From: nyt@nyxfer.UUCP
Newsgroups: soc.culture.mexican
Subject: Drywall Strike:"Our Time is Now!"
Date: 18 Dec 92 06:03:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:XkqyVB8w165w@nyxfer.uucp:1862572279:000:6613
Nf-From: nyxfer.uucp!nyt    Dec 17 22:03:00 1992


Subject: Drywall Strike:"Our Time is Now!"
From: nyxfer!nyt (NY Transfer News)

Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit


DRYWALL STRIKE LEADER: "OUR TIME IS NOW!"

By Rosa de la Torre and Veronica Golos

The strike by drywall workers in the San Diego, Calif., area
continues.

In the rest of Southern California, 4,000 workers--almost all
Mexican men--have won union recognition, a pay raise, medical and
pension benefits, vacations, and a grievance procedure. Some 50
companies have signed a contract.

The drywall workers have formed the Independent United Workers for
Fair Wages, which plans to affiliate with the Carpenters but retain
independence.

San Diego strike leader Tony Hernandez told Workers World: "We
think we will sign soon. When the strike does get settled, we will
have 90 companies altogether. That's 85 percent of the industry in
Southern California."

EXPLOITED WORKERS

The workers put up sheet rock or drywall as part of the process of
constructing walls and ceilings for apartments, homes and offices.
The sheets are big and   weigh 85-125 pounds.

In California, most apartments have cathedral ceilings 14 to 22
feet tall; drywall workers lift, place and nail the sheets onto
walls and ceilings. It's hard work. Workers' bone joints get
twisted and torn in the process.

Hernandez says the strike was motivated by cuts in pay, health
benefits and job security.

Workers had more than low wages and long hours in common.
Hernandez, born in Mexcali, Mexico, has worked in the drywall
industry for 17 years. He comments: "We all understand each others'
problems. The big majority of us, in San Diego, are about 27 years
old, 80 percent married with family.

"This strike is strong also because about 250 of the workers are
from the same village, El Maquey, Mexico. And many are
related--cousins, brothers and sisters.  They are family members.
In fact, the person who started it all in Orange county, Jesus
Gomez, is from Maquey."

Many immigrant workers were hired after the industry broke the
Carpenters union. The bosses tried to block union solidarity,
spreading the word that these oppressed workers were actually
scabs. But Hernandez explains the history this way:

"I was in drywall from 1975. In 1982, after finding the
right-to-work was happening after Reagan, we had two gates at the
buildings--one union and one non-union. The work force was 50
percent Anglo and 50 percent Latino.

"The bosses sent patrones [bosses] to the agricultural fields and
to gardeners making $4-5 an hour, and offered $7.50 to start. No
one educated our people, no one took the time to tell the workers
what was happening.

"No one told them that this increase to $7.50 was instead of the
$18.75 which was standard. The workers didn't have a choice to go
to work. The bosses had the choice.

"The workers didn't realize. Really, the bosses tricked people. In
any case, a big majority of my guys were union. And now we're
organizing."

SOLIDARITY

San Diego is only half a city; the other half is torn off,
separated by wire fences, U.S. military and weapons. Workers from
Tijuana, Mexico, get a passport regulating their travel to 100
miles, allowing them to work or shop in California--which was
stolen from Mexico in the 19th century.

Hernandez notes, "San Diego has the only Drywall Police Task Force,
which follows us 24 hours a day. ... So the police would ... escort
scabs in.

"They'd use a U-Haul to bring workers to the job site.  We have
pictures. Is this trying to be neutral? Preserve the peace?

"There's been shootings, pickets have been run over, and instead of
arresting the drivers they arrest picketers. Because companies like
Great Western Insulation and Drywall, located in eight states in
the West, have money."

But community support has strengthened the strike. The Service
Employees' Justice for Janitors campaign, Machinists and Teachers
unions, as well Canadian workers and the AFL-CIO California
Immigrant Workers Association, have all pitched in.

MECHA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano Aztlan), a Chicano
organization based at San Diego State College, has organized
support committees, marches, fund raisers and food drives.
Hernandez says, "They told us, `you worry about the picket line,
we'll worry about the rest'."

The strikers have been able to pay everyone's rent and utilities--a
concrete sign of their strength.

A strikers' central committee plans strategy and tactics. Support
committees from every California county meet weekly. "Christmas is
coming, and all our workers are still out of work. We need toys for
the kids," Hernandez says.

LA ADELITA

The real turning point came when women joined the fight. "We are so
grateful for all the community support, but especially that of the
women," Hernandez says.

On July 2, police arrested 153 picketers and charged them with
conspiracy to kidnap, trespassing and vandalism. When the women
heard about it on a Spanish radio station, they quickly organized
and came to the union hall.

Hernandez recalls: "We came from San Diego and when we showed up
there were about 100 women who were volunteering to go and do
picket lines in place of their husbands. They had a system all
worked out about who watched kids, volunteers, picket lines. It was
amazing.

"At 7 a.m., we had group of 600 in front of the police department
in Santa Ana. Kids with signs like `My dad is not a criminal, let
him go'. Really, this was the big turnaround in the strike.

"We have one woman worker in San Diego, and [she] goes on the
picket line where there is violence, shooting at us, attempts to
run us over. She is there on the picket line at 4 a.m. every day.
She is a drywall finisher.

"Her name is Encarnacion Sandoval. We call her Adelita, after the
legendary women in our 1905 Mexican Revolution."

`WAKE UP!'

Reflecting on the struggle, Hernandez comments: "No time is the
right time for a strike. I would say to all of us, if you feel
cheated ... the American dream is a nightmare. We've got to create
a new dream.

"After 12 years of depression since Reagan ... enough is enough. I
would say wake up America, our time is now. We've got to organize
right now, put pressure everywhere.

"Got to fight for our rights. Time to wake up."

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; email: ww%nyxfer@igc.apc.org; "workers"
on PeaceNet; on Internet: "workers@mcimail.com".)
 

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