A Union Buster Confesses: An authorized, complete, reprint of Confessions of a Union Buster

I hadn't felt nervous during the sunny, one-hour flight from Reno to San Diego. But as I sat there at the speakers' table at the head of the cavernous Hyatt Islandia conference room, my throat suddenly felt dry. Beads of cold sweat crawled down my forehead and underarms. Before me, crammed into the hall around the endless rows of folding tables, sat four hundred union men, strong, thick-armed, sunburned workmen who had gathered for the 1988 Western Conference of the Brotherhood of Carpenters.



I tried to mask my panic with small talk and smiles, but while I waited for my name to be called my heart beat uncontrollably and my palms were clammy. Then, from somewhere off in the distance, it seemed, I heard my name announced; within my head the speaker's voice was muffled by my booming heartbeat and the sound of my own heavy breathing. I don't remember standing up or walking to the microphone, but suddenly there I was, clutching the podium.



The auditorium fell silent. A roomful of eyes met mine, bearing secrets I could not read, or dared not. I dipped my head so that my lips almost touched the microphone, and without my willing it, a throaty sigh escaped into the sound system and ricocheted off the ceiling and walls.



I had no choice but to begin: "I come from a very dirty business. ..."



--From the Foreword