M. Michael Botelho served as Council 93's first Field Services Director in 1977, the year Council 93 was formed with the merger of state Council 41 and city Council 45 in Massachusetts. He served in that position until February 1986 when he passed away after a long illness.

Prior to his service with Council 93, the union organizer worked throughout New England and Atlanta, Georgia. Mike is remembered as a natural firebrand who fought in the best interests of the members he represented, both at the bargaining table and on the streets. He employed a variety of styles--confrontational, conciliatory, good-humored and red-faced with righteous anger.

Mike represented the union members to the best of his ability, protecting them and their rights in the days when public employees were treated more like second-class citizens than judged by the valuable service they provided to Massachusetts taxpayers. When "contracting out, "deinstitutionalization," and Proposition 2 1/2 threatened the livelihoods of thousands of public workers, Mike rallied the workers on their picket lines. When 5,000 state employees went without their paychecks on more than one occasion in 1977 and 1978, Mike led the marches to the Massachusetts State House to demand they be paid. When the City of Boston was hit by four strikes of angry AFSCME members in 1980, Mike stood next to those workers who demanded the City stop the practice of patronage appointments.

He also served as the union's chief negotiator for the Alliance of state employees. His demands for fairness and equity for the members he represented won him respect and admiration from negotiators on both sides of the table.

In 1984, illness forced Botelho into semi-retirement. But the illness couldn't keep him away from the labor movement. That year, Massachusetts mental health, mental retardation and DYS locals, members of SUMMUP, paid special tribute to their mentor. In words forever etched in the minds of the labor leaders who knew him well, Botelho compared the labor movement to a child crying in the wilderness. "I crawled and stuck my fingers into the mountain, but I never got to the top," he said. "I tried like hell, but I didn't quite make it."

Mike liked to share his memories of the early days in the labor movement. At a Council 93 executive board meeting in 1981, the members described what it felt like to hear him speak. "Goose pimples run up and down your spine when the guy talks. He makes you feel what trade unionism is all about. Everyone is attentive when he speaks; it's like listening to a talking textbook on American labor." Mike relayed his thoughts on what it was like to be part of the movement in 1934 to raise the minimum wage from $.19 an hour to $.25 an hour. "I worked 12 hours a day for $.19 an hour and didn't know whether or not I would work the next day... We went on strike. People died in that strike....We walked up a hill during that strike and machine guns were at the top waiting to mow us down, but we went up that hill. As a result, the federal government took note that something was wrong in America, and the minimum wage was born of $.25 an hour."

In 1986 while AFSCME was celebrating its 50^th anniversary across the country, Council 93 members back home were mourning the February 18, 1986 death of their beloved leader. He was 71.

Those who worked with him say there will never be another Mike Botelho.