, I think that's A more broad general generalization I have is that you know that political leaders often aren't the people who make the parades, but they're the ones who want to be in the front of every

01:39:54.000 - 01:40:09.069

parade that you know that that there is the way it goes and it's just the way it is, and Chuck was good because he was such a perfect politician. He was very predictable, right? If you build it, he will come. And And so it wasn't, so

01:40:09.069 - 01:40:21.069

I guess that's just the point I'm trying to make is, is I think the characterization at least that I've seen in writing and I assume in the meetings and stuff is that we were some, we were just this like little ultra band who just said fuck

01:40:21.069 - 01:40:35.509

it, you know, we don't care about about all this other stuff. We wanted to win and we saw that that that there was an importance to having folks, but we weren't going to wait for people like Chuck. We weren't, we couldn't wait for him. We couldn't

01:40:35.509 - 01:40:51.049

wait for the, the local autonomy and Jackie Presser stuff to be worked out. We just had to go, but we went in a way that was cognizant that they could come in. And so, and so there was a tension there. There was certainly a tension there

01:40:51.049 - 01:41:04.439

and But I don't think that that that that part of it was a mistake at all, and so that's why I felt like, you know, I mean, now we're on a different thing, but anyways, so I'm just saying there were three points you wanted to make,

01:41:04.500 - 01:41:17.890

and I think the first was that there was nothing ultra left or kind of adventurous about that solidarity march that it was that you guys in organizing, you tried to cover all the bases, you tried to bring in as many people as you could, including Chuck

01:41:17.890 - 01:41:37.850

Mac, you know, there were the two other points I think you want to make. Well, I think the other point was that there were marches to Callahan Park that were That was part of the tradition before. Um, before Solidarity Day, um, and the and I guess

01:41:37.850 - 01:41:50.689

the third point I would make about Solidarity Day just because this morning I was looking at I was Googling lots of volcanic strike for the first time ever and I was like, oh, OK, so hearing, seeing this report and this report and this looks like this

01:41:50.689 - 01:42:08.160

is done and this looks like, you know, someone from the league and. Whatever, or influenced by the league or whatever, and it's like, OK, so it's like, all right. So it's like And, and partly why, you know, and so there was a big thing. About who

01:42:08.160 - 01:42:28.609

got to speak and who didn't get to speak. And I'm just gonna say my point of view as an individual, so I feel like I feel completely responsible for this event. I feel it's a high risk event. Like we're sure about this. I'm pretty confident. I

01:42:28.609 - 01:42:49.600

like I know the people in Watsonville and I'm not really too worried about that, but then there's all these other people with other agendas and they're, we don't know who they are, they're coming in for their agenda, not necessarily just for to be supportive. And Um,

01:42:55.879 - 01:43:09.899

And we're doing this illegal thing, and we haven't been having a really good, you know, but if it works and all these people come. I could see it going well, and it did go well, I think. Um, but I could also see it going really poorly.

01:43:10.040 - 01:43:23.910

We don't know what the police are gonna do. That there's gonna be some huge show of force, but we don't know if they're gonna tear gas people. At the park, you know, I mean, this is, this is on a whole different level and scale, so we

01:43:23.910 - 01:43:36.569

don't know what's gonna happen. We don't know if you're gonna show up, which is how many do you expect? did you expect? I mean, I think that was about right. But we didn't We didn't know who was gonna show up, we didn't know what the police

01:43:36.569 - 01:43:50.529

were gonna do, and we didn't know how the people who were coming would react to whatever the police might do. So I thought that there was a danger of having right. And that would be a bad thing. It's a question that that would not be a

01:43:50.529 - 01:44:08.339

good thing. But we, but also it wasn't really in our con I mean, we couldn't completely control all of this, all of the things. Um, and, you know, we had people that we trusted, you know, both from the outside, you know, who had experience from outside

01:44:08.339 - 01:44:27.410

Watsonville and inside Watsonville. You know, like with pink armbands or something like that to sort of like the marshals and, you know, whatever. Um, And you can see some of those people on that, on the some of the video footage from uh Solidarity in uh in

01:44:27.410 - 01:44:46.729

John's movie. Is Silverstone, yeah, I can see some of that. Um, is it Guillermina Ramirez, who I think later became, like, on the strikers Committee, but was I remember with TDU and she was back and forth a lot. Um, And you know, and you can see

01:44:46.729 - 01:44:59.509

her saying, you know, come on, come on, you know, or whatever, and she's got like some kind of thing and she's outside, she's on the margins of the march and so it wasn't like that. Anyways, so it's overly simplified to say that none of those concerns

01:44:59.509 - 01:45:14.819

were being addressed. But the thing that we did, and, you know, in retrospect, I was thinking about this this morning before we got here it's like. In retrospect, what we should have done is we should have had We had all of the speeches before the march,

01:45:14.890 - 01:45:27.470

and we knew because of the previous two marches that workers didn't want to hear two hours of speeches and the significance and the political significance of the class struggle or the national question or any of that kind of stuff. They wanted to march and they wanted

01:45:27.470 - 01:45:44.629

to break this fucking court order and they wanted to tell the world how they felt about this court order, you know, limiting their. Presence around the, around the cannery, that was the hot issue for the workers. From our point of view. Listening to the workers. That

