Shaun Richman
@shaunrichman.org
3.2K followers 176 following 2.6K posts
Labor guy in higher ed. Author, "Tell The Bosses We're Coming" (Monthly Review, 2020) & "We Always Had a Union" (U. of Illinois, 2025). Contributing writer: In These Times, Jacobin, American Prospect.
![Raskin didn’t limit his advice to editorials. According to venerable labor mediator Theodore Kheel, Raskin was privately advising Lindsay on how to negotiate with Quill. Similarly (and more shockingly), garment union leaders David Dubinsky and Alex Rose were also privately counseling Lindsay to take a hard line against the TWU. The Liberal party heads, whose enmity to Quill went back to his days as a Communist, were sure that the old Irishman was bluffing his strike threat.
As mayor through December 31, Wagner could have settled the contract. “Before the negotiations [typically] started, the mayor would secretly call Quill and say, ‘Mike, I’ve got $3 million to give you and that’s it,’” Wagner press secretary Les Slote later candidly explained. “Then Quill could go out to the unions and say, ‘If that bum Wagner thinks he’s going to get the transit workers, he’s out of his mind…’ He’d rant and rave and then we’d meet at the Hotel Vanderbilt and Ted Kheel would be there, and the negotiations would go on. They’d stop the clock at midnight, then at two a.m. there’d be a settlement.” However, after being insulted throughout Lindsay’s campaign, Wagner had little patience for the self-styled reformer. When a Lindsay aide called the mayor’s office to discuss the TWU negotiations, he was told, “Wagner’s going to Mexico. You fuckers can deal with Quill.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hc5kd3mq6mkw7lkukoqfjeqx/bafkreiahkfxfm7crsbm5eg4up3mojp2hcn6j3emc2jdsmn3xmtnv623zia)
