Video of interview with Marty Langer, 2001 July

I'm Marty Langer and I've been involved with CSEA at a local level and then at a
statewide level going back to I guess 1967 was when I started my
involvement. I started my state career in 1961 and that was an
opportunity for me to I didn't realize it at the time but to go to school and get
one sort of an education and then work on the Awards of a Psychiatric Center
which gave me a whole other education and gave me a whole another view of the
people who I worked with and I guess when I finished college and graduate
school I was in a golden position to articulate a lot of the concerns that I
probably would not have even given a lot of thought to had I not worked on
awards and go into school with sort of segue me into my union of
involvement because in the years that I worked on the Awards in those days
there were 90,000 patients being served in Psychiatric Centers and I think
back now I think today actually of the staffing levels that people are
appropriately concerned about as being inadequate and I compare that with the
world and I knew then where I worked with the adolescents and we only had 34
patients on a ward the adult services had 77 patients on a ward the beds were
really just lined up one next to the other and the adult ward and the children's
ward had one thing to comment that on the evening shift there was one person on
duty on the night shift there was one person on duty and during the day shift at
best there were two people on duty and I wound up at some point being the
supervisor and I can recall very often where I would be the supervisor and if
somebody called NSIC covering one or two awards in addition to becoming the
supervisor on an evening or night shift and it's with that sort of a background
that I started to see the world in a very different fashion and I started to
relate very well to the needs of those who worked in direct care so when I finished
school I guess I got involved I'm not sure I'm sure actually I became a school
teacher after I finished working on awards and I worked as an institution
teacher and I realized that I'm having spent a lot of time making very little
money that it was time for me to try and make a living and I thought it was not
inappropriate for me to advance and I guess my introduction to CSEA came at
that point because the states set up some catch 22 scenarios about what it
took for me to move from point data point B in those days from becoming a
teacher to a senior teacher and I realized that even though I had met all these
requirements then until I actually had some piece of paper from the State
Education Department which could take literally years that I was not going to
be able to advance and I called up this organization that I knew nothing about
other than the fact that it existed and I spoke to someone in the resource
department who said you know you're right this shouldn't take this long and you
shouldn't suffer the consequences of it taking as long as it does so maybe we
can help you and in the course of a fairly short time CSEA helped me hardly a
gigantic matter in those days but it was to me and it made me realize that that
I was a little guy and that the State of New York was a big operation and that on
my own I couldn't do really very much to deal with it and it was at that moment
that it was sort of an epiphany I guess and my own wake-up call was that I
said well maybe I need to get involved a little bit maybe it's time for me to
just take a look around and see what this union is all about and because I know
what the State is at this point and I started to go to some local meetings and
I thought at the local level that there was nothing really more powerful than
the field rep because that's the only name I would ever see is that Tom
Brand will be at our meeting tonight so at the beginning I said you know if I
don't go through my life without meeting Tom Brand I will have failed and I
ultimately got to meet Tom Brand and turned out to be was a great guy but there was
a lot more to CSEA and because I took an interest and not that many people
really did I suddenly was asked to get involved at the local level I became a
vice president I said this is fun and I was about at that point that the
Taylor Law started to emerge and that there started to be an interest in at
the local level really representing employees and that's something that had
not occurred at that point and the reason at least at psych centers that I saw
and I thought this was not uncommon is that the people who rose in the
earliest days to positions where there were chapter offices there were no
locals in those days but the chapters were not invariably but more often than
not headed by people who folks look up to and then those days that would be
supervising nurses as it turned out the supervising nurses were also the
folks that people were grieving against so when grievances were raised they
were really very few people to turn to because the people you were really upset
with the people you had to turn to with your problems so you really were
gunning nowhere fast I mean unless you had the courage to go higher and very few
people did and I didn't come from the world of a supervising nurse so people
found it a lot easier to come to me to talk about those supervising nurses
who also by the way were members of CSEA which created sort of an internal
and inherent conflicts but the Taylor Law started to unfold in those days
collected bargaining as a matter of law started to become the way of the world
and I think I started to surface because I would raise issues about the way in
which I had to represent people and the constraints I felt and I guess there
were people in Albany who were collective bargaining specials CBS's they
were called in those days started to say well there was this bright guy at
Rockland and it was a Rockland site and then maybe we should go and talk to him
because we're now going to talk about the contracts and maybe we should find
out some of the issues that are out there that we should incorporate into
our collective bargaining because as we try to represent the workforce I guess
we should know exactly what pitfalls are out there and they came down and
talked to me and I talked to them and at some point they said you know we
could use some of your input at another level so I simultaneously started to
get involved at the local level where I very much enjoyed representing a lot of
employees in this one in proceedings and I started to work with the CBS's at
the at the higher level to give input in terms of the the issues that they
should be addressing in negotiations and ultimately you know they want to be
involved in those negotiations and that was a very enjoyable time for me
because it gave me the opportunity to say well let me tell you how it works
down below you know it's it's not just a piece of paper and a contract but
there's actually there are lives if you will that are at stake at the at the
chapter level that you should be aware of in terms of how to protect their best
interest so I guess I get you know I got involved locally I started to rise in
the image of the people that I represented because I did a pretty decent
job of representing and that was an reputation that I enjoyed and it was a
role I loved playing and it was really going back to my first attempt at
calling CSCA to get some input as to how I could advance myself as a senior
teacher but from that moment on I started to really I won't say thrive but
very much enjoy the input I could give to CSCA and what they in turn provided me
with which was a better ability to represent the people at the local level
which is something I felt the need to do the local in those days was large
I mean my local alone had 3,400 members which is you know again stay locals in
those days were large and it was a golden opportunity for me to really
represent people you know at the the word level at the from the word level up
to the doctor level and the more I get into that the more I felt the need to
get involved in all that and in the opening level I at some point I was asked
to introduce myself to Dr. Wenzel who was then the the statewide president
and his input about me was that well I was a pretty bright guy who knew things
at the local level who who had concerns that needed to be addressed at a
statewide level and that it would be not a bad idea to have me sit down and
talk to him every once in a while to provide some input and he kind of agreed
and he started to involve me in a variety of little ad hoc committees in terms
of since I did have a good handle on what things had to get done how could the
union generally be improved and so on and I suddenly found myself as the
temporary as the chairman of temporary committees that were to decide the
future of the organization and I don't know if I ever succeeded in coming up
with a blueprint for doing that but at least it gave me an opportunity to
to provide some input to start to get to know a lot of the people in the
Albany to start to know field staff around the entire state and and to really
get a feel for the Albany level of operation that I never had before and I
realized with with each level of operation that I sort of came across and felt
more comfortable with it the opening level and really enhanced my ability to
operate locally the more respect you got on a statewide basis the more respect
you got in terms of running your own local and that was always helpful to the
people who I really was most concerned about which were the 3400 people in my
own local at some point and the course of time Dr. Wenzel thought that I had
gotten to the point where perhaps I was a good choice to be the statewide
political action chairman and I'm not exactly sure how he concluded that since
politics was really not my game I never really was involved I never ran for any
office other than local president and now was something I was comfortable with
and never had a need to go higher than but he decided that well I would be
his appointee as the statewide chairman I had not been the first I think there
was one or I think one guy in John Clark before me or I believe is now I don't
believe I know he has passed away and there was a lobbyist that
John named Jack Rice who I was asked to work with who was a brilliant guy one
of the most articulate attorneys I've ever known but that for me and maybe for
this organization became more of a turning point and I'm not going to say for
moment that I was the most instrumental object involved in that but CSEA had
been a couple things I think early on when I first got involved it was not
notorious if you will as a labor organization at the local level to be sure it
was much more of a social type of a scenario as I said before people didn't
come in with real grievances because the people I had to talk to were people