01:45:44.629 - 01:45:59.750

was what everybody was most upset about, people getting arrested every day because there was like 5 people within 2 blocks of it. Of the cannery or whatever, you know, I mean it was just, the police were really intense. So anyways, so if you think about it,

01:45:59.819 - 01:46:15.589

if you're saying what the workers want to do is they want to have an 1 hour and a half hour event of which 1 hour and 15 minutes is marching to the canneries and shaking your fist and chanting at the cops or something. You're not going

01:46:15.589 - 01:46:36.020

to have 25 speakers. You know, to cut to the chase, it's like you had to keep the program short because the point was the march and it looked like you were icing people out. OK, I got it. And So the smart thing to do in retrospect,

01:46:36.060 - 01:46:52.160

like how could we have satisfied that because that ended up creating a whole other problems because I don't believe it was just all the workers. Gloria Betancourt and Chavela Marino were saying oh we're fucked. That That the lead people were meeting, having house meetings all that

01:46:52.160 - 01:47:18.049

week, building up to before Solidarity Day. So the attack happened, the attack on TDU and on MIA as a racist dictator happened Monday morning. No Monday morning and I found the day after. And Um, And so, And the part that I felt at the time that

01:47:18.049 - 01:47:34.939

was disingenuous about You know, Mike, I mean, I didn't know the league really until later, but in terms of Mike, whatever his role, it was like, oh no, no, no, it's not us, we're just responding to what these workers are saying. Anybody who's an organizer has

01:47:34.939 - 01:47:49.419

an agenda. You know, and you want and you wanna be responsive to the workers, but to pretend that the like that Mike didn't have an agenda or the leak didn't have an agenda or or whatever, it's just like, oh we're just, we're just, we're just, we're

01:47:49.419 - 01:48:05.160

just here doing what you want and if they said we want you to help TDU that's what we would have done. It just felt disingenuous like you're hiding behind. That I didn't feel the strikers committee was completely a creation internally that there was help and absolutely

01:48:05.160 - 01:48:17.439

right, no, there was definitely help right and, and, and so, and so that's how I felt a lot of it. It was sort of like we're not going to be responsible for our own agenda. We're going to say our agenda is the strikers committee's agenda and

01:48:17.439 - 01:48:30.979

who's gonna be against the strikers' committee, because then you're against the strikers, you know, and it's like. I'm not trying to say that there weren't real issues, or there weren't real problems, or there weren't real mistakes, but getting back to what I was thinking this morning,

01:48:31.029 - 01:48:46.879

I was like, OK, so if we had 15 minutes of speeches. An orientation or something before, which was what about all we did, I think, in a song or two. You know, to help people gather. You know, and say, OK, here's where we're going, but even

01:48:46.879 - 01:49:01.189

before that little abbreviated thing was going, there were workers who were already trying to split off. I'm like, fuck this, let's go, right? And we can do what I mean and start marching. We came here to march. This is what we this is what we do

01:49:01.189 - 01:49:15.240

when we come to Callahan Park. We march and now we've got all these people and they're willing to march with us. Let's go, enough with the speeches, enough with the songs, and I'm just saying I was aware of that. I was aware of that, um. Problem

01:49:16.600 - 01:49:31.740

before. And so on a certain level that was the mistake. What we should have had is had 15 minutes of speeches before the march, had the march, the people come back and then we could have 3 hours of speeches from everybody, you know, who wants to

01:49:31.740 - 01:49:48.919

talk about their cause and its relationship to the glorious wants to build candy strike. You know, And nobody would have listened, but nobody listens to most of those speeches at at rallies I've been to in San Francisco anyway, you know, but people sure like to give

01:49:48.919 - 01:50:01.779

them, you know, and. You know, and then people could have felt included, so I don't think like there was any, you know, so I think that the thing was left out is what are people gonna have to do to feel good about this. And every day

01:50:01.779 - 01:50:16.729

I'm, I'm getting, I mean from my point of view, every day I go to the local and I'm meeting somebody for the first time who I've never met. Who wants to be a speaker, yeah. And telling me why it's important that they're a speaker, because of

01:50:16.729 - 01:50:33.020

all the people that they represent or whatever, and it's like, OK. Uh So the easiest thing to do is to have. you know, I'm, I'm not saying it was right. I'm saying, um, that was happening and then I, and then I thought a rookie mistake. What's

01:50:33.020 - 01:50:44.540

that? Would you call it a rookie mistake? Was this the first time you tried to do something like this? Well, but we didn't have a permit. Yeah, it was a rookie basically but that whole, I mean, I remember these kinds of things from the anti-war movement,

01:50:44.660 - 01:51:01.879

you know we did these long. The meetings of those big marches, you know, in the late 60s would always be like endless haggling over who, who got what on the speaker's list. And no matter who won those debates, the, the rallies were always long and dull

01:51:01.879 - 01:51:21.939

as shit. Uh and so I'm, I'm familiar with this and um. I mean it's a problem for anybody in the situation you were in and you have to sort of know how to finesse it and if you had never done it before, I could have acted

01:51:21.939 - 01:51:39.899

in good faith and still been made to look like the heavy. That's that's what I'm saying. Um, and I think that that was used. I'm thinking that was used as part of the organization against. Uh, and I'm not saying that, you know, and the other thing

01:51:39.899 - 01:51:57.560

too, just working at Delmar for 8 days or whatever here in Watsonville, it's like, oh, OK, so a lot of the people. And the strikers committee from not Guillermina but from other people hadn't been as interested or involved, you know, in other like in the strike

