b'He went to the Water Department about a year be-fore me, in 46 or 47. He had passed the [city] plumbingtest, and he was also in a preferred category [veterans], sowhen they started appointing people for the job after thewar was over, he was hired. The supervisor in charge ofnew construction picked Herman to work there. Anyway,Herman invited me to come over to see what it was allabout. He convinced me to check up on it. So I took thetest. I wound up second on our particular list but I endedup 108 because I wasnt in the service. When they calledme about my appointment, Herman told me to ask forManhattan, which I wanted to do anyhow because it was Founding Local 237 president Henry Feinstein (at microphone)easy to travel. inducts new ofcers of the Department of Water Chapter ofLocal 237 in 1952. Rear to foreground: Walter Ryczek, unknown,To learn about the meters and their locations and John Hartter, George Hauser, George Rosenbluth, and Georgehow to gain access, you went out with a meter reader and Lodis.they would show you how to route out your work, because everything is a block and a lot as far as the city was concerned.I started out with a fellow named Joe Muratore. We had to see if there was increased consumption, and account for it:Either there was waste or someone was bypassing the meter. A lot of times the storekeepers wanted to keep you out,especially if it was around lunchtime; other times it was: How come my water bills so high? So, we were between thedevil and the deep blue. Thats when I found out about respect on the job: If you have a clean appearance, a neatappearance, youd have no trouble getting into places.I was about a year on meter reading when they decided to go into resurvey, as they called it. A lot of buildings werealtered in Manhattan. Each building thats altered gets what they called an examination report. Any place they suspectedhad alterations would have to have examination papers.Organizing & Political CampaigningI wasnt in a union then. There was some social business. Occasionally we would make a contribution if someone wasretiring or someone was sicklike an association. That was all we had then. You have to remember, this was close to thetime when [public employee] unions were starting to get active.Bob Wagner was [Manhattan] borough president at that time. Henry Feinstein [the founding president of Local 237]was an organizer for D.C. 37, for [D.C. 37 leader] Jerry Wurf, so originally we all signed up to go in there. [Feinstein waspresident of D.C. 37 when it was first chartered by AFSCME in 1944.] Well, not all; there were a few dissenters, of course. It had to be close to the time I got there, in late 48. We had a very good support group. It included all the different borough heads, even the man who managed thewater register was amenable. Gene Drum, Ormand Burke, and Jim Finnertrythey were the top three. We had the borough chiefs at that timeMcCormick, Kuntsler, Evans, George Hauser of Brooklyn, and George Lodis (he was one of our district supervisors when we first came, when we were doing the resurvey).We recognized the fact that some kind of organization had to be established if you want to get something. In the22 '