they were grieving again so it didn't serve a purpose there politically CSEA had
not been known to take political stance they had gone neutral in virtually every
race that ever been and I guess the the feeling was we need to be friends with
everybody so if we take sides you know and we're wrong which is obviously going
to be the case half of the time then we're really taking a tremendous risk and
the consequence was that CSEA really was not viewed as being a major player
in the Albany scene and this was back in I guess 71-72 someone arranged
why Dr. Wenzel was still there and I could presume for arguments like that some
of that was because Jack Rice and his law firm was pretty much tied in to one
party and it seemed fairly apparent that that you know that was the way it was
he was and he was a very bright man and he was very helpful and I think having
watched him negotiate that he was very skilled at doing things but politically
CSEA had yet to emerge as something other than a one-party operation well
there was a war it really started out with CSEA thinking about actually going
on strike and it was a scary time we had not done well in negotiations and I
forget we year was the early 70s and we had to show the governor of the state of
New York I guess it was you carry that we were sincere in our desire to
have decent contract I know there was a strike motion because I delivered it
and that much I do remember rather vividly we had what was known as the
Palace Theater Fiasco actually which which really was a gigantic turning
point in this organization's history I delivered the strike motion that day
because I had been in the negotiating teams it was clear that we were going to
get next to nothing we have been offered a bonus of no magnitude I mean it was
kind of a slap in a face to a number of state employees and because Jack
Rice so it as a as a dangerous role for him to play as an attorney because he
would have to by law advise his clients against the strike he wasn't at the
Palace Theater which gave people a lot of moment I guess a moment of pause as
the where's our council and I think people really were very upset about that
secondly the Wenzel at the time did not really conduct the show as well as it
needed to be conducted that day if you're gonna do it then do it right and I
guess the feeling was that it wasn't done right that day I delivered the
motion and there was then pandemonium on the floor that the Wenzel did not
look good the entire day turned into a debacle of some magnitude whether
were actual issues of the Tons Union that were put out that said CSEA was you
know for the first time this history actually had voted to go on strike which
was obviously in violation of the tail law but in reality they had never been
a strong vote even though the motion had been delivered and part of that was
because Dr. Wenzel did not successfully carry out his role at that moment so
basically I guess it was John McDermott who rose as though he was a regional
president at the time who came in the censoring walked on to the stage and we
wound up taking other motions and in the end it wound up being a male vote to
the overall rank and file regarding whether that we accepted things or not in
terms of the contract but that day was a major moment in time because it
certainly was a black eye not so much to the organization as it was to Dr. Wenzel
himself in terms of his own leadership and it also gave people a real
moment of pause as to whether or not the lawyer who was our chief counsel should
have remained our chief counsel when he was not there at a moment when there was a
need for him to be there that was a major moment in time because I was I was
still a statewide political action chairman I had worked with this chief counsel
and I considered him to be a colleague but I also knew that there were some
inherent problems that were fairly clear to me shortly thereafter there was a
desire on at least a part of some to actually change law firms and that
created within the board of directors major schism with Dr. Wenzel
polarizing himself on one side and a number of other people on the other at that
moment I won't say all hell broke loose but to be sure he was one of the more
interesting board meetings ever held when the smoke cleared there was no
longer a relationship with board the grant which had been the law firm and Jack
Rice who had been the chief counsel from that law firm was no more than the
chief counsel and it put me in a really kind of a strange scenario I I knew
what had a good done but I watched the world changing before my eyes I said my
god I accepted this role on the one set of conditions and suddenly I now see
things changing dramatically before my eyes at the same time there was a move
away from fourth the graph there was another move inside of the organization
part of the attorneys working for fourth the graph were actually a gun in
Jim Romer would been part of the law firm but working in house inside a C.C.A.
he was very close to a guy who had previously worked for for the graph named Jim
Featherstone or who was no longer involved but he thought that the best way to
proceed for C.C.A. was the change counsel and that he and feathers and a
gentleman in Bruce Martin would join up and become a law firm that could be the
new counsel to C.C.A. it was a major turning point in the organization because
as a when that board meeting was completed or concluded then there was a
change for the graph was no longer the counsel and Romer and feathers
on and Bruce Martin who later left that organization suddenly emerged as the
new chief counsels to the organization and it was a turning point mainly
because it did two things one is it changed the law firms which gave us an
entirely new way of doing business and it also was the beginning of the end
actually for leadership of Ted Wenzel because at that moment Bill McGowan
whose picture I look at with a smile at the moment suddenly started to emerge as
someone who could be a leader and it became clear as the days went by you could
see Dr. Wenzel slowly losing the leadership power that he had amassed over
the years and you could see Bill McGowan who had been the executive vice
president at the time rising slowly but surely as someone who could overthrow
my conclusion personally was that I said the time it come to make a change and
even though Dr. Wenzel had appointed me and I thought at the time he had been the
right guy at the right time I thought that the times had changed and that my
allegiance if you will was going to be to the organization that those who could
have been proven I then became Bill McGowan's campaign manager and along
with the one named Judy Burgess actually and we started to work on a lot of
different things in terms of moving Bill along but that's just another side
that probably from an organizational standpoint I want to stay with the
change of the law firms because the moment the law firm changed so too did my
relationship as the political action chairman for the organization I stayed on
in that role because Dr. Wenzel at the time still wanted me to maintain that but
I was no longer going to work with Jack Carter Rice there was now a new law
firm and invariably we would turn to the law firm for leadership as a lobbyist
and whoever I would work with would have to be chosen from that firm the first
person that actually emerged from the new firm of Bromor Featherstone and Martin
was Bruce Martin who was the third partner he was the original lobbyist that
came along with that group after about what seemed like minutes he concluded
that he didn't want to be a lobbyist and Feathers as he became known
grudgingly so now I'll right I'll do it as it turned down Feathers was and I
think still remains one of the premier lobbyists in the capital and I started
the work closely with Feathers and we started to really together with
tremendous input from him of course make the CSCA world into one that was for
the first time political CSCA as I said before had always been neutral and had
never had the ability or the courage to really become an offensive organization
it was sort of just a passive type of a world we started out with no money we
started out quite literally with Cakesales we had a political action committee
at the Albany level that had its grassroots down below where the regional
presidents really wanted to be very much in charge of the world of politics in
their regions and they did not want to relinquish any power if you will to the
state-of-the-state organization and while that was great for them personally it
was not good for the organization organization and that was a major concern
that had to be addressed and overcome and the way in which that occurred
actually took place also in the in the mid 1970s where we had to graduate from
a Cakesale operation in terms of a way of amassing political action funds to a much
more astute and much more endowed operation and the only way that could be
possible was to reduce check-up so for the first time ever and it took my
recollection as an endless number of votes at convention until we successfully
were able to get I think it was a 10 cent per pay period removal of do's strictly
to be used for political action purposes and that was done really at odds with
a number of the regional presidents at the time but once the do's check-off
occurred and we actually had established money that could be used for
political action purposes that automatically I mean there had to be a little
more power granted to the statewide organization so that at least things that
even occurred locally had to be bounced off the statewide operation before
they went forward so that we were not working at odds with one another and as
practical matter there were you know conceivably local regional people
rather who had the you know I won't say deals caught if you will but at least
relationships established which may have been good and served their
purposes locally but really were very much at odds at the state world level and
those things had to be addressed and that was part of my role was to go to each
region go to each local at times and to each political action committee and
sort of work with them to let them know that we had to work for the great
good of this operation and I would say that in the course of not too many years
we went from being a very apolitical operation being completely neutral and
passive to becoming a force in the Albany level we had money to be used in
political campaigns which we used I think effectively and efficiently I think
we started to have a voice that was raised in a way that that had never been
done before I believe politically we were finally able to get the tale law to
recognize the fact that unions by law had to represent everybody in the
bargaining unit and therefore it was not inappropriate for for people who