01:51:57.560 - 01:52:15.169

vote or the one bar thing or whatever, so they had, they weren't the people we would naturally assume, right, so these people might have been missed left out. A strike is a whole magnitude of inclusion, higher than voluntary inclusion because you're on strike, um, and it's,

01:52:15.279 - 01:52:30.279

you know what I mean, it, it's. I, I remember Mina, you know, uh, I also remember that she wasn't around as much toward the end as she was at the beginning. I remember she was very prominent at the beginning. Actually, I mean, all I can give

01:52:30.279 - 01:52:41.970

you some response to what you were saying, but first of all, I can appreciate the position you were in. Right, but what I was thinking about today it's like, OK, so if we had 15 minutes of speeches at the beginning, we said, OK, we're gonna, we're

01:52:41.970 - 01:52:55.419

just gonna do like 15 minute speeches, we're gonna march, and then we're gonna come back here and then there's gonna be a lot more speeches that have been that would have handled it except. Except I don't think we ever would have planned that because the big

01:52:55.419 - 01:53:10.810

question is like what are the police gonna do? And so what are the police gonna do when there's 150 people left in the park at 4 in the afternoon and and there's 2020 speakers waiting to speak. Is that Times Square actually they waited until the crowd

01:53:10.810 - 01:53:30.890

attacked yeah so you know, so I mean people are anticipating, you know, I mean at some level people, some people were from outside the Bay Area were anticipating a Bay Area event and we were trying to organize a Watsonville event. And Watsonville tradition and, and you

01:53:30.890 - 01:53:48.919

just talked about the Vietnam War rally tradition and that's what the Bay Area people were expecting. And we're expecting uh a march because that's what the workers want. And then the other thing that too in terms of my perception was I feel like, so I'm working,

01:53:49.000 - 01:54:06.209

I have a job and so I'm feeling like I am being I am being asked to choose between Watsonville, what Watsonville people want, which I believe was the march and go home. And what the the quote unquote outsiders wanted, which was to speak and pontificate about

01:54:06.209 - 01:54:28.689

the importance of this thing to them. So I'm just saying even though I was ended up being turned into the outsider. From my point of view on a feeling level, It was like I was being Sort of rushed by outside interests. There was an element of

01:54:28.689 - 01:54:45.379

sour grapes in it. In terms of me? Well, no, I mean in terms of the way people's attitude towards you. Mhm. The outsiders are calling you an outsider, right, and I think that the striker committee. was formed in part so that the league could be insiders.

01:54:46.160 - 01:54:59.479

Because now we have been invited in, we are in, we are more in than them. They haven't been invited. They're not invited to these meetings because the strikers committee doesn't want them at these meetings, and it's sort of like there's a way that the strikers committee

01:54:59.479 - 01:55:19.359

was able to change that and. You know, and Anyway, when the instructors committee formed, I guess it was about 2 weeks after the solidarity day if I'm not mistaken. And what they were about, like, there were about 500 people who attended the meeting where they elected.

01:55:21.140 - 01:55:40.379

Um, I'm not saying this to argue with you, um, only that, that clearly there was some kind of sentiment to say something like this up that probably would have existed whether the league had been involved or not. There's no question mind that. I should break in

01:55:40.379 - 01:55:55.950

here because like what I, yeah, I wanna hear what, yeah, my understanding of what was going on was that when the league got involved in this, it was not for the assumption there was gonna be this big dust up with TDU. That There had this this

01:55:55.950 - 01:56:13.200

tactical alliance or strategic alliance or whatever had just been achieved, you know, and then Mike Johnson, I guess had brokered it, uh, where TDU and the Camry Workers Project working together to mutual benefit and that. Once the shit actually hit the fan in Washingtonville, the first

01:56:13.200 - 01:56:28.600

thing I guess Manuel Diaz, when he came down to Washingtonville from San Jose, the first thing. Uh, he heard, I suspect from Gloria, it's already here for us here for TDU, you know. And he thought, uh oh, we have to reassess it. If you come in

01:56:28.600 - 01:56:43.430

here like as TDU reps, we're not gonna have the kind of influence that we, you know, that we wanna have. That was the way I was represented to me at the time and The decision had been made. This is the best way to go, but the

01:56:43.430 - 01:56:58.939

people didn't go in there with the intention of undercutting TDU initially. Well, they say this, you know, and this, this may be a point of disagreement, but, and I don't know all the insides and outsides or whatever. I don't think anybody does, but in terms of,

01:57:00.310 - 01:57:14.580

I was the first time I was ever organized. By Mike Johnston was, I think I was, I was either on the steering committee or I was gonna come to a meeting or something like that because maybe the prominence of the Watson bills. And so Mike basically

01:57:14.580 - 01:57:29.529

had this really elaborate. You know, well thought out, articulated argument, you know, that were probably reflected in some of these letters that you saw between he and Ken. I haven't read them yet. And it was just, you know, and it was about, you know, the two

01:57:29.529 - 01:57:45.649

things, you know, the whatever the, you know, the white truck drivers union, i.e., bad. The, the bad part of TDU, I mean, you didn't quite come out and say that explicitly, but that, but that's the tone was the understanding that the TDU had built up, had

01:57:45.649 - 01:58:04.870

done very heroic work among people covered under the master freight agreement trying to democratize the union, OK, yeah, but, but, but in comparison with white truck, white male truck drivers and This group that we represent, there, there was a little bit of that in my opinion.

