b"Do you have any recollections of negotiations or benefits fought for or received during your earlier years withthe union?The only benefit I remember was fighting for equal pay. There was some sort of difference in deductions or something and they fought for us and made the women on par with the men. I don't remember if it was pensions or pay.At the time, and it still is that way, ladies get paid less than the men. And in fact, there was a recent thing where somegroup here fought for the women to get equal pay as the men. And this is very recent.What were some of the biggest accomplishments that the union made that had an impact on your life? Well, I would say the health benefits are the best, period. What I liked is they changed the hours. They had us comein early on certain days and leave earlier, especially during the summer. They increased our pay, which was good. Theseare all good things. Look, when you're supporting two kids, these things are beneficial, period. Tell me about a typical day or week on the job. As a housing assistant, the emphasis was on getting the rent in. And as a manager, you had to make sure that thepeople paid their rent. They held you responsible if they didn't. They didn't want more than a certain percentage of people in debt, who owed rent. The older people always liked to pay the rent on time. The younger people would fall intodebt around Christmas and Easter, the priorities, buying clothes for the kids. The older people cared. So what I did when I had a vacancy, I would go into the senior center, and I'd find out who wanted an apartment. I'd take their name, especially if they're older and I worked on getting them in there. You wanted people who paid their rent on time. If youdon't pay your rent, is it my fault if you don't spend your money properly? So, you had to work against that. Well if somebody wasn't paying their rent, what did you do?First of all, you try to find out why they didn't. Sometimes you could be lenient, an emergency. But, if it's a chronic thing,like a young family where they're spending and they didn't give a damn, after a while you start issuing dispossesses, and thatwas the trouble. Some people who couldn't pay the rent, I'd say: Look don't worry, we're going to issue a dispossess, but it's in your benefit because welfare will come through with the money. So it's how you said it so it didn't upset them.What was a dispossess notice? Was it an eviction?There's a whole procedure. You issue the dispossess and something else comes through. It could take a few weeksbefore the dispossess goes into effect. An eviction notice is the final step. At Highbridge Houses there was a holy terror.My staff didn't tell me that the person they were evicting wasn't well either physically or mentally. The people there werevery angry at me because I was going through with it. But the manager and I were able to solve the problem. Then theytransferred me to another place. I remember the staff coming over to ask how to deal with that tenant.I said: Don't lether divide you, stick together. That's what you have to do, because she's a very good talker.So, your main responsibility was making sure that the rent was paid?That the rent was paid and more. As a housing assistant, I made sure that the halls were clean. I came by and lookedat all the apartments and made sure they were clean, that people were living in the apartments legally, or that there was55 "