went into the public sector and were going to be by law represented by
organization they have their dues or the equivalent of dues sent off to that
organization and that also place with the political action machine that was
created that had not been done before and that also brought us together in
the leadership role with other public employee unions in the state who for the
first time ever looked to CSEA for leadership in that area something that
had never really occurred CSEA was sort of around but it was invariably
referred to as a sleeping tiger and suddenly the sleeping tiger was awakened
and we did assume a major role and those were pretty good times CSEA really
went through a metamorphosis from the days of Ted Wenzel you know where he was
very content to keep the organization I won't say hold it back that would be
inappropriate but it was also never going to make major waves to a
suddenly a brand new leadership because Bill McGowan was not afraid to make
change he was the new Ken on the block and Bill actually Bill unlike Ted
Wenzel who had always been a state employee Bill was a relatively new state
employee he had come from his own business and I think because he came into the
world of the public sector with a private sector philosophy he was not afraid
to make some changes and was and was not wedded to the past he was wedded more
to the future and and I think at that moment and for those years certainly the
70s were a very exciting time for me personally and for this organization I
think the changes that it went through were dramatic and forever changed the
scene to be sure for a very extended period of time CSEA was noticed where prior
to that it had not been hopefully it continues to be noticed but I can say
with assuredness that the change that took place from 1973 or 4 straight
forward at least until the 80s were tremendous times for CSEA it
matured into a major operation where I guess other changes took place this
was sort of coincidental I could never really understand how other bargaining
agents came along at one CSEA was really at its height yet the Public Employees
Federation PEP suddenly became not a sleeping giant I mean it was never that it
was able to succeed in representing and coming up with a collective bargaining
representation fight much the amazement of most people the CSEA really had
been a major player and I guess the logic from my standpoint was that the
professionals who turned the path really were very difficult to represent
because there was so many diffuse and diverse titles that having one
bargaining agent represent them was not an easy task particularly since from
the local level I guess there was a belief that well CSEA spent most of its time
seemingly representing the the direct care people and they didn't want to always
be affiliated or associated with the direct care people so they became an easy
target I say this but way of background because what it led to was CSEA's loss of
the professional unit but in an attempt to retrieve it because I guess the EF
had been part of AFLCL we thought that an affiliation with AFSME was one way
to proceed and actually was really path the creation of path that caused the
ultimate relationship because CSEA had been coordinated by AFSME for quite a
period of time and even though there was going to be a friendly relationship
there was no affiliation relationship and it was really one path emerged that
CSEA took the position well maybe if we affiliate we could sort of turn the
clock back and make this entire election go away I'm not sure from a legal
standpoint of that made any sense and ultimately it didn't but it did in the
way that CSEA can create the relationship that CSEA currently has as an
AFSME affiliate and therefore as an AFLCL affiliate but again that was also
part of the days of the law firm and some of the decisions they made and it
brought me because CSEA did ultimately lose the bargaining rights for the
professionals into unique circumstance because it was now suddenly the late 1970s
maybe 1980 already and CSEA lost the professional unit and I was in the
professional unit and they said well maybe it was time for me to take on a
different role and having guided CSEA along with the law firm through the days
of the political action and transformation and having a year earlier gotten
Bill McGowan or NACON but certainly assisted in getting Bill McGowan
elected because I was one of the Duke campaign chairman they said well maybe
it's time for me to change roles entirely and in the contracts that year they
had come up with the statewide labor management committees which are still
in existence today and I had been asked because there was going to be two
directors of those committees one representing the governor's office one
representing CSEA to be CSEA's director for the labor management committees and
I guess it was 1979 where I left my local I actually left Rockland State Hospital
then which had become Rockland Psychiatric Center to take on the role of the
director of the statewide labor management committee in Albany and that was a
role that I frankly enjoyed until I realized there was certain domestic
consequences to being away for extended periods of time and I suddenly had
to go home and heal some problems that I created as a result of my being away
and I had to leave for a while and I guess a year to had gone by where I sort of
quietly took care of domestic concerns where I was approached once again by
Bill McGowan to return to the organization that I had to leave abruptly in order
to address my personal concerns and he asked me to resume a role that I had
played in some fashion as the political action person mainly because my
grounding was really in the world of mental hygiene and he knew that I did
have significant knowledge because I had spent the lifetime growing up in that
field and he asked me to return as the consultant for CSEA's mental hygiene
group which was still a large operation it was the world of the mentally ill
and the world of the mentally retarded and those would be all of the developmental
centers and all of the psychiatric centers that were around and they were still
the largest part of the state division which at the time was still a large
portion of CSEA's overall membership and that was a role I played and I guess
to some extent I continue to play as the consultant for mental hygiene and in
that role I guess I was one of the people who oversaw the the closing of all
the MR facilities in a way which in the end was I believe productive because we
were we had to courage as an organization to allow closure to take place for
the MR world in a way that transformed them from big institutions to a wealth
of community residences most of which were going to be state operated and
still represented by CSEA and if I guess if I was going to say I had one major
role that I played in in this latter world as opposed to the world of the
60s and 70s it was probably the closure process in MR and CSEA's role in that
was was instrumental because I think it gave CSEA it created a model I think
for other states in fact I've been contacted over the years quite often by
AFSCME because the model that CSEA created in the New York state in the
world of MR was one that people hoped to replicate everywhere else I don't
think it's been done everywhere else but at this point the closures have taken
place over a period of 10 to 12 years the processes unfolded rather well and if
I had one personal achievement I would say it was the fact that I was heavily
involved in that process and it carried it through to fruition in a number of
places and that really takes me from the beginning to the end I'm not sure if
I've covered every base but in a synopsis fish and I think I did go at
least from chronology that begins in the 60s the one that ends in the year
2001.
Good overview.
Can I take a sip of water?
Yes.
I can.
Can I go back and delve into specific questions all the way through this?
Yes.
It's really been a rewarding thing for me because it goes back what seems like my
adult life almost.
Yeah.
And I keep thinking that when I started I came to work with a state when I was 18 and
I'm 37 and I got it and it's hard to believe that was 41 years ago.
Yeah, I only do that.
That's wild.
Yeah.
No, I want to go back to the beginning and you said you knew of CSEA just I don't know
how you knew about CSEA but how did you know that there was this thing called CSEA
whatever was social club.
Tom Brand.
Tom Brand.
And is going to be at the meeting and kept saying who is and what is Tom Brand.
What is this meeting?
What is CSEA?
At the local level which is really where it comes down to if you're going to get involved
it's got to be your starting point.
There was a woman in the secret there you see a name was sunshine.
My name was Rebella Yufimio and that's why she was sunshine.
It was a lot easier to say sunshine and she had been the secretary.
But as I said earlier the most of the people in high places really rose to the level of
being the chapter officers sunshine herself was one of the secretaries to a director.
So even though she was the local secretary you were not going to get too much of an audience.
The only thing in fact my introduction because I started out being when I got involved
ultimately being a first vice president which was the grievance chairman.
They said well your job is to sort of listen and pat them and say everything is okay.
You'll be okay.
And I said that's my job.
It's not really what I had in mind actually.
That's my job.
It's really a shame.
But I had no knowledge other than the name sunshine, the name Tom Brand and the fact that
I didn't even know frankly what CSE was because to me a union was a union.
Why would you call it an association?
I said that doesn't make sense.
And to this day we've actually contended that's probably you know you should change the
name of this operation from CSEA to something else only because the name doesn't connote
what a union is supposed to be.
But in any event it was the only show I had.
When I had this problem of trying to get myself moved along from a teacher to senior teacher
which for me was going to be a huge move in those days.
I went to speak to the then local president or not local chapter president.
I was a gentleman in George Santana who was a supervising nurse.
Who Nalli was a supervising nurse but in those days he was actually an instructor at
the Rockins State Hospital School of Nursing.
So he represented I guess to the employee somebody they could look up to because he was
a teacher of sorts but he was also a supervising nurse.
And he was also the guy who gave them all their grief.
He was one of the people who they would have associated with giving them bad assignments
or giving them bad days off or they called them past days.
And the things that you could do in those days and I came to learn this.
