SQUABBLING IN THE AUTO WORKERS UNION : Flouting Convention : Dissident unionists, comparing themselves to Chinese students, rally and roll.

It was one part revival meeting, one part testimonial and one part pep talk in the smoke-choked ballroom of the Jolly Roger Inn.

The dissident faction of the United Auto Workers had gathered Tuesday morning at the hotel, next door to the Anaheim Convention Center, to plot strategy after two days of stinging defeat, and it needed to get some momentum rolling.

For the union’s New Directions faction, the Jolly Roger Inn was the place to be. On the floor of the UAW’s national convention, the dissidents feel isolated, dispersed and out-shouted. The UAW administration has littered the convention hall with anti-dissident brochures, New Directions members complained, and has intimidated some delegates into following the union’s party line.

Soon after reaching Anaheim on Sunday, New Directions headed half a block east to the hotel and restaurant where they are holding what amounts to a counter-convention. At the daily gatherings, the podium is theirs, the rhetoric is favorable, and they can plot strategy without interruption.

And Tuesday’s gathering was especially important, more spirited and urgent than previous sessions. So far, the convention had gone against them, and the dissidents were trying to turn the tide.

As New Directions leaders filed through the crowd of 200, delegate Gary Hart from Roanoake, Ind., stood up, tossed off a clenched-fist salute and exhorted his union brothers and sisters to mobilize against the UAW administration.

“We’ve been letting them kick our butts too long,” Hart shouted, as dissident leaders Don Douglas, Pete Kelly and Jerry Tucker headed for the podium. “It’s time for us to stand up and fight!”

And so it went for more than two hours, as the troops cheered and New Directions leaders attempted to regain ground lost in the first days of the union’s national convention. And they had their work cut out for them.

On Sunday, UAW President Owen Bieber had blasted the dissidents in his keynote address, charging that the group failed to understand the realities of international competition. The next day, the group lost in its first efforts to change the union’s constitution.

But Tuesday, the dissidents vowed that they would be downtrodden no more. Some likened themselves to the students who demonstrated in Beijing’s Tian An Men Square; both groups, they said, were street fighters seeking democracy.

Jerry Tucker, who is up for re-election today as director of the union’s Central U.S. Region 5, warmed up the crowd like an old-time preacher, as he stood under the meeting room’s cathedral ceiling and urged the congregation to join in “a march of conviction to that arena” where the union delegates would later convene.

“We’ve got to see if we can turn today into something different from the past few days,” Tucker said. “We have a solemn mission to represent our point of view. Today is the day we do that--the day we take the microphone.”

Correan Benson, for one, was well prepared for the later assault on the convention as a whole. In a grocery bag by the side of the alternate delegate from St. Louis, Mo., was a large box of Milk Bones--a present for UAW Vice President Don Ephlin.

Ephlin had further estranged the dissidents on Monday when he said that the group had committed an “unforgivable sin” and had “done damage” to the union with their dissension. “Why should we throw a bone to them?” he asked at the time.

Benson shook the Milk Bones over her head and told the crowd that 17 years of paying union dues had bought her the right to talk, to say what she wanted no matter how unpopular her views are to the UAW administration.

“Since he won’t give us a bone, we’ll give him one,” Benson shouted.

Perhaps the most poignant speaker at the fiery pre-convention meeting was Genora Dollinger. A native of Flint, Mich., Dollinger is one of only three original UAW organizers alive today.

The dissidents, with several hundred members present, had felt outgunned at the convention, where some 2,000 delegates were gathering. But don’t worry about the numbers, Dollinger said.

‘Me Gusta Muchisima’

“It was this kind of a caucus that grew into the mighty and powerful UAW,” Dollinger said. “The only difference I see is more women, more people of color and a few more idiomatic expressions.”

She paused, flashed a grin and continued in Spanish: “Y me gusta muchisima!” The translation: “And I like it a lot.”

When Dollinger finished, it was time to line up for the assault on the UAW, to leave the safety of the Jolly Roger. The crowd stubbed out cigarettes, donned blue New Directions jackets, practiced a chant or two and reached for their placards.

Down the stairs and across the parking lot they marched, crying, “What do we need? New Directions! When do we want them? Now!” They marched past friend and foe on the way to the showdown at the Anaheim Convention Center.

There were “Boos!” and there were jeers as they marched through an exhibit room filled with shining American-made cars and tractors. “I think they’re just a bunch of agitators,” said John Fodera, a delegate from Warren, Mich., as the New Directions crowd passed by.

An organ rendition of “Happy Days Are Here Again” played tinnily on tape in the massive meeting hall where Bieber held court, signing autographs for well-wishers. As the marchers filed past him into the hall, Bieber looked up and spread his hands.

He had only one comment to make: “It’s a democratic union,” he said.