b'one of the greatest amount of members. Of course, Edenwald is one of the biggest projects in the city.A lot of the fellas didn\'t want to sign up. You had to sit down and explain the benefits. You had to tell them, Look,if you don\'t do this, you\'re never going to get anything. You\'re at the mercy of the city comptroller or whatever. Theywouldn\'t give you anything. You had to fight for it. But salaries were very low, especially the caretakers and the firemen they were making hardly any moneyso even a dollar or 50 cents a week meant something to them, and we prevailed.When they saw how the maintenance men started to move, that\'s what convinced them to join. And of course, we gotbenefits through the efforts of the union the hospitalization.The 1967 Housing Strike1967. That\'s the year we shut down all the boiler rooms. Oh, yeah! I was at Bronx River then; I had just become anassistant super. A lot of people froze. There were some bad days. A lot of the people who lived in the project were with us "Don\'t give in," things like that. It was surprising, because they were freezing in the apartments.But it did the job, it got us a good increase. That was the year the strength of 237 really took hold. I think thats whenall the people in the agencies, like the Housing Authority, the bridge workers and in the hospitals, saw that there waspower in the unions. They gave us a decent wage and a decent living.And of course a few years later, with the bridge strike, that really put the cream on the cake. I have to give themcredit, because the city was shut down. They did a job, boy, they did a job! You have to commend them for what they didthat day. And from there, we rolled. \x02Hercules CornishNYCHA, Caretaker J, Supply ManMember since 1952The following is an edited version of Hercules Cornishs oral history interview from June 1999.When did you first go to work for the city of New York?I went to work for the New York City Housing Authority in 1952. I came in as a caretaker J-for janitorial. I wasrecommended by a friend of mine. Because at that time, after the war, there were no jobs. After the war, jobs were scarce.My friend worked for the Authority and he said, they\'re hiring. I sent in an application. They told me to come in, whichI did. I got the job six or seven months after that.The friend, Orville Bryan, who worked at Eastchester Houses recommended me to the city, to the Housing Authority.The union was in place then, but it wasn\'t all together. In other words, you had no checkoff. You had a shop stewardon each job who would collect dues. The salary was so low at that time -35cents an hour or whatever. Sometimes you hadto run the guy down. On payday you would have to catch him before he spent all the money so you could collect theunion dues. As time went on, things got a little better. Then, when he came around to collect the dues, you could pay him.11 '