From: nyt%nyxfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (NY Transfer News)
Subject: Mexican Drywall Workers Fight On
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: The NY Transfer News Service
Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 19:17:42 GMT


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


MEXICAN DRYWALL WORKERS CONTINUE STRUGGLE

By Veronica Golos

San Diego has the highest rate of police killings after Dallas,
Texas. It sits on the U.S.-militarized zone with Tiajuana,
Mexico. Every day Mexican people pass over this border, into
territory stolen from them.

It is here in San Diego that Mexican drywall workers continue the
challenge and struggle they started last June 1. Then, 4,000
drywall workers, predominately Mexican, took on the construction
industry of Southern California.

Although the drywall workers have won a union victory in the
drywall industry throughout the rest of Southern California, San
Diego businesses are holding out.

The Builders Industry Association, who contract for 40 percent of
all residential construction, has fought the workers tooth and
nail in cahoots with the San Diego police department.

The cops were all too happy to oblige. After all, Orange County
Sheriff Brad Gates has not held that office for 30 years without
knowing where his bread is buttered. The list of contributors to
his campaigns is a who's who of Orange County developers.

Jesus Gomez is the founder of the Movement of the Drywall
Hangers. A 17-year veteran in his 40s, he said "these guys [the
developers] just can't believe that we could do this on our own."
In fact it was Mr. Gomez's shortened pay that ignited the strike.
After six weeks of a short paycheck, he said, "I'm tired of
this," and called a meeting.

That was in November 1991. After months of organizing, in June
the workers called the industry-wide strike. It disrupted 85
percent of the home building in Southern California.

Community support was enthusiastic. The union raised a $400,000
strike fund, and donations of food flowed in. The
AFL-CIO-supported California Immigrant Workers Associaton set up
a strike fund. They also helped start a legal suit against the
companies for non-payment of any overtime. The combination of the
workers' determination, community support and the threat of the
suit helped win the victory in most of Southern California.

The strike is led by a core of workers who spent up to 15 years
in the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. According to the
carpenters, during the Reagan recession, Southern California
developers broke the unions in residential housing--first hiring
non-union carpenters from right-to work states, then immigrant
workers.

Wages went from $600 for 40 hours to $300 for 60 hours. Before
the strike, wages were at the 1982 level.

The special role of Mexican workers in the United States has
etched this struggle into history. By 1980, 12 million people of
Mexican origin lived here. Now 1.5 million of the 14 million
organized workers in the AFL-CIO are Latino.

"The drywall strike is a wake-up call to unions", said Jack
Otero, senior vice president of the transportation and
communication workers. "There are 8 million Latin workers out
there." Tony Hernandez, a 37-year-old leader of the struggle,
added: "What do they call Mexicans? They call us cheap labor."

The workers are fighting for a union. The San Diego companies
have offered more money and promised medical insurance, but not
the union. The Southern California Conference of Carpenters,
their organization, has refused this offer. The union agreement
with the other companies is the first one drywall companies have
signed in 10 years.

The workers know full well the stakes for this strike: At each
site they picket, they have faced Swat sharpshooters arrayed in
bullet-proof vests, armed with grenades and automatic rifles.
According to El Diario/La Prensa, police spokesperson Allan
Fenner said that the police presence was in response to requests
from neighbors who complained the demonstrators made too much
noise. In addition, the companies have called in the infamous
Immigration and Naturalization Service to threaten the workers
with deportation.

Nativo Lopez, the strikers' legal advisor, says: "When it comes
to Mexicans, the whole U.S. legal system seems to be on the side
of the bosses."

But the strikers are undeterred. And knowledgeable. As Tony
Hernandez said, "We were hit with rocks, sprayed with mace,
locked in jail. But we're not Jesus Christ and we're not going to
turn the other cheek."


Sidebar:

THE ROLE OF LAND DEVELOPERS

The land developers in Southern California have been viciously
anti-union. They managed to keep the region an "open shop" from
the Spanish American War in 1898 to the Korean War. The treaty
Mexico was forced to sign in 1848 stole not only California, but
Texas, Arizona, Colorado, parts of Utah and New Mexico from
Mexico.

The developers and other bosses tried to initiate a
"right-to-work" referendum in the 1950s. But it failed when
unions mobilized to reject it. Thereafter, even in conservative
Orange County, the building trades were mostly union.

It took the busting of PATCO in 1981 by Ronald Reagan to revive
the anti-union onslaught. The California builders had helped put
Reagan in office just as they helped Nixon and Bush.

Since the early 1980s, California land development has been
increasingly centralized in a handful of huge companies with an
annual profit margin as high as 50 percent.

It is these developers who have been unable to break the strike
of the Mexican drywall workers.

                                              --Veronica Golos


(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; "workers" on PeaceNet; on Internet:
"workers@mcimail.com".)


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