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An assault on the editor of this newspaper, or any newspaper, is an assault on the free press of America and the perpetrators nothing more than terrorists. So listen up, urinal goons, this is war!
Mike Hudson was blindsided and banged into a urinal at the Niagara Falls Convention Center on Oct. 12 by three cowards who claimed to be speaking for Firefighters Local 714. Don't buy that a'tall. A drunken firefighter might have thrown a glass at Mick in the Arterial Lounge, but the kind of men who ran up the dark, smoke-engulfed stairs of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 trying to lead thousands of people to safety, wouldn't attack a lone man, three on one. Ain't in the firefighter profile.
But it sure does sound like Laborers Local 91, which has a long and sordid history of terrorizing people who don't want to be forced to employ them on a construction job, one of the reasons development in Niagara County is essentially nil. Who wants to hire thugs?
There are any number of incidents when Local 91 has used force to convince people trying to build things they better use union men or never get anything done. The list of charges against Local 91 members includes assaults, inciting riots, tire slashings and other acts of vandalism.
Local 91's business manager Michael "Butch" Quarcini never has any comment for the press on what his members get up to except through his attorney, who claims his employer is a fierce believer in workers' rights.
Despite being a proud member of the Newspaper Guild and treasurer of the Detroit Chapter for three years, I know all about terrorists affiliated with unions. I worked for the Detroit Free Press at the time when the Republicans held their convention in Motown to nominate Ronald Reagan as their candidate for president.
The Teamsters Union at the Free Press decided to push for some extra contract provisions that pivotal week for a Detroit newspaper and went on strike. And like the good union woman I was, I walked with most of the rest of the Free Press. At an all-union meeting, with the Teamsters running the show, reporters, copy editors and advertising folks were advised by the truck drivers on how we could move things along right quick. Like putting nails on the streets around the Free Press building to disable trucks attempting to deliver newspapers. Or, if we were true union people, we could threaten every scab who crossed our picket line with bodily injury, not to mention hurling a few bricks through car windshields. They had a couple other cute ideas, which I won't share today because Local 91 may not have thought of them yet.
What am I doing here, I thought, as I sat in the meeting. True, I'm meaner than a snake, but I was a reporter, not a criminal. The Teamsters went back to work when the Republican Convention ended, having won nothing and lost their lever to bring Free Press management to heel.
But the whole incident left a sour taste in my mouth and a wee bit of cynicism about the glorious union movement.
I had truly believed unions were the best thing that ever happened to working people and to find they could behave worse than management was a hard pill to swallow.
I've gotten over it, sort of. But I no longer believe that all unions have the workers' interests at heart. And they will kill their own if need be. Ask the ghost of Jimmy Hoffa, former president of the Teamsters, who went to lunch one day at the Machus Red Fox and never came home. I've always believed he's buried under the Jeffries Freeway in Detroit, which was being constructed when he went missing. Certainly, the Teamsters were a wee bit pissed at Hoffa at the time he disappeared. Sup with the devil, Jimmy, and the devil will dine on you.
The physical assault on Mike Hudson has me seeing red, blood red. But there's more. I've got an insult-added-to-injury red glaze before my eyes because the Niagara Gazette and The Buffalo News didn't deem the gang attack on a fellow journalist worthy of mention. Local editor assaulted in a public place. Three suspects being hunted. Possible seven-year jail terms under federal racketeering laws. And that's not newsworthy? Not even a police brief?
Come on, you miserable excuses for editors, take your heads out of your arrogance and show some professionalism.
When I was 23 and working the 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift at the Free Press, I came out of the building one dark night and walked across Lafayette Boulevard to the deserted parking lot. As I unlocked my car, I was confronted by a man with a knife in his hand and ugly ideas in his eyes. "Get in the car," he told me, "and I won't hurt you." Even at 23 I wasn't butt stupid. If I was going to die, I was going to die in that parking lot. So I screamed like a banshee, kneed him in the strategic location my brother taught me when I was 12, and ran like a rabbit. He came after me until Scotty, of sainted memory, banged his way out of the parking lot's adjacent garage brandishing his cane, claiming he had a shotgun and the eyes of a cat. My assailant believed him and gave up his pursuit. And I survived unharmed. Scotty has been in my prayers every night of my life since that day.
I didn't report the attack to police, but Scotty did. And when the Detroit News reporter who I worked with on weekends saw the report on the incident, he called my managing editor to explain to him what had happened to me because he knew I wouldn't.
The Detroit News was one block down Lafayette from the Free Press and a bona fide rival for circulation in that city. But competing reporter John Gallagher not only called my boss to tell him to have a serious talk with me about being a little more cautious at night, but the News ran a story on the attempted assault. I wasn't harmed but the Old Gray Lady (as we used to called the conservative News in those days before a joint operating agreement merged two damn good newspapers and a bitter strike ruined them both) thought it important to make readers aware that a woman was attacked in downtown Detroit.
But the Niagara Gazette, the sorriest excuse for a newspaper in this hemisphere, ignored a gang attack in a public building bathroom on their turf. So did The Buffalo News, one of the richest and laziest newspapers on the planet. This is a newspaper, after all, that in a story on the opening of Casino Niagara, misspelled "champagne" on the front page. I won't even mention the lamentable lexicon of embarrassing misspellings in story after story ever since.
Both newspapers apparently are so threatened by this gutsy publication that they turn their backs on journalistic integrity. And we all should have at least a wee bit of that no matter how long we've been in the business and how much we dislike our competitors. That could have been a member of your family smashed into a porcelain urinal. Or you.
I know reporters are classed on a par with lawyers and used car salesmen, but walk a day in their shoes and that perception may change. These are people who, as part of their job, have to talk to the families of victims of tragedy, not only to report the news, but also to allow the people to grieve out loud. As the last month has proven, people need to talk, to cry, to scream about the loved ones they no longer have in their lives. Reporters listen and share with their readers, who, if nothing else, should understand they are lucky not to have to deal with such a loss.
Mike Hudson may not need to scream, but I do. The world, our world, is being engulfed in mayhem by world gangsters and we allow our own little version of gangsters to beat up a colleague in a men's room.
If I had lost a loved one on Sept. 11, I'd want to scream the heavens down. And if he got battered in a bathroom by thugs, I'd hunt them down and make sure they never procreate again. Trust me, I'm damn good with my knee.