b'Before joining Teamsters Local 237, which was founded in 1952, Friedman was a member of the United Public Workers, achapter of the American Public Workers Union (APWU), which was expelled from the CIO for alleged communist dominationin the early 1950s. Following are excerpts of a Local 237 Oral History Project interview pertaining to this period.How long did you work for the Housing Authority?About a year and a half, but I worked for Citywide 34 years. I was in the United Public Workers union. We were in theCIO at that time. An organizer said a test was going to be coming up for maintenance man, and if you can claim a yearsexperience in related trades, youre eligible to take the test. I took the test and I passed it. They had representatives fromall the departments. When the Housing amount was filled . . . I took a job in Hospitals. That was around 1951. Thats how I wound up in Bellevue Hospital as a maintenance man. I stayed 29 years there.What union was representing you? That was still the United Public Workers. Who was the president?Lets see. Jack Bigel was a regional director. Ewart Guinier was not the president then. [Guinier was secretary-treasury ofthe APWU in the 1940s.] I dont remember. I remember some of themFrank Herbst, Jerry Janson. Of course, when theyfinally merged, thats when the union became really large.When they merged with what?When they merged with Local 237. At that time, it was Local 111.During the Cold War, the United Public Workers was thrown out of the CIO. So, they set up a splinter group calledGovernment and Civic Employees Organizing Committee. A person by the name of Ray Diana was the head of it. And thenRay Diana got some nice jobs with the city, and they saw he wasnt producing. Thats when the Teamsters came in. At thattime, the Teamsters were in the AF of L (American Federation of Labor] only.And then it became Local 237. Do you remember, just to put it in context, about how much your salary was in1951-52?When I started as a laborer, it was $1,920. And when it became Local 237, with the Teamsters, it was something like $3,000.How did the maintenance men get to the Teamsters, since they started out with the UPW?There were four active leaders who were originally in the TeamstersHenry Feinstein, Bill Lewis, and two others. . . .Then there were four from the United Public WorkersAl Katz, one who passed away, one who went to Local 1199. It was acoalition, four on each side, and they merged. With the prestige of the Teamsters, they said youll have so much morestrength, being in the largest labor union in the world, or in the United States.They had the maintenance workers at the Housing Authority. Did that have an impact on the decision of themaintenance workers in Hospitals?Yes, because it was all under the same title. But they got certain benefits in the Housing Authority that the other departments didnt get, because, its called a quasi-government organization, theres some federal money for Housing.Jerry Janson was a foreman of painters. Originally, he was the head of the Housing Chapter in the United Public19 '