Laughter, Over Easy, for Breakfast

Lily Tomlin serves up working-class humor at the Equal Partners Breakfast.

Comedienne Lily Tomlin grew up in Detroit, where her mother was a nurse's aide and her father worked in a factory. "Although he made auto parts, he couldn't afford to buy an entire automobile of his own," she said.

With such quips, Tomlin kept some 2,200 delegates and guests laughing at the eighth Equal Partners Breakfast before Wednesday's Convention session. She shared humorous remembrances of working-class difficulties that were then pretty much the same as now.

"Dickens wrote, 'It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.' If he had been living in Detroit at the time, in a basement apartment at the corner of Hazelwood and Byron, he might have written 'It was the worst of times' and left it at that."

Best times. "Of course, years later, ... I realized the same could be said of any city ... because from history's point of view, it is almost always the worst of times," she continued.

"It's really up to us to make it the best of times," Tomlin told the group of AFSCME activists, who came to the 32nd Convention to do just that, under the slogan "Leading the Fight."

Tomlin's identity as guest speaker was kept secret until the last minute, as is traditional with the Equal Partners Breakfast. But participants recognized her immediately as one of America's foremost comediennes, from "Laugh In," "Nine to Five," and other performances in movies and television.

At the breakfast, exploration of the role of women began with the opening introductions, which included the wives of Pres. Gerald W. McEntee and Sec.-Treas. William Lucy.

"Not behind, but beside a great man is a great woman," said Women's Rights Department Director Cathy Collette, by way of introducing Barbara McEntee and Dorotheria Lucy.

Keep pushing. Sec.-Treas. Lucy took the podium to talk about the changing face of AFSCME. "This breakfast tells us a lot about AFSCME's future," he said to the predominantly female audience.

"Women are the future of this union," Pres. McEntee said, and urged the women: "Keep pushing, keep shoving, keep working your way up that ladder."

Local 704, Council 4, Pres. Carol Dimmock, who also chairs AFSCME's National Women's Advisory Commit-tee which sponsored this event, spoke of the opportunities offered to women by AFSCME. "It gives us a shot at making a difference for ourselves and our families."

By Alison S. Lebwohl