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with Beth Israel going on. We'll resolve this thing in the next two weeks. It won't be everything that we wanted, but it'll be a fairly good contract. Once we get a fairly good contract, this union, the leadership, will be entrenched and we can proceed to build. The next thing we do is a massive campaign on homecare. Massive. In cooperation with 1707, SEIU. A lot of things will happen. The union is all ready -- Friday night there was a big thing with the Minister of Health from Nicaragua. It was a big meeting. Asked now to host the thing on the Brazil guy. The word is out, what Ossie said. “You were absent, we're present.” The election campaign. The second floor we have phone banks being used for campaigns. We're printing literature for everybody. We ran the thing for the lieutenant governor until the other guy dropped out. Judy Berek is the campaign manager for Badillo. But that's the thing.

Q:

When did you get the results of the election? Do you remember?

Foner:

The DOL?

Q:

First the unofficial results.

Foner:

First came on the eve -- [interview interrupted]. The results of the election known to us came through on the first night of Passover. I was here, where we were monitoring, getting results in. They were calling in, and we were counting up, seeing what we need now with this thing. That Friday night, there was still voting the next day at the union headquarters. But to all intents and purposes we know, because Gotbaum kept calling me. You know, in the middle of all of the going on here, Gotbaum's calling me and raising questions with me about his campaign. I can't say. He says, “Look, I'll be at this number, call me.” Because you know, we had made commitments already. It was very important that he win.

So that we knew then. We quickly had a party at Columbia.

Q:

What was your reaction. What was your feeling when the results came?

Foner:

Sort of numb. Sort of numb. But then we knew what the problem was. We knew that Turner was going to contest the election, and we knew that then the trouble started. The real problem. The DOL sent people into every district of 1199 -- in Puerto Rico -- checking people who went, looking at the books of everything. They went through every file looking for involvement by the national union in this campaign. We hired attorneys in Washington, and we even had to do - - what is his name? An attorney who is a very important attorney.





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