01:58:05.160 - 01:58:25.750

But anyways, but I ended up siding with Mike, you know, against Ken on some issue in voting, you know, voting. Voting with Mike, but there was a way that There was a way that I, my understanding, and this isn't fact, but my understanding is that part

01:58:25.750 - 01:58:40.629

of what this deal was about was getting funding because a lot of the funding for the Cannery Worker Project pre-TDU was from the Campaign for Human Development and I think Mike and or Mael had family members who were very who were part of some Catholic church

01:58:40.629 - 01:58:56.509

connections I think way back I think his mom or Mael's mom or both or somebody was like really. Influential or or or on the board or whatever, but my understanding was the way CHP worked in terms of all the different funders work differently is these were

01:58:56.509 - 01:59:12.680

all big one-time grants. And so then you had to become self-sustaining in a 5 year period or whatever so they fund you for 5 years. But then the way you would work it in the funding world, then you have to reinvent yourself every 5 years, even

01:59:12.680 - 01:59:31.839

though you might be a continuation, you have to pretend like you're brand new something new, and I think that's where, so I think the wonderful world of nonprofits and so I think. And so I think that's where the TDU CWP K Workers Project alliance was. It

01:59:31.839 - 01:59:46.129

was about funding. It was about funding and how much TDU was going to get and how much was going to be CWP and then Mike from the very, very beginning before strike was a glimmer in anybody's eye, was like, no, no, no, we have to be.

01:59:47.069 - 02:00:04.990

Autonomous and independent and blah blah blah. So there was a way that I felt like he was Even from before, he was more league. than he was. That that would have been the league's position is that it would be important for a cannery workers project to

02:00:04.990 - 02:00:23.240

have a cantering workers organization to have an independent. a certain measure of autonomy, you know, and not simply. You know, and Right, I, I shouldn't be speaking for Mike here. He, I think he regarded the leadership of TDU, the national leadership somewhat differently than he thought

02:00:23.240 - 02:00:40.390

it was a genuine. Mass organization and it had, there had been a lot of spontaneous motion in the canneries, at least in Watsonville and Stockton, that TDU was associated with. Um, That had nothing to do with Ken staff in terms of initiative and I think, you

02:00:40.390 - 02:00:56.540

know, most of his quarrel with Karen. Um, I, I hadn't heard of the funding thing. This is all new to me. It makes sense in a way. Um, but I think Generally, the way the league approached these things is that in a situation like that, it

02:00:56.540 - 02:01:13.419

would kind of I think yeah I think if they didn't need the money, the relationship between that Mike brokered initiated whatever wouldn't have been brokered initiated. It was money driven. I'm not saying that makes it bad. I'm just saying that I think that there was a,

02:01:13.779 - 02:01:31.240

you know, that there was um. You know, and so, and so I was feeling kind of like ripped off. I'm feeling OK, now Mike and Manuel are functionally, you know, whether what's in their hearts, I don't know, but functionally they're basically organizing against TDU while being

02:01:31.240 - 02:01:50.209

paid by TDU that's fucked up. There's something wrong with that. So there's hard feelings, not so much withstood, not so much with Manuel, but more with Mike because Mike, Mike has more of a Machiavellian, um. Um, you know, when you hear Mike talk about a political

02:01:50.209 - 02:02:06.620

situation, it's There's a lot of, you know, there's, there's a lot of small pieces in it and. Um, you know, you know, and then, you know, he didn't support Kerry. Sergio supported Kerry. Yeah, he told me he was quite proud of it, right, and Mike supported

02:02:06.620 - 02:02:20.529

Durham, who was, uh, one of the, the, the incumbent or the old guard, you know, guy who was on the, on the board or whatever. So, you know, so Mike in some ways has always been more conservative, you know, and he supported Kerry when Kerry after

02:02:20.529 - 02:02:36.620

Kerry became president, but he never supported lead him he never supported. He never supported Kerry when Kerry was running against the establishment, you know, when I mentioned to Tom that I knew Mike Johnson from way back, he just sort of made some sour remarks. And you

02:02:36.620 - 02:02:53.509

know, Tom will make sour remarks about people, especially where Teamster politics are concerned. You know, I, well, the best line I ever heard, you know, and the best line I ever heard that. Reminds me of like my feelings about Mike was and uh. Abby Hoffman came

02:02:53.509 - 02:03:06.270

out from underground. Um, he felt like this was the best time, so, you know, I guess he'd been living in, you know, upstate New York and whatnot, and he came out to face his trial and all this other kind of stuff. And so he was PR.