I mean there were little black books that supervisors would hold onto.
Which ultimately were addressed in contract negotiations but those books were used.
You know whenever you want to say goodbye to an employee they would just take that book
out and say well you know let me give his list of days you were through.
One minute late literally you would see and I would see charges like that.
One minute late, three minutes late.
And lists you know but I always thought it was interesting because there would be a whole
series of three minute late type of things which are to me meaningless followed by but
attitudes still the same.
Which means that this person who came in a minute late which is nothing was probably confronted
on a daily basis by a supervisor was not nice.
You know that therefore attitudes still the same.
And those were the kinds of things that went on and when I got involved you know even
with George.
George at least had the decency to acknowledge the fact that he couldn't really without
an inherent conflict of interest represent anybody.
You know we're grieve against one of his colleagues without really having a personal problem.
So he was kind of happy when I first got involved because I didn't come from the nursing
ranks.
You know I had grown up as an attendant on awards which gave me a grounding which I was
comfortable with but at least I didn't have to worry about having to talk to a colleague
who would say how could you do this to me.
You know you're my brother or sister in arms whatever the you know the word not my sister
in arms of course but you know you can't possibly come to me because you do what I do.
Therefore you know you have no standing here.
My approach was no I do have standing here and I am representing you know in fact my approach
was listen you may be a CCA member and so is this person but today your management and
I hate to tell you but I'm going to represent this person because that's the rule under
the law I've got to play and if you've got a problem after I'm done I guess you'll come
back to me later on.
So going back to your question when I first got involved it wasn't easy finding out
what CCA was other than for me to come to the realization that was the only vehicle
that had available to me to do anything and what I discovered quickly was that whatever
I needed to get done was not going to get done locally and thank God there was an Albany
organization that it could turn to because it was clear that nobody at the local level
had either the ability or the means to address the concern that I raised but it was that
introduction you know that that got me involved at the Albany level and got me interested
and at all at any level and that was you know it was the days of Joyce Salentana when
Rebelli Eufimio that got me involved in this operation and from that point on it was
it was a great relationship.
Now there's another name that when you say it it sounds like Pete Seagrish would be
doing a song about Tom Brand.
Tom Brand.
Tom Brand was a retired New York State trooper who became the field rep covering Rockham
County and Rockham County for him he was I guess the state field rep so he covered
Rockham State Hospital at the time, let's worth village probably some of the DOT operations
but he was to me he was CSEA because every time I saw a meeting notice you know which
you'd see however often they went up in Big Bowl Prince Tom Brand will be there and I
said to myself I got to meet this guy because whoever he is he's the man and in the end
I discovered that he was the field rep and I came to realize that the field rep was
the guy who was sort of there to help out and in the end I mean I should tell you sort
of as a post script that Tom Brand up until this year ultimately did retire from CSEA as
he did from the state troopers and I guess Tom is probably now in his late 80s actually
as it turns out there's a golf club on the grounds of Rockham State Hospital now Rockham
Sikes Center Tom was a golfer and I'm a golfer I got to be the president of that golf club
and Tom just to kill some time decided he wanted to work in a pro shot and up until this
last season I got to see Tom Brand every day because he showed up as the guy behind a
desk and a pro shot would occasionally go out less and less unfortunately because of
his age and his family health to play some golf but Tom Brand was somebody I got to know
and has remained a very close friend for the last 41 years so I got to know Tom Brand.
Tell us a little bit about him.
Well Tom was married to a guy I took a woman in Magnus who he lost about a year and a
half ago and they were inseparable they were decent decent folks but Tom style I never
really thought of him as a state trooper because I always cut this image as state troopers
were big tough guys and Tom may have been all those things in his youth but he was really
very mild his approach was really low key and he would come in and not I really never
emulated anybody's approach other than maybe some of the attorneys that I got to work
with over the years but I enjoyed working with Tom because he added a note of reason and
I watched the way he dealt with the administration of the hospital and in those days CCA had no
real standing as a union so your approach to going into working with management was very
different I mean you couldn't walk in you know I can always picture Bill McGowan almost
standing there almost like Krushche if he will pounding his shoe on the table to get his
point across except Bill would do it with his cigar you know he flick it at you but
Tom's approach you know this goes back many years before anybody surfaced as a union
and therefore you know as CCA got stronger in Albany I made itself a much more powerful
player the ability to represent people down below became that much easier I mean because
you finally had somebody you could fall back on and I went that was a good thing but Tom
didn't have that luxury so Tom's approach was really you know I not had an hand if you will
but he would walk in and say okay can we talk about this guy who's got a real problem where
you couldn't talk to the supervisor nurse who had been the local officer at least some people
had the ability to say well let me go around you to the guy who's the field rep and see if I
can get my grievance aired and my concerns addressed and I learned from Tom that that was one
approach which was fine and worked well for him at the time and may not have saved every soul
in town but given the circumstances he probably saved more than others might have given a
different approach and Tom you know about that said you know Tom I guess as I moved along
in Albany I guess my relationship with Phil reps wasn't as pronounced and I had my own way
of running a local I really enjoyed it I was very much into representing people it sort of allowed
me to surface personally in a way that I had not done you know I would find myself speaking up
on other people's behalf in a fashion and I wasn't able to do my own which I thought was kind
of interesting and since I guess working in a psychiatric center and becoming schizophrenic was
not a bad thing but it did allow me to surface that way and I found myself not needing field reps
and and Tom didn't have to spend a great deal of time at my particular local and he sort of went
to those locals that really did require a little more service and that was fine and we didn't get
back together again until the years went by again he was there and effect I guess as the years
went by he wound up servicing other locals and we had some other folks along the way and I got
to really know Tom again more as a golfer than as a field rep but again that name did surface
I can still picture those very small meetings that took place in the basement of one of the
now closed buildings in a room that was not much larger than the one we're in now and that's
how many people showed an interest and I juxtaposed that with you know 10 years later when CSEA
got to be a little more noticed suddenly having its meetings at the holiday in I said wow you
know if I want and if not I'm thinking about it I'm it's quite a comparison between the world
of a room this size versus a gigantic room with quite literally five to six hundred people in
attendance because they had a real interest in what was going on because they knew it affected
them for the first time because those were major change days you know there were contracts that
were coming down that were interesting there were there were retirement system changes that were
going to impact them their lives were going to be affected by everything that took place and they
finally had an organization in Albany that was powerful enough to represent them and they knew it
and they felt that they felt I think they would come to me and say you know we feel safe for that
and that was that was a very nice thing to hear you know and that in some small way if I was
a part of that I felt great there was a wonderful thing but we went from the days of Tom Brand
walking in with a very quiet mom-man in approach because there was nothing behind him organizationally
you know if the director said get out he would have had no recourse other than at the lead
at some point if you kick me out I was going to come back you know in a way that would let you
know that you shouldn't have kicked me out and that's because CSEA went through its changes
yeah the size of the money was pulled for just a second here right and we're back you okay
I'm fine thank you okay now later you and Tom Brand talked with them you're on the
belt club and stuff did he ever talk about those days later about how we came up with his
approach and did he did he bring visual aids what did he do well no it was really a matter of
watching on phone I guess he had been a state trooper and I guess is that it was his own
personality that he brought to this more than any instruction booklet that he had followed
each field rep had his or her own way of doing business but invariably how effective anybody
was whether they were field rep or a local officer was directly hinged to the strength of this
organization and that's something I discovered and I felt you know I never felt I'm
nippin it by any means but but I certainly felt like the more active we were here the more we
became not just the big kids on the black organization but but looked up to by the other unions
in the public sector and it's something we had never done that got to be known
and you felt it you felt that at every level of operation and it was amazing to me the the
I won't say or but the amount of respect you suddenly amassed when you walked into discuss things
even at the local level people knew for the first time that you're really not alone you know and
I guess in the days of Tom Brand in his earliest moments he was alone I mean he may have had an
organization of here which was very mild and at best had a casual relationship could find out
some detail could find out some sections of law rule of regulation it might have applied
but wouldn't have the ability to affect those laws rules or regulations and when CSEA suddenly
was able to have a proactive political operation could actually make some changes people realized
were winning that you know that I just can't walk all over you anymore because you can come back
and and change my world in a way that you didn't have the ability to do before
the big difference so yeah Tom didn't have a book and I think in the end the
prayer was the book was written up here well it seems to me as I'm as I'm building into the
his juicy as he is that this is power that you're talking about is what are you and it's about
because each person on you as you got more involved as you brought your strength to the human
