Word: stefani
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...special flag, which has crossed knives and forks on a white background. There are commemorative pictures covering the walls, all of them old and chronicling various union events through the years, and photographs of all the U.S. presidents since the local started, except Richard Nixon. There are two photographs Stefani takes special care to point out to a visitor: one of his son posing with a cake that won a culinary arts contest, and the other of the original members of the local, all but two of whom are dead. The air is heavy and dark and preservative...
...Stefani, who works in the Cooks' only private office and has pictures of St. Francis Assissi and Pope John XXIII on his wall, joined the Cooks in 1928. He had come to America from England in 1928, and he worked as a chief in restaurants around Boston, staying at the Copley Plaza Hotel's restaurant for most of his career...
...dead now, used to cook at the Copley--came up to me and said, 'Joe, why don't you join the union?'" Stefani says. "I said, 'What's the union?' He said it was better wages. I said 'OK, let me go upstairs to my locker and get my three dollars. So I got my three dollars and I was in the union...
Shortly after he joined Stefani had his first round of important negotiations, with the Copley Plaza management. Although wages then were low--averaging less than $20 a week, an amount a Cooks member now earns in about half a day--Stefani decided to focus the negotiations on getting a regular...
...during the depression the union fell apart; nobody but Stefani paid dues and management kept cutting wages. He left Local 186 for a few years to join Local 34, but in 1937 he decided to revitalize 186. He called a meeting: nobody came. He called a second meeting and eight people showed up, a third to which 25 people came, and so on. At one point in the drive Local 186 had 15 cents in its treasury. The local got its charter and Stefani took over as business agent on February 11, 1937, but kept working at the Copley until...