02:03:06.830 - 02:03:19.640

He was like masterful, you know, PR. So he was like for two days on the Phil Donahue show in Portland outside with all these like white middle class ladies and they were eating out of his hand and Anyways, it was funny on a whole bunch of

02:03:19.640 - 02:03:34.560

levels, um, you know, and stuff like that, whenever, whenever, uh, Phil would, you know, get too insistent or get asked two cards or questions, you know, Abby would refer to Refer to him as Merv. Well, Merv, that's a good question or something like that, and he'd

02:03:34.560 - 02:03:50.000

have, he, he had the whole, the whole group like rooting for Abby Abby versus Phil. So this is like 2 days, 2 hours of this at some point, so Phil's firing all these questions like, you know, so tell me what your reactions are. I'm gonna throw

02:03:50.000 - 02:04:10.299

out a bunch of names. Jimmy Carter, biggest disappointment in my political life, you know, whatever it was, uh, and he said, uh. Tom Hayden, Tom Hayden, he goes, he gives opportunism a bad name. Yeah, and anyway, I thought that that was, that's hard. But I, I,

02:04:10.419 - 02:04:24.919

I would agree with his assessment of Tom Hayden, you know. You know, and Manuel, you know, and Manuel I actually try to talk to, you know, and, I mean, we seemed polite and whatever and we would leaflet together again, this is before the Before Solidarity Day

02:04:24.919 - 02:04:41.830

and stuff like that, and he was like, they were somewhat interested in Um, You know, they were a little bit interested in what was going on in terms of the whole lead up to the strike and the pattern agreement, but nothing like what happened. Before after

02:04:41.830 - 02:04:57.660

Solidarity Day was announced, then it seemed really interesting. I thought, OK, and it, it's like, again, I don't know because no one, no one's really talking, honestly, you know, back and forth. But I'm not saying this is what's happening. I'm saying this is an assumption and

02:04:57.660 - 02:05:08.919

this is part of what I was talking about trying to like overcome and have actually find out what really was going on because when you don't know what the history is, you make it up. And so what I was assuming was going on, I was like,

02:05:09.120 - 02:05:26.379

OK. All of a sudden, the leagues, you know, the league kind of sees a stake in this, so because it's become a public event from You know, I mean, the public is invited to this strike, in essence, and it was a strike, it wasn't some like,

02:05:27.580 - 02:05:43.399

court case or whatever it was a big, it was a big thing. Um, So that's one thing too, it's like, oh, we can help, we can fill loads of buses and bring people to Watsonville for it because we have all these contacts in universities and blah

02:05:43.399 - 02:06:00.390

blah blah, and that's where I saw a lot of originally just came down and all that and it's like, OK, and so, but then. Um, You know, but then, you know, and maybe partly this is just sort of like, the nature of things. It's like, you

02:06:00.390 - 02:06:13.370

want You know, you want the thing to sort of. You want this thing to, you know, you want to do what you can do best, you know, and use the contacts that you have and, and, and whatever so that there's, I think there's always a bias

02:06:13.370 - 02:06:29.370

is you want, you know, you want things to go in a way that's sort of like you can contribute the most, right? And so if it's about support and it's about the Bay Area and it's about Lacassa and it's. La Rasta and all that kind of

02:06:29.370 - 02:06:41.839

stuff, then OK, we know what to do because it sort of fits in with what we're already. Doing But anyways, so that was, you know, so that was it. And then when, when the league folks moved down to Watsonville, like I think, I don't know, kind

02:06:41.839 - 02:06:57.020

of like maybe. I don't know, it's like up to 20 people had moved to Watsonville. Sometime during the strike and it was like fuck, you know, and it's like, you know, it's like I don't care what the politics are, it's like, you know, you and your,

02:06:57.129 - 02:07:12.410

you know, you after you, you know, after you get off your post, you know, off to your mail route versus 2 people who have moved there to do something, it's not much of a, you know, so in terms of that's how I would answer the question

02:07:12.410 - 02:07:27.689

in your letter about. Were we marginalized, yes, and, and I don't think it's just the league's fault. I'm not trying to say that. I'm trying to say that this is how I felt, um, and you know, in retrospect it's like, OK, like in the same way

02:07:27.689 - 02:07:45.850

that the workers in 1982, more of them voted the second time for the contract and the first time, or they're making an assessment what's winnable, not do we like it. And, and, and so, but, but TDU had been selling, you know, people weren't buying, and so

02:07:45.850 - 02:08:06.970

it made sense that we have a shift, you know, I got that. Term marginalized from. The review and jump cut of John Silver's film. That was the way he characterized it that yeah, it's like after solidarity the TDU was pushed aside and the moderates took over

02:08:06.970 - 02:08:22.850

the strike who were in bed with Sergio Lopez. Um, And I didn't think that. I didn't, I, I, I didn't, I mean, I, I didn't think, I mean, I thought that there was I thought there was a moderate line. A more moderate line that you know

02:08:22.850 - 02:08:41.490

Mike had and that there were different, there were different goals and I thought that the people in the plant were more moderate just because I mean Gloria and Chavelo and Armando and all those people and I didn't really appreciate Del Monte is so big. It's hard

02:08:41.490 - 02:08:59.990

to appreciate it, but like I've worked a couple of weeks at Delmar Cannery just, you know, in June, and it was like, oh, OK, and so there's different people and so there's like the people who have respect inside the cannery tend to be. The mechanics The

02:08:59.990 - 02:09:17.450

foreman, and not just, they're not just like the straw bosses, like the, the people who are Company people or whatever, it's sort of like that these people are competent. Um, they've they've got a big investment. They're full and they know everybody and they know what they're

02:09:17.450 - 02:09:35.870

doing. And so, I think, in terms of running and what turned out to be an 18 month strike, You know, having the canary leadership in some ways look like the canary, you know, um. You know, made up, you know, made a lot of sense, but that's

02:09:35.870 - 02:09:54.740

something that, you know, I just kind of figured out like 2 weeks ago. It's like, oh, OK, 2 weeks ago, yeah. I mean, just by watching the watching. Just by working in a cannery, I've never worked in a cannery before strike and by just working in

