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12. Nineteen Eighty-Six
- University Press of Mississippi
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131 12. Nineteen Eighty-Six The Rev.Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.called Hospital and Health CareWorkers Local 1199 “his favorite union.”And why not? The predominantly black and Hispanic union of bedpan orderlies, sanitation workers, and others symbolized the underdogs. In the 1960s and 1970s, the union’s leaders scored a string of victories for worker dignity. The leadership was mostly white, Jewish, and socialist. By the 1980s, Leon Davis and other white leaders like Moe Foner realized it was time to pass the power to a black leader. In 1982 they supported Doris Turner, a behind-the-scenes worker.1 The two placed Turner on virtually every committee, arranged awards for her, and scheduled her as the speaker at key events.Turner zoomed to the presidency even as the union leadership knew she was unqualified. She was a poor administrator and had no understanding of big issues and no apparent interest in learning about the local’s big-picture challenges. Since Turner was handed so much power, she carefully built a political machine—based on loyalty, not competence—to insulate herself.2 The old leaders understood that by not confronting Turner about her weaknesses and excesses,they revealed their paternalism and condescension.It was only a matter of time for the Turner mess to rot, then explode. The City Sun initially called attention to rumblings inside the union with a cover story at the start of 1985.3 During 1984 the local was hurt by a forty-seven-day hospital strike. In two years, ten district vice presidents and twelve of fourteen guild organizers left 1199. Those twenty-two people were either purged by Turner, said observers, or deserted her administration , which was Turner’s view. In July the New York union detached itself from the national union.4 High-profile City Sun coverage resumed a year later in February 1986. Turner was accused of rigging her own election and embezzling union funds. Managing editor Utrice Leid reported and wrote most of the 1199 stories. At a particularly combative news conference, when Leid asked a question, Turner responded,“Who are you?”When Leid said she was from the City Sun, Turner declared,“I don’t talk to you.”5 By June, the majority of Local 1199 members had rejected Turner’s autocratic and secretive leadership style. They booted her out. A “Save Our 132 Nineteen Eighty-Six Union” faction nominated a black woman named Georgiana Johnson, and she won. The new administration promised a more democratically run union.6 The City Sun resumed publishing January 8 after a two-week winter holiday break. The newspaper’s editors de-emphasized reports about Mayor Koch and invested more of their time that winter to covering local activists’ involvement in Haiti and South Africa. Cooper and Leid made these editorial choices because Koch appeared invincible.He had vanquished two mayoral challengers in the previous November and won more than 75 percent of the votes. By picking up additional Puerto Rican voter support, Koch could ignore and further humiliate black citizens. Based on the opening editions of 1986, the City Sun chose to engage Koch a little less. Inauguration Day, January 1, should have been a happy time for Koch, as he was to be sworn in for his third four-year term. Koch soon learned that his carefully crafted political empire would begin to crumble. Donald Manes, borough president of Queens, Democratic county leader, and self-described “King of Queens,” reported that he had been injured with a knife during a kidnapping. Manes said that while he was driving on Union Turnpike in Queens, two men who had been hiding in the back of his car attacked him. After an investigation, chief of detectives Richard Nicastro went on live television and announced that the police did not believe the borough president’s story. The cops had lost patience with the borough president. The authorities went public after five days of stonewalling by the family and Manes’s aides. Manes was moved from one hospital to another without notifying the police. Manes soon admitted to news reporters that his kidnapping story was a hoax and the knife wound—a slashed wrist— was self-inflicted. Why did Manes try to kill himself? He did not say.7 After a three-week hospital stay,he returned home in late January to recuperate.On Super Bowl Sunday, near the end of that month, Koch went on TV and told reporter Gabe Pressman that Manes was...