you've got more power it wasn't just somebody involved but it was you guys well
and in your personalities and your strength and your knowledge of the of the mental health
industry as you want to call it then and you knew the problems when you know how to deal with
them and you brought that strength to CSEA well yes however it's a it's a two-way dynamic
um yeah I would imagine I could have walked up here with a lot of knowledge based on
whatever I had learned growing up in the wards which was a great deal and I would always kind
of laugh to myself as I was taking all these abnormal sight courses how much more the attendant
next to me knew within the teacher because that person worked his whole life with chronic
schizophrenic patients and this teacher was living in some never-never-never language I know
well I shifted the real world so I learned a great deal from the attendants that I work with
and I also had the luxury of being with a whole different genre of people these are folks who
had fought in wool with two they their lives were in these psychic centers they actually were
drafted in or went into the army and today be wherever from the state system they came back to
it they were a whole different breed of folks but they were also you know individuals were not
going to buck the chain of command that was not their nature they were there they were
very proud to be attendants they were in fact in those days we wore black pants white shirts
black both high white jackets you know and those who had two hash marks were staff attendants
and but that was as high as they wanted to go and they were not about to turn out into anything
other than a normal chain of command we did not go up and tell the general judge had to run his show
and that was interesting for me because I was sort of in the middle I grew up you know I was born
darn wall wood to I read it the beginning of it and I certainly wasn't old enough to fight it
but I didn't understand where they were coming from but yes armed with that I I was able to
represent those interests but I would still contend that until the organization a massed
its strength it would have been very difficult for a local leader to really come out and do
whatever it is he had to do without feeling defenseless out there you can you can sit and pound your
your your fist on the table and you could do many things but you know they're going to look at
you at the local level and say well what do you even do about it you know and I can remember
I and from a personal standpoint I can remember there was some administrators that I had a deal with
as a local president as a chapter president who had an arrogance about them that I thought was
amazing you know and in fact they know and if you wanted to trace back some of the psych center
the developmental centers if you went to those campuses you would still see the remnants of their
resistance because they had mansions these were literally mansions I mean these to the extent that
they're still out there they've been turned into into into clubhouses on golf courses these are
huge operations but their whole you know way of doing business was hey I am almost the God in the
way in which I was appointed and you know I'm going to run my show because it's my five time
and and even those who came shortly thereafter even then while I was still growing up in the system
had a similar attitude like don't tell me how to run my business don't tell me you have any rights
and I would say no I'm afraid that you don't rule by the bind right that you know I hate to
tell you this but unless you start to become a little more reasonable because I know that this
person that I'm standing and representing has rights that you're denying you know that that I'll
do something here that will make you famous and I now have the ability to do that I have the
public sector with the communicator in those days we had the civil service leader all those
old documents I see and I'll make you famous I promise you I said I have an ability I have an
organization that will allow me to to make you with the most notorious you know administrative
the state has ever seen and I will embarrass you and the state of New York and I promise you I'll do
it you know because you know it's not as if I want to hurt you in some fashion but you can't hurt
these employees you know and and that's something I could not have done I mean I it was maybe my nature
to sort of react in some violent way when somebody was really destroying somebody I was trying to
represent who was right and they was just simply being arrogant about it but but if I didn't have
this operation up here to draw from I could not have made the series of demands or acted the way I
did them below now as it turns out in those years certainly in the state division where I was
most familiar there happened to be a lot of folks Bob Vladimir you know had been a local president
he was a low of a labor local in Buffalo and Jimmy Moore was currently a regional president it
was was president of the Utica State Hospital and folks you know I doubt if folks around today
even know that these places even existed it you know there is no Utica State Hospital anymore
actually as there is you know as there have been many changes but again all of us
became stronger in direct proportion to how strong this operation became we came with our
own abilities and our own needs but unless we had some well to drink from and to fall back on
we could not have carried out the role we played
on the issues we talked about that you were defending people and the basic there's a basic rights
we were thinking about that and it was an hour's work that mysteries meant to me
they were it's funny how we think of what basic rights are because
people assume now that everything that they that they have in the way of benefits have always been there
I go back to the days of the supervisors in the little black books where you had no right you had
no defense the only hearing you got and I put that word hearing in quotes under the law was
called the section 75 hearing where you actually you know would would have the chance to to air your
side of of charges and the hearing officer was going to be the director of the next facility
and your ability to appeal was nil I mean and who had the time and the money or the the energy
to even go fall with the people I don't recall anybody who ever did frankly ever
and the rights that people talk about now were rights that developed as a result of pure and simple
contract negotiations that were conducted over the years as the political scene became stronger
in fact I you know my recollection is well I reflect on feathers and rumors because
Jim Romer was the negotiator and feathers was the political action in it and they they worked so
well in concert or one another because well one couldn't get through negotiations the other one
you know sort of got through political pressure but together they created some power bases that
allowed us to negotiate some pretty good contracts so yeah and in some ways just just the idea of
having a neutral hearing officer as basic as that right right may sound didn't exist before
you know so now when you go with the heavy hearing or even even a normal grievance forget
at this point where your life is on your job is at a high you you now have an ability to not you
know to to to well in some cases appeal but at the least you are the right to a clear hearing
in a before neutral observer something that was unheard of way back when when those people who
ruled by divine right were running the show so yeah some of the basic rights you know the days off
not everybody had five personal leave days I mean people had less than that not everybody had
vacation days in the accruals that they have I mean the list goes on I mean you could go through
the contracts and you can compare that to the world and I remember and it was ludicrous
because I work more than I think I work more than a 40-hour week I certainly the amount of money
I was making was was ludicrous and now I think people are making a relatively decent living
in fact I'm told that when you're going to negotiate that in some places in the state the state
actually drives the rest of the private sector which is quite a demonstration of of some ability
and a part of this operation to negotiate a decent contract with people
that's great I want to talk I want you to tell us about the personnel it's more about the people
maybe talk about one of the feathers to check rice
all those ones in light what are some of the stories that are out there
that the ones that
was a fairly quiet gentleman who was not a dynamic leader in the sense that he was charismatic
he really was not in fact my best recollection would be and this was something I saw more than one
said conventions the way the conventions really set up and I guess when I first got involved I
would always go to these conventions saying boy this is great you know and I would listen to people
who I was convinced at some point would practice for months for their few moments before the
microphones because they sound like great orders this is really amazing and they would always
be four mics lined up in the audience you know so when the delegates met phone business meetings
all four mics would have people lined up in each one and I can remember and this is probably
the best illustration of Ted Wenzel somebody would stand up there at one mic and say that the
Wenzel and it be banging their hand is it not true that at the last meeting that we held a year ago
in this same location that you guaranteed this delegate body that under no conditions would you
take it upon yourself unilaterally to make a decision that was going to affect everybody here
without at least going back to the board of directors or to be sure coming back to this entire
operation so that the general delegate body would have to rule the right to rule on this
particular thing which was so near indeed or ours is it not true that you committed to yourself
to do that for us and he would turn to them and say mic two and and then mic two would go on
and that person a mic one would be standing there waiting for that answer only the and mic two
was just waiting chomping at the bit to go on with his or her moment of glory I would sit back and say
that's amazing I've never seen like that in my life and and yet it happened again and again and
again and I said and I said that that's that that's a skill that I don't think I ever want actually
but but I can tell you almost verbatim what I just said is what occurred
and it was it was like nothing I've ever seen before or since
I mean how long was he president I mean he was there I mean but again he was there at the time
he was there at the time when CSEA did not want to emerge as as the sleeping tiger and he was the
right guy at that moment in time when it was more of a an association more of a social club in many
ways but certainly not as a bargaining agent under the law you know just as I delivered the strike
motion at the palace theater all right that should have been a motion where I you know that
I got up I delivered the motion it was seconded in fact I didn't even know if he asked for a second
I think when I finished delivering the motion he said it you know all in favor
and then there was some sort of a voice vote I don't think he ever asked for a name vote
and and people say sort of the screen were on strike and he walked off the stage
and I'm saying myself with him then the boy you didn't ask for a second on my motion
number two you didn't complete the vote I said number three this is a mess you know and unfortunately
as much as I happened to like Ted Wenzel on a personal basis and I was very pleased over the
fact that he thought well enough me to appoint me as a statewide political action chairman