02:09:54.740 - 02:10:11.430

a cannery and saying, oh, OK. This guy Martin, you know, he's really, really sharp. He's really smart. If I have a question, that's who I'm gonna go ask. Or I know Sanchez, who is very quiet conservative guy, he's a mechanic, you know, big Sergio fan or

02:10:11.430 - 02:10:25.120

whatever, but he's also just a very, very solid smart guy. So if I had questions about what to do or what the season's gonna happen, these are the people I talked to because these were the people who were paying. You know, we're paying the most attention,

02:10:25.209 - 02:10:43.830

we're taking the most responsibility so that there is some actual, there is some way that the cannery structure in terms of who becomes leaders in the cannery actually reflects leadership. Alex did say one thing to me in terms of the research that Shavela was crucial. Because

02:10:43.830 - 02:10:54.819

he knew the inside of the plant, he knew where the scabs were. He knew how to get to them. He actually won some of them over. You know, but he had all these connections in the plant by virtue of his job, and that was what made

02:10:54.819 - 02:11:16.700

him so indispensable. Um Yeah, I It's funny, I mean, I, I, I hadn't intended to get so deeply into this particular issue. I wanted to get your take on it because like it's, I haven't been exposed to it before. Um, but I'm realizing you can't just

02:11:16.700 - 02:11:28.379

sort of, it may not be the main point, but you, you can't get away from this stuff. Um, but I haven't talked about it before, so you know, and so that's why I was asking you like who you are and blah blah blah, because it's like,

02:11:28.790 - 02:11:44.160

OK, you know, and right now, right now I'm a historian, right, right, 13 years and so that's right, and so that's, you know, so that, you know, and so that's why, you know, so I'm, you know. And so I, I guess what I'm saying is I

02:11:44.160 - 02:12:03.750

can see why. You know, like, I mean, Well, the part that I was disagreeing with is, I don't think that The league or the strikers committee was quote unquote in bed with Sergio. That's, that's the part I don't agree with, I think. I think they were

02:12:03.750 - 02:12:19.390

their own. It, it was more of their own entity and they decided for their own reasons what kind of relationship they wanted to have with Sey. Um, but I don't think that they were. You know, I don't think they were in bed and, and I'm saying

02:12:19.390 - 02:12:33.390

that part of, and I'm not trying, and I think that part of the quote unquote moderation, I mean there's this, you know, famous little clip, you know, of Chivelo like making the strikers disperse because there's too many of them or whatever, sort of like monitoring the

02:12:33.390 - 02:12:50.839

picket line. And, and so the way it's portrayed in the movie is like, OK, let's see, he's one of the bad guys because he's not like a rabble rouser, he's a calmer downer, right? And And I think that's the role he plays or whatever, a lot

02:12:50.839 - 02:13:12.700

of times, but it's not like But it's not like It's, it's not like good and bad, and so I can see why people on the strikers Committee or other strikers could feel dissed. Because we weren't Honoring their Leadership, we weren't coming to them, we weren't asking

02:13:12.700 - 02:13:29.810

for their input, right? So they've got all this. Relative, they've got all of this power and influence, and they're more important people in the cannery and now they're in the strike and now they're not as important and I don't mean that in a negative in a

02:13:29.810 - 02:13:47.620

negative way and so we're talking about the masses, right? And so, and so the sort of like the political, the political default that we're operating from is like the masses. It's like the, the lowest paid workers have the greatest, you know, I mean. So, which I

02:13:47.620 - 02:14:03.669

think was just, um, you know, not really recognizing. Let me try to summarize this because I think I understand what you're driving at now when you Dealt with people inside the plant, you tended to go to the year-round people, the people who had more investment in

02:14:03.669 - 02:14:25.479

the, the job, the people who, you know, no, that wasn't what you were saying. No, I'm saying I didn't recognize. How much those people, the better paid, higher bracketed people at the time. I didn't, I had this like little realization two weeks ago when I was

02:14:25.479 - 02:14:47.299

working at one of the cameras. It's like, oh my God, these people are really smart. These people aren't I could see I could put myself as a worker, as a grunt new non-seniority probationary worker. I could see what. I could see that these people. are So

02:14:47.299 - 02:15:06.640

you're working at a can right now. Yeah, well, I was working a can and I'm working in the desktop right now a few weeks, but I could see, oh, OK, these people are leaders. If I were organizing, if this was a non-union cannery. And I was

02:15:06.640 - 02:15:27.740

trying to organize it to make it a union cannery. Mhm. The people that I would be trying to organize, the most important people would be some of, not all of them, but some of these. Key leaders in the plant. Who happened to have a title. Given

02:15:27.740 - 02:15:48.379

to them by the company. And part of the reason that they're given leadership positions in the plans is they're really leaders. And so I think that there was sort of like an anti-company bias, you know. That I had starting out. 22, but you know, would you

02:15:48.379 - 02:16:04.000

say that people like that were prepondering the striker committee? I mean, Chavela is the only one I can think of offhand, I guess in Armando, uh, Gloria brother, you know, they qualified on that count, but there were also a lot of just. Single moms and stuff

02:16:04.000 - 02:16:26.029

like that on there, um. Well, there were some people from Shaw's. There were people from Shaw's in the original strikers, they were, they tended to be. You know, again, I mean, TDU is organized around some of the angriest people, but the, you know, the angriest people

