b"Were you ever a shop steward, grievance representative or chapter chair?No, I could've been any one of them, but I'd rather not, I was too involved with other things to be. I had a young family, little league, church, living. If you worked for the union, or even in grievances, you had to give them a lot of yourtime. I couldn't afford to give them the time. But I was always there, anytime they needed me, I was always there.I attended union meetings; I was in charge of rallies. When they went on strike, I set up the hours people could picket.I helped the union anywhere that I could. They were very beneficial to me in all kinds of ways.Can you tell us about the picket line?Yeah, I set it up in three-hour shifts. The first strike was maybe '63, '64, somewhere around there. That's when theyput the bridges up. At that time, Barry Feinstein was the president. We didn't have health and hospital, we didn't have alot of the titles they have today, it was like the Housing Authority and maybe Bridge and Tunnel workers or something.Very, very, very small. Then they expanded to what they are today.Did you ever require a union intervention regarding a problem on the job or work site? Yes, but it was never on paper. It was all verbal. I got a problem: Yeah, alright we'll send somebody. And it wasdone. They would send a business agent. I was very friendly with the president, one on one with him. What was a typical day or week on the job like?As a caretaker, I weaseled my way into the maintenance shop and all the maintenance men liked me because I was ahelp to them. They were in charge on the work order. It was like two bodies in one job. And, they used to almost fight forme: I got Vinny for the afternoon, I got Vinny tonight, you had him yesterday. I was very, very young. I was probably 70pounds lighter than I am today, I was kind of handsome, and they used to like to bring me along with them. Sometimes I spoke in Italian to a Spanish tenant and she understood what I said, I needed a rag or Put the light on, let me seewhat's wrong. I did a lot of interpreting for them.Were there things they didn't want to do?Sure. There is a thing called a house trap where all the building's waste goes through this trap. It must be cleanedyearly. After the water runs through and everything else, pins, needles, coins, anything heavy that's in the water sinks tothe bottom of this trap. So yearly, you have to clean it out. We had crawl spaces to get to where the house trap was, and itwas so low, we would wear a helmet with a pencil, so that the pencil hits the ceiling before your head hits it. You get intothe house trap, clean them, scoop it out, and go to the next job. I was in a project where there were 19 buildings. Therewere 19 house traps, a lot of pennies. We would screen pennies out. Another job was called a fish trap. All the water entering any high-rise building has to be trapped. It's called a fish trap because fish get stuck in them. People got dirtyand filthy. I could understand as you got older it got harder. How could you go to somebody's apartment after doing a joblike that all dirty to fix their leaky faucet or something. So, I could understand the maintenance men at that time.Another job they didnt like was glazing. Your hands are full of putty, you break out the old broken glass, scrape out all theold putty with a machine, clean it up, replace the glass. It was a dirty job. You couldn't repair a glass and then go to some-body's apartment, a clean looking apartment. So, they would put those jobs aside. And that's where Vinny came in.41 "