I did not see him as being the kind of a leader that was called for if the organization was
going to ever become a major player in state politics and that change had to occur
he was a very ethical man I think he was personally offended over the fact that some of the
things that went on he he saw as being morally wrong and ethically wrong more ethically than morally
I think and that really bothered him and and he did not ever accept the fact that this organization
was not the group of people it was probably in 1940 when he may have started state service or even
in the 30s and as a result of that he couldn't accept his defeat I mean when landslide bill
one by 32 votes or something one I mean bill was ready to take over and he couldn't go into his
own office because Ted Wenzel wouldn't leave Ted Wenzel was literally in his office and would not
come out and and I'm not sure exactly at one point time he decided to reemerge but it was a period
of time and it was really a measure of his inability to accept the fact that the organization was not
the group that it was way back when and that the time had come to change and that the change in
the guard was here now so the feat for him was something he couldn't handle no it seems to me that
but that day palace was like that's really the the embarkation absolutely Wenzel's the status
quo leaving the stage and was it that came on Joe McDermott took over right it was the regional
presidents that that sort of took over and the one that seemed to rise to the occasion most
of all to be honest was Joe McDermott and and he and he did and that that was you know also a moment
with Joe got to be heard but Joe came across as too much of an intellectual I think that I've been
elected at that point in time I think in the course of time and people got to know him more
people got to accept him and trust him more but Joe seemed a bit too airy a
tight for the for the rank and file to accept at that moment but in the course of not a long time
but I think the next eight years I think people really got to know him like and trust him and
that's when Joe's time came but but he did he did surface then more than he had before
I'm a little surprised because I don't think of him as a great speaker and jumping in like that to
to do what had to be done I mean it could have been anybody right it was not a matter of
oratory it was really a matter of procedure and Joe knew it Joe was a muskalloli in his
approach to this he knew parliamentary procedure he knew what had to be done he knew how to
solidly run the meeting even if he was never going to be William Jennings Bryan at the mic he did
know how to effectively run a very structured meeting and that was what was required at that moment
because we had pandemonium and he essentially took it over and and you know in the end his wording
actually was used in the ballots that went out to decide whether or not we in fact went on strike
and one of in fact did not it well we did ultimately accept the offer of the state
but again it was the end of Ted Wenzel at that point and the ends of the law firm and those
to me were the major turning points in this operation what was the result of the ballot and that
was strict the state workforce actually accepted a bonus that was kind of ludicrous actually
but people at least understood that under the tail of law that either they accepted that and did
not go on strike or they didn't accept it and what on strike and suffer whatever consequences
that might be attached to those strikes and I think people were a little bit antsy about doing that
you know in those days you could not just you know the union had much to lose because it could lose
its ability to get dues similarly an employee went on strike would serve a new probationary
in period and more than anything else employees did not want to risk you know it's like ten
your teachers after three years I guess I would like to think the teachers continue to do a good
job but at least the pressure of knowing that there could be some hourly discharge would be
removed similarly stand employees never felt terribly comfortable being in that probationary
period where they could also be semarily removed and you take someone who'd been around the
system for a long period of time for the sake of principal they would say well you know what I'm
risking here is a great deal I mean I'm out there I'm visible I'm clearly one of the people
that the supervisors are now looking at and now I'm making myself vulnerable I mean up until this
moment in order for you to say goodbye to me you've got to bring me up on charges you've got to give
me all of the procedural rights that would accrue to my being a tenured employee once I break the
tell the law and I lose that I'll pay a price that's a lot worse than I ever imagined and that's
what was undermined a lot of people you know what surprises me as I said this the other day
then somebody else I can get it you can't strike so it seems to me if you can't strike there
should be something going by any arbitration but there's neither right no one has been in need for
I guess but well one of the first things we tried actually political action never happened
and I've actually seen over the years one attempt to bring it back we had bumper stickers in 1974
that said loba l o b a and what that stood for was last offer binding arbitration
and while it was on one agenda for the year actually one item and it was not going to have
I think police may actually have something like that but basically it was going to be
the definition was last offer binding arbitration and what it did was it caused the parties
theoretically to come together because an arbitrator would have been empowered at some point during
the negotiating process to simply say I'm going to accept your last offer or your last offer
he wouldn't have the ability to blend it to offers he would not have the ability to come up and
mediate it it was simply I can only take your offer or your offer and that's it and because neither one
wanted to be so far out on a limb that they would not be chosen it tended to moderate the
demands of both sides and bring them together so that in the end if they had a choose last offer
binding arbitration from either side the other side could live with it it died
but it was our one agenda that year and it was probably the one time
that that that approach was even talked about at some length I believe there was a time
maybe ten years ago where somebody brought it back and I think it scared both parties away
you know because people realize well this isn't just talk anymore this is a possible way of doing
business which is suddenly scary you know because it's you know it's like when you have an
employee representing in the discipline you're sometimes better off working at your own deal
as opposed to leaving it to an arbitrator who you don't know how it is going to decide or you know
whether that you're going to have a job but it's old enough better to work out something that you're
in control then something you're not in control of and I think maybe that attitude is what
moves the state system at this point in terms of negotiations people would rather not have
somebody come along and decide in their fate so they take this approach I want to give some more
detail about the campaign to to get me to like the gallon what you're calling
a landslide bill landslide bill what did you you said you had to do some things to get him
up to even say up to speed but a pair of praising to prepare him to run statewide
what kinds of things did you and your other campaign manager Judy well Bill
was an interesting contrast on the one side you have Ted Wednesday who's got a doctorate
worked for the state education department who by some definition was a scholar certainly was
articulate again not terribly charismatic and perhaps no longer a leader for the time
what he did bring to the table a fairly nice resume if you will now you contrast that with
Bill McGowan Bill was if there was ever a man who could relate to the common
hope it was Bill Bill was not articulate in any sense in terms of his use of the language I mean
nor was that relevant because Bill had an instinct that was good he couldn't articulate as well
but he knew on with side of the issue he had a fall and he had that ability he he needed to be seen
close up in person where where someone else like a Ted Wednesday who had been around for a long
time could have his picture all over the place and people have always associated Dr. Wenzel with CSEA
people didn't know Bill McGowan was a TV mechanic in West Seneca
who really had no long history in state service and people had to get to know him
Bill would walk around with a piece of paper and you know fold it up in his pocket
and whenever people would come to him in his region because he had been a regional president
he would say what's your problem and he would make this piece of paper and write it down and he
would actually get back to you because in this little piece of paper I don't know how he did it
I've got only nose but I mean he had it was like a filing cabinet but it was complete and he would
never forget all right so no matter what you came to him with he was really on it quite a skill
actually but the best way for Bill to relate to somebody was face to face so it was my job and
Judas John to get him face to face so we brought him he knew Buffalo and we knew Long Island
and we knew everything in between and we got him around to the point where and suddenly I mean
we were out in the middle of the night so that at 7 a.m. the next morning we were at Tinker's
Tavern in you know north of just south of Woodedown or we were you know every at every psych
center and the Bell Center and every county office building we got him up close and personal
and that's really the way to have elected Bill McGow because once you knew him and you knew
he could relate to your needs and he was one of you that was what it came down to and the truth is
that the more people understood that he was one of them the more they also know that Ted
Wenzel was really not in order that he represented a different time in a different place of the
organization and while he may have been the right guy at some other time in place he was not
the right guy now because he didn't want change he resisted change he was you know he was
uncomfortable with changing law firms he was uncomfortable with with getting involved in politics
and and if you could take a step back and and I guess I had that ability as I took a step back
and said you know CSEA really could become something and right now it's sort of floundering you
know it's really nowhere it's hovering at a sort of a base level when when there is a future for
it and it's time for that future to emerge Ted would not have allowed it to emerge because he
was comfortable at a certain level Bill McGowan worked you know in a fashion which he said you
know what you know what is Bixicari's is this could be different you know chopping or did this
could be really different this could be good you know and and it was always so much fun to work
with you know and I can remember over the years I was always the I guess in the end I was the
consultant for mental hygiene and I was he would refer to me more of his as Danny does his
technician his nuts and bulk kind of a guy you know and and I would always sit back and I would
watch Bill's explanation of a highly technical issue that's going on I'm saying
either they think he's the smartest guy in town or they just don't know what's going on you know
and at some point Bill will say if you got any questions talk to Marty I got to go you know and
he would do that a lot but at the same time when it came to the much more global issues