02:16:26.029 - 02:16:43.700

might be the most willing to act, or, you know, but they're not necessarily. They're not necessarily the best leaders. Yeah, I, I get your point. But what you're saying is it wasn't like an outside kind of thing. It was like you were I'm saying it wasn't

02:16:43.700 - 02:16:56.459

just an outside. There was an outside element, and it's hard to, it's hard to, it's hard to gauge it, but there was also an inside element. I could see why people were pissed off that some, some fucking 22 year old kid who works at UPS who

02:16:56.459 - 02:17:09.509

doesn't speak very good Spanish is telling us what to do and all these people are just following, quote unquote, following him blindly. I don't think they were following us blindly. I think. There was more going on than that actually that there was that there was more

02:17:09.509 - 02:17:28.469

going on than that and and we were trying to make things happen, um. You know, but there was a way that I was like so focused on what needs to be done. That's all I had time for. I didn't have time to make every supporter from

02:17:28.469 - 02:17:39.799

the Bay Area feel good about it, you know what I mean? And so it's like I'm just like, can't deal with it, can't deal with it, you know, and the night before, I'm, you know, I mean I've got like, I mean, I maybe slept an hour

02:17:39.799 - 02:17:52.440

and a half, and most of the rest of the time I spent on the toilet dry heaving because I was so afraid and I wasn't afraid that we were gonna piss somebody off. In the Bay in some Bay Area group that I've never heard of, I

02:17:52.440 - 02:18:05.379

was, I was worried that this whole thing was gonna go down in flames. So that's all. Well, you know, one, you're right about one thing. You just said it's too bad people aren't talking to each other more. Or that when they were talking it was these

02:18:05.379 - 02:18:25.049

very delicate negotiations about what to do with this Catholic charity money rather than, you know, political stuff. I mean, I do think that. I shut this off because I'm gonna shoot my arm before I forget. You're on the air. Go ahead. So at some point I

02:18:25.049 - 02:18:37.650

was like, oh my God, I was so surprised by like there was this seemingly there was this coup and again this was the day after and Guerramina was saying, you know, in the, in the local that next morning or something that I was, you know, racist

02:18:37.650 - 02:18:50.610

dictator or something. Guina said that about me. I was not there but I heard about it. But she said it publicly and she was furious and whatnot and then I found out that there's been this meetings going on unwell in particular was having meetings with different

02:18:50.610 - 02:19:05.950

people, so I sort of associated that those two things might be connected. Um, And I guess the philosophical thing I took away from it is like, oh, and I've said this before in organizing other people, and even the community organizing I'm doing now, it's like, oh,

02:19:06.030 - 02:19:23.980

you don't get attacked. You get it, you know, it's like, I felt like I was so relieved when that event went off. Right, without a riot and pretty successful I thought and I thought, oh my God. You know, and then it was like getting attacked, and

02:19:23.980 - 02:19:36.660

I realized, oh, that, that's when you get attacked. You get attacked when you're successful. You don't get attacked for your mistakes. You feel bad about your mistakes and you worry that you're gonna get attacked for being stupid or making mistakes, but you actually get attacked when

02:19:36.660 - 02:19:51.730

you're doing something. Successful. And so, anyways, but the point I was gonna make was, so then it's like, OK, well, what happened? It's like, all right, well, Gloria is like a big person in this group. So I don't really know Gloria, so I'm gonna go try

02:19:51.730 - 02:20:06.440

to talk to Gloria. So I call Gloria, and I come and talk to him? Yes, OK, where do you live? OK, she lives in March. OK. So I go over there and she's got these 2. Sons who were fairly rambunctious and kind of unruly, and I

02:20:06.440 - 02:20:22.639

think maybe one was maybe 8 and one was 7 or 6. And they're like, they're like famous for even, you know, peripherally cause they're always really kind of loud and whatnot. So anyway, so I'm walking out there, you know, we're gonna try to have this humble

02:20:22.639 - 02:20:37.190

meeting, ask Laura what's wrong, what can we do and blah blah bla. And so I've got no idea how it's gonna go. And so I'm walking up the street and these two boys are wrestling in the front and with the front like my house to go

02:20:37.190 - 02:20:53.320

on. They're wrestling. And so, you know, as boys will do, you know, pick the worst thing, you know, you're, you're an ex or you're a Y or, you know, you're, you know, I think that probably when I was a kid or what I've seen most often

02:20:53.320 - 02:21:08.980

it'd be like, you're a faggot or something like that, no, you're a faggot, but they weren't saying that they weren't, they were, they were wrestling and playing. And they were calling each other Joe Fay. Oh Jesus, then then they never, they've never seen you who you

02:21:08.980 - 02:21:27.849

were. They didn't know who I was and I thought, oh, I don't think this is gonna go, I guess not. Well, that must have been depressing. I mean it's more fun to teach your children and all that. Well, you know, OK, go. In '88 when I

02:21:27.849 - 02:21:46.330

ran against. Leon, I never, I never run against Sergio. I didn't advocate running against Sergio, not in '85. I mean 82. I didn't really know what was going on. It was Frank's show, and he ran against him, but no, it wasn't, no, he didn't run against

02:21:46.330 - 02:22:01.139

Ser, he ran against King in '82. In '85, I didn't run against King and that's partly why Jose and I had a falling out because he thought Sergio was like the bad guy and I thought he had a lot of support. A and, and B, I

