b'And I hated all those steps [before a worker got top pay]. That became an issue any time we negotiated. At one point, wehad a meeting and I said, You know, Barry, Im tired of these cops and firemen and sanitation people getting three stepsto top pay, and he just laughed.I said, Youll never know until we try it. Well, the first contract, its no. The second contract, its no. And then I became an official up in the Housing Authority,where I had to give up my union affiliation (I didnt give up being a union member but I couldnt be involved). So, Imhome on a Friday evening and Peter Reni calls me up and he says, Were having a meeting tomorrow and Sy Grossmancant be there. Why dont you cover for Sy?. I said, Peter, Im not part of this. He says, Come on down. So, I go there,and of course my favorite cheese danishes are thereit seems that this union found the best cheese danish place in theworld. So, theres this dark brown cheese danish on the table with a cup of coffee. Peter knew that was my favorite. Everyone was just sitting around.Former Mayor Wagner was the one who was doing that contract. It had to go to arbitration or whatever. John Simonused to represent the managers on the Housing Authority side, and of course I said hello to John and a few other people.I saw a smile coming over Peters face, and I said, Somethings going on over here.They announced the three-step plan.I cried. Peter cried. Carl cried. I think those of us who were in the forefront of that really did cry. It was a good feeling. When I retired, I was the assistant chief of staff development. I was on the administrative management list, but itdied before me. I was never made civil service because of the one-out-of-three rule. They didnt skip over me, theyskipped some other people, and by doing that I was blocked.Barry used to say, You got to move on, upward mobility a phrase he used very often. Its the key to this wholeunion. For instance, sometimes I would talk to the caretakers, and Id say to them, If youve got something that has to benegotiated and you feel strong about it, put it out there. Come in with a hundred demands .Look at the job and whats happening, look at whats happening to the worker. Look at the machinery youre using.Youre still using a mop. Why dont you start talking about doing something with machinery and new products? You wantto work smart. And I told them Id help them.And the next week, out of that, out of the Central Office came a job called janitorial planning, and machinery camein, and products came in. It has nothing to do with money, but it has something to do with the job. Lets make our jobsbetter. Lets get respect for what we do. Why shouldnt a porter have the same respect as a manager? A lot of big shots in the Housing Authority now dont know what the struggle was. I go through the contract and I say, we did that, we did that, we did that, we did that. For instance, if somebody gets hurt on the job or mugged on thejob. Annual leave. The benefits for retirees, we started that. We were willing to take less and have some money put intothem. Thats a proud moment for all of us, something that we thought of as a group. In those days older people weregoing out with about $500 a year. So, we took part of our money and gave it to them. And now look at me15 years Ivebeen collecting. Summer hours and the air- conditioning in the bookkeeping officelittle things like that. Salary struc-tureat one time you wouldnt hit top pay for ten or 12 years.There were the education programs that came out of negotiations. For instance, we had a special course to teachentry level things for groundsmen. We combined it with a theory that some of us had: you teach the job, but you alsohave to teach language arts. The idea was to teach them the nomenclature of the words in the title but also teach themproper English and how to project and how to present.34 '