even at the highest level and I can remember being with him at the highest levels he knew where
he had a fall you know and and and his instincts were were better than most other people's ability
at pure analysis I mean he just had the feeling about where he had to be and more often than not he
was right I don't know if in the end as the years won't buy if I would have agreed with where he
wound up being frankly but but that said at the beginning of his tenure and for most of it if not
virtually all of it he was one of the better leaders this organization's ever seen was he
the kind of a guy who was micromanaging no he let people to do you know do their jobs and do
them as well as they could and he would sit back and get a flavor for whether or not they have
been successful or not but he never attempted to my recollection to micromanage but as I said
going back to the beginning in terms of Bill McGowan getting him elected took little more than
getting him to meet people and once they met him he was the man was there a campaign promise was
to be honest I think in order to not be insulting you know when people tended to be sort of
gentleman like people kind of understood that Bill represented the degree of change and a shift
in the way in which the organization was going to move and in terms of the people who really would
be in charge of it if you looked at the composition of the membership there were a lot more blue collar
workers than there were folks you know in the state education department and people started to
realize that Ted Wenzel represented an ever shrinking portion of the membership and at the Bill
McGowan type of guy represented the person who really made up the membership and I think if
you know if nothing else people understood that the time had come for their needs to be front and
center and he could address those needs and that was the message he delivered he was the I'm your
guy and he delivered it well but still it was close well well you're also looking this is back in
7 the 4 I guess 78 I forget but yeah I think it was 74 I think you're also looking at
state employees who really made up the great number of the members at the point at that point
anyway who were kind of the transition group you know I mentioned earlier the the people who fought
more with too a lot of those folks have been longtime state employees and their attitude about
state government was that the state knew was in our best interest and it took some people a long
time to get around to saying well maybe they don't maybe we know it's in our best interest and
if we don't fight for those things we're never going to see them but yeah I would say that you know
that was a dividing line in terms of the membership and its mentality and where I wanted to go and
there were a lot of folks who worked for big brother the big government that were very comfortable
and you know I you know a typical illustration is I worked at a state hospital on the grounds
of a state hospital were large employee houses there were attendants who whose lives were on that
campus they had a room they would get their three meals a day in hospital provided dining their
clothes were laundered in the hospital laundry their pants would come out of starches their pants
there's their shirts they would be a bowling alley on the campus there would be a hospital
exchange where they could buy or everything they ever needed there would be a barber shop there
would be a drugstore where you could go get everything you needed if you were sick there was in my
case building 10 where the hospital would would would see you and take care of your every need there
was an auditorium where they would show movies twice a week there was a hospital barber that I mean
didn't care they didn't paint at all it was irrelevant it meant nothing to them because this was
their world and you're not going to rock my boat I mean so why do I need to change things I'm doing
just fine you know so don't show me a leader who's going to ask for change I want to keep my world
in my status quo I kind of like it that was not so atypical I think what I just described could have
been replicated in a variety of different places and certainly the mentality was there throughout
the state of New York so yeah Ted Wandsel represented a certain level of thinking and a certain
conservativeism that they wanted to remain in place the change would have happened because
that world was gone anyways but it's probably fortunate that it happened well the only thing I could
say is I could identify a point in time when it did occur as opposed to a metamorphosis
this occurred there was a clear demarcation point a good question what did Bill McGowan do
when Wandsel was barricaded himself in his office and to the election I think he had
he simply worked out of his old office you know I mean he wasn't you know and clearly it was just
going to be a matter of time until he ultimately he had to leave he just physically had to leave
for a variety of reasons and he did and it was but it was I mean what you know the message is sent out
was this was a pathetic kind of a situation you know a lot of us can't accept defeat I mean I
I've run for a high office and I have not won but I know that there was another world that had
a living so I had to go on
I'm going to ask you a couple of general questions but there's any other stories or
or a picture you want to draw about other people but you know it doesn't take the jump in but
some general stuff here that I wrote down it's actually Steve as me to ask what are you most proud of
two things
in a lot of years I've already mentioned the fact that in my role as a consultant for mental hygiene
that I I did two things in regard to this I I advocated for the closure process in Omar D. Day
and internally very few people in CSEA agree with me because there was a tremendous amount of
distrust and I said you know what I hate to tell you but this is the one opportunity we're probably
going to have because I remembered in my political action days we had
what was known as the more gata memorandum which was it's sadder terrific and what the
maro gata memorandum did for the world of mental hygiene was it said that in the future
in the world of psychiatric centers we're going to have staffing ratios raised to a one-to-one level
because they had been far less than that to that point and that prospectively
all growth that occurs outside of the facilities half of it will be state operated
and similarly in the world of Omar D. Day the staffing level there will be raised to 1.78 to 1
and half of the growth in the community will be state operated that sounds like all technical stuff
and I guess it is on the other hand very little of that really happened
I psychiatric centers kept dwindling in their populations and there was no identifiable state growth
the belt mail centers were closing down very quickly in terms of the numbers of people left
to be served but the growth that was occurring was really occurring in the United
Central Pulse of UCP, Ameri-ARC which is the adult services for the retarded
the growth did not occur in the state sector the consequence was that the
developmental centers were at a point where if they lost any more bodies and they went through
what's called reinvestment where in order to get to a decent staffing level and frankly the only
reason the staffing level was reached in the MR world was because of a court order there was a
thing known as the Wilbur consent decree which actually mandated by court you know the state
would be in contempt if it didn't do that that the level would be raised to a 1.78 to 1
staffing ratio inside of developmental centers they did that by not increasing the staff by decreasing
the population but by you know they also got to a point where if they said to buy to one more client
that they were no longer going to reinvest they're going to start to lay off staff and I knew that
so I said listen we have an opportunity here with an agreement from the state where we can actually
go through a closure process where for a period of time 90% of the development that was going to occur
would be state operated and we could work out arrangements if we go through this one facility at a
time where every state employee could wind up with a job if we sit back and do nothing I can guarantee
that the consequence will be they're gone they'll continue to have closure but not in a way that
we're comfortable with because they'll start to just simply say goodbye to the clients in favor of
the voluntary sector and that'll end the state workers and people didn't believe that that was
possible inside the organization and I took a big gulp and I said I believe it's possible
and from that day forward and for the next number of years I spent literally weeks at every single
M.R. facility that went through the closure process and I helped walk them through that process
and certainly to the extent that I was involved and I was really pleased with this when the closure
process was complete not one state employee was lost and in fact most people who were changed from
job to job were elevated from a non-direct care job which paid less money toward direct care job
which paid more and the entities that were created had staffing ratios that were far better than
the 1.78 they were actually 2.5 to 1 so when the smoke cleared we actually were able to close build
up state operated programs and they have remained in place and the consequence if I dare say so
now is that if you look at the state workforce the vast number of state employees that CSE
represents are in the world of OMARDD mainly because that closure process was successful and that
the state workforce remained intact and to the extent that I had major involvement in that
that would become one of the two major involvements that I had that I'm most proud of because in the
end it really maintained a state workforce and I think in the end it also benefited the clients
that were served because I think state workers are actually better at what they do and then
and I enjoyed working with them because as I went around the state I realized that these people
really cared about their jobs and they cared about the clients that they served that was
in inverse order the second thing was organizationally in my role as a statewide political action chairman
being one of the the couple of people involved at the higher levels and to be sure there were
tons of people involved at a variety of other levels overseeing the process that took us from
CAKSALS to a very potent political action machine in the end became one of my proudest
achievements as well working with feathers at the time who was I thought a brilliant strategist
in terms of doing this was something that I was very pleased to have done because he was a mentor
I think we complemented each other well but to be sure he knew what he was doing a lot more than I
did and he was someone I could learn from and we worked well together I was able to go around the
state we were able to convince regional presidents that it wasn't the best interest of CSEA and ultimately
then at the regional level for CSEA and Albany to develop a power base that up and down point
it didn't have and it had to go from sort of a decentralized operation to a centralized operation
in order for the entire operation to overall benefit and I was I guess instrumental in helping
develop that mentality and getting the dues check off for political action certainly made us
a major player because we had money in our pocket for the first time and we used it effectively
and and and I would like to think potent those if I had to break it down to the two those will be it
just for money to be something that what happened between them personally?