02:22:01.139 - 02:22:16.849

didn't think he was bad. I thought he was. Heavily influenced and in fact he had a lower sense than I did of what was possible, um. You know, but a lot of that is based on life experience and not in generations and, uh, you know, anything

02:22:16.849 - 02:22:36.509

else. And you know, and I thought Leon, who was the president who came in, he was, he was, uh, they'd been business agents together until through uh through '85, and they came in together as secretary, treasurer and president and Jaim and King left in '80. In

02:22:36.509 - 02:22:52.280

80, yeah, in '86, you know, during that, during that election. And So I ran as a business agent, I felt like I was as good a business agent as Leon was. As good as a negotiator as he was, and I was, I would be a much

02:22:52.280 - 02:23:08.870

better influence and partner, if you will, with Sergio than Leon. I thought that Leon sort of drove, pulled Sergio down. He wasn't very. He was the, he was laid back. Yeah, that's a nice way of putting it. He was sort of a laid back style and

02:23:09.559 - 02:23:26.129

And so I ran against him and Sergio did everything he could to You know, beat me and help support Leon, um, probably not as much as if we run against Sergio too, you know, and I only beat Sergio by 32 votes. You beat Leon Leon by

02:23:26.129 - 02:23:47.650

32 votes, right? And We But even while Leon was spending, you know, much of his day helping Leon and tracking down everybody that Leon had ever helped in 20 years and getting their vote. And Talking people were very soft on Leon to, you know, get their

02:23:47.650 - 02:23:59.480

votes, etc. but he was also spending time taking me for drives and saying, so what if you went, what are we gonna do? You know, how are we gonna do this? And so he hinted at that when he talked to me that he wanted to get

02:23:59.480 - 02:24:17.150

TDU on board some way or other, you know, he's there there we'll do better to work together than to fight, you know. He wanted me to understand that, right. And so, but anyways, there was a lot that I learned, you know, about that taking responsibility thing

02:24:17.679 - 02:24:36.230

from that. And I, and also, before the '88 election, I said to, I, I I honestly didn't know if I wanted to run again. It been those 3 years were really, really hard, um, and I've been a BA. I've I also ran and won as recording

02:24:36.230 - 02:24:50.259

secretary so I could be in on the executive board meeting, so I ran for two positions, staff position as well as the executive board position and won them both, and you know there was just a lot of 6 to 1 votes and all symbolism and whatever

02:24:50.259 - 02:25:07.280

and and I told people that um. My supporters who wanted me to run. And 88. You know, but I spent some time figuring out that I could only do it under certain conditions and so I said you've got to support me, you've got to help, you've

02:25:07.280 - 02:25:22.969

got to contribute some money and if it's just a token amount, you, um, you've got, uh, you know, I'm not gonna run against Sergio no matter how much you want me to. I'm gonna run against Leon. If we ran 6 positions out of 7, everybody except

02:25:22.969 - 02:25:37.049

Sergio we ran against. This is, if I get in, or if I get in as less than a majority of us get in on the executive board, then I'm gonna play a different role. I'm not gonna just vote. Yes, on things that are good or no

02:25:37.049 - 02:25:50.450

on things that are bad, but actually going to play much more of trying a persuasive role in terms of in terms of, um, you know, making the union better by getting people to go along with some of these policies and you know, and so I learned

02:25:50.450 - 02:26:04.660

a lot from that relationship with Sergio. And obviously you have to be able to respect people and you have to see, you know, and you have to be able to see their strengths and not just their weaknesses. So I think it's, it's, you know, whether it

02:26:04.660 - 02:26:23.940

was the clip of Chavez or the clip of Sergio, I mean, I thought that those were cheap, you know, cheap shots in the video because it just sort of again overly simplifies and caricatures. Well, I mean, I, I know that. I guess the first thing he

02:26:23.940 - 02:26:36.299

signed on to that was I asked him about his relationship with the strikers as well, you know, they were spending funds. I had to approve every appropriation they made, and generally I did, but they wouldn't have been legitimate if I hadn't cooperated if I hadn't helped

02:26:36.299 - 02:26:49.950

him out that way, so I did, you know, that was his way of representing it. We didn't discuss the politics of it at all. Um, what I remember the first I heard about any cooperation between him and the strikers Committee was that he Endorsed the Women's

02:26:49.950 - 02:27:06.660

Day program after the Shah settlement, which I guess was the first big event. Uh, and then subsequently he endorsed, you know, when Jackson came to town a few months later, he endorsed that. Um I actually knew very little about the mayor until I heard him speak.

02:27:07.389 - 02:27:23.700

In '93, you mentioned that, yeah, yeah, and you know, I, I was bowled over. There's a lot more to this guy than I realized. I mean, that's a damn good anti-imperialist speech he just made. And he made it in a situation where it really made a

02:27:23.700 - 02:27:39.480

difference. Because Cardenas was going to lose that audience, you know, sort of. Head in the clouds liberal, lathering about, you know, democracy and the people he was listening to could not have given a shit about it. And Surgeon had just what to say, and by God,

02:27:39.490 - 02:27:59.830

he, he put it across. So you know my joke about my, my joke was about Cuac when he he won when he won the election, he said. Oh my god, you know, it's like. Been vindicated and my father's been vindicated and blah blah blah and I'm,

02:28:01.669 - 02:28:09.280

I'm so happy I could almost smile. I could almost smile. I need to use your bath.