b"meeting for 9 o'clock in the morning. I was there 8:30. I was here early because now I want to know what's going on. So I went to the second floor. Barry was there, the vice president was there and the secretary-treasurer was there. And I'mwalking in with all three of them.I say to Barry, Good morning, how are you? You want to speak to me? So a businessagent said: Sit down and, you know, have some coffee. And he introduced me to the Board, which I already knew fromthe meetings and stuff like that. He said, You know, have some coffee and relax. So we started talking sports. On Mondays they came in talked football from Sunday. Barry says to me, Manny, howd everything go? I said: Well, Barry,fortunately enough, we won and we are champs. He said: Congratulations! But you know, we spent a lot of time in thatpark, you gave me a hard time. I said, No, I wasn't trying to give you a hard time, I just felt that some injustice was beingdone. I represent my ball club and as the manager, I got to do what I got to do. So, he said, Okay, he said, well, wouldyou like to come to work for me? I said, What? He says, Yeah, I want you to come to work for us. How would you like tocome to work and be a business agent? I say, Barry He caught me off-guard. So, I said, Sure I would love to come towork here, I mean who won't, you know? I'm gonna be working for you, I'm gonna be working for the Union and I mean,this is like, to me, it's something that I never dreamed of, but, it's a great opportunity for me to come here.I was the firstLatino to be a business agent at this local, the first Latino. So, he says, When would you like to come to work? I say:Well, I come to work as soon as possible. So you just let me know when I'm going to start and I will report. So, I think itwas a week later or two weeks later, because I had to do a lot of paperwork through the Housing Authority, to get me released. So once that was done, about two weeks later, I was working for the union and I was a business agent and I wastrained by Norris Jackson, the Commissioner. See, even though we had that disagreement, Norris Jackson, we knew eachother, we knew each other and we respected each other. Later on, we had a long conversation, one on one, he said he understood what I did and he respected me for it. So he trained me, then Carl Haynes, who was a business agent, andlater became President of the Union.I was given about 32 projects. Its a lot, but business agents have to cover a lot of projects; youre talking about Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and all these boroughs, that's a lot of Projects, but you know it is handled. They told Barrythat I was ready because I was a shop steward. I had experience. I dealt with the contracts and I knew more or less aboutthe benefits that were involved. So, in a very short time, they released me and I started working in the projects. So, Barrysays, Okay, give him this area. And that's when I started as a business agent .Like I said from the beginning, I happenedto be at the right time, in the right place. And that's how I became a business agent. It was because of that softball gameand that night that we played and Barry happened to be there. Any other way, I don't think it would have happened.After I came to work here, the Vice President spoke to me. He said, You know, one of the things that Barry said about you,when he hired you and why he decided to hire you, the number one thing is you stood your grounds, you represented thebaseball club, you didn't give up on your argument. Then the Vice President says: One thing that he noticed about youwas that even with all that you were able to come to an agreement and in this business, in union business, you have yourdifferences, but you know, sometimes there has to be a middle road and agreements have to be met. That's why he hiredyou, because from the beginning, the way it started and you agreed to play the game and come to a conclusionhe sawyou as a person who could work for the union. That's how I started here.How long did you work as a business agent?I was a business agent until 1975. As a business agent, I represent the blue collars, white collars. I represented 49 "