yeah because I know we've said you see the city oh we should get them in here but it's definitely
separately what happened? Well I was you know I don't have first hand knowledge all I know is that
the two of them simply I guess there were personality clashes between the two of them two
different approaches the way in which they did business I think Jim Romer and again I'm
friendly with both of these folks still puts me in a kind of a unique circumstance at times because
I can't refer to one or the other you know depending on who I'm with but but basically
Jim is a very structured guy very business like Jim Romer I should read I'm sorry and
a very systematic approach to the way in which he conducts his life very disciplined and
feathers to understand this is sort of a you know and discipline but in a different way more of a
shoof in the hip type of a guy and I think their approaches were dramatically different you know and at
the end I think they they became like oil and water in terms of being partners one would want to
run the show one way one the other oh no no no did this schism that occurred was was really
10 years after they they they broke away from CSEA so no it was unrelated yeah
getting back to CSEA your career which is not looking back over all this or from now to then
what he what he most disappointed by
well I guess
I would have to reflect on where the public workforce and public employee unions are today
generally versus where they were and I guess at their height there was a time in the 70s the early
70s maybe the late 60s even where you could see the power of public employee unions rising I
remember with Victor Gopin when he was charge at district council 37 in New York City
uh I remember because I live in proximity to the city where he would literally turn the bridges sideways
so that people could not drive across them just to make his point and people started to say oh
or when the subway workers you know uh would stop the subways you could bring the city the size of
New York to what's needs if you turn the bridges sideways and turn off the electricity to run
the the subways um that was in some ways the beginning of the rise of the public employees
I think as well of what changes we were able to be involved with at the stay wide level
all during the 70s and perhaps even the early 80s
um because we had the ability to make our points in the legislature and I guess what I see now
is and this is no reflection on anybody's lobbying ability but it's a reflection more of the fact
that maybe the pendulum has now moved in another direction and that people have now concluded
that the days of the public employees being in charge of the world is something they're not too
much in favor of anymore and as a result you know I think unions generally in the public sector
have subsided somewhat in the amount of power that they wield and I guess if I'm disappointed
is in the fact that um that that has occurred you know it maybe it maybe the pendulum should
somehow at least stay in the middle instead of being at either end but right now uh to be sure
I don't think any union anywhere in the state of New Yorker maybe in the country is enjoying
the power even in Washington you know depending on you know whether it's Ronald Reagan or George Bush
I think depending on who's in power in any given time public employees unions will leave the rise
or fall and right now I would think that uh in the in the next day we're holding our own I think
but to be sure I don't think we were at we we are out where we were at our apex and that's my my
biggest concern at the moment I don't know if this is the same as what you're most proud of but let me
ask what do you see the most important events during your time involved?
Well it would be very similar except the event that's specific event palace theater
um the the change of law firms the change of presidency the change of attitude
all of which occurred in a very compacted fashion back in 1974 I guess that's when CSEA suddenly
took on a whole different life um to be sure that would be the single most significant event
that I can recall I would imagine and I would dare say you you know for those who've been around
doing my same length of time would say the same things I would guess and what lessons
with CSEA's history? Old for its future
listen to your membership
don't rule from the top go down to your grassroots remember you know you are going back to your
question earlier what do I bring to it what did I bring to this in the in the 1960s they're bringing
the same thing today and and we can't be so bold and and even if I would like to think that through
four decades that I have amassed as wealth of experience I haven't experienced today with the
experience out there today because I'm not at that level anymore and it's easy for me to lose
contact and if I forget that then I lose and therefore I give no input that's worthwhile at this
high the higher level so that's the lesson the lesson is and that's where I guess the Ted Wenzel
would have lost contact is that he lost sight of who he really was representing or who this
organization was representing that would be the one lesson I believe Danny's years are open I
would hope they are I believe they are and I would hope whoever succeeds Danny at some point
I grant you that the world of politics internally has to be addressed but when you achieve the level
of leadership never forget who got you there right and that's when you risk the leadership and
that's when you risk the future of the organization I mean the the normal dynamic of politics here
is that there's always going to be an outside group looking to become the inside group and that's
the way the world operates and that's the world of politics at a variety of levels but what keeps
you in a leadership is your ability to go out and know what those problems are and to be able
to have a political machine I guess internally that's capable of addressing those problems once you
identify them and now to me would be you know that you've got to be strong I mean going back to
what I said before that my strength at a local level was directly proportional to the strength of
this organization the statewide level is something that allowed me to operate and I would hope
that that continues you know but that would mean that there's got to be a viable leadership at
the top and something that makes the organization viable as well however that occurs I mean
you know if the CSEA organization starts to represent for the most part county employees as opposed
to state employees which is pretty much where it is then I think it's got to develop a whole different
way of thinking politically but under any conditions it's got to be a political operation in order
for it to succeed and that was the lesson somebody once said to me a long time ago politics you know
just like in the movie The Graduate or the guy said plastics so we said to the politics and I never
understood that it's politics that gets you elected and it's politics that keeps you alive
because that's the way the real world operates and in this organization it's politics that will rule
today ultimately at whatever level you're going to be and that's the lesson don't lose sight of
who you're representing and make sure you have a political machine that can represent the interests
I think I've covered a lot of my basins
I hope one thing what about the the recent change fairly recent change of the representing
non-government parties
that's you know I can't say I have tremendous familiarity with that other than the world I
am familiar with which would be the boundary sector which is sort of the quasi-public sector
but as CSEA moves out at other venues it's going to present you know under the different rules of
labor organizations in the private versus the public sector the way in which you do business has
to be different the cost of doing that kind of business is different because the Taylor Law gives
you the ability to be the collective bargaining agent and collect doers even before you have a
contract in the private sector you can't work it that way so your approach has got to be different
I've yet to see how it's going to work I'm not personally familiar with it I've had my whole life
in the basically in the public sector this is no one different I'm in no position to really
comment until I see how well it's going to unfold I would hope and pray that there are people
inside of the organization today that have a knowledge of how the private sector operates
and how to proceed with properly representing and under those conditions to me it's kind of scary
waters maybe I'm really Ted Wenzel now I don't know
great thank you very much okay