uh huh
welder strike, mm hmm. A strike of farm laborers which began in California
and is spreading throughout the southwest. Well done. A new cause not only
for striking farmworkers, but for thousands of other members of La raza.
Well got enthusiastic social and political action for mexican americans.
A true awakening for with this strike, the labor movement among mexican
americans has come of age. How did it all begin?
Well, farm workers traditionally have been denied access to union power.
They've never been protected as other workers have been by federal law
and few states have provided even minimal legislation which benefits farm
laborers. Farm workers have never come under the controls of the National
Labor Relations Act and this emission has allowed the growers to exploit
them. Under these conditions, growers could pay their employees far less
than the minimum wage demanded for other workers. Then two, if codes did
exist to protect the farm workers, they were seldom enforced and growers
could provide substandard housing distressed working conditions.
Farm workers were not involved in the early union movement, but recently
they have taken their cue from the past. They can use to their advantage.
The tactics developed by the unions, They can learn from the successes
and failures of organizations nearly a century old
to understand the meaning of. Well, gah, we have to go back to an earlier
day to the first tentative steps of mexican american workers in the realm
of union organization.
The copper mines of Arizona provided the setting for the first major
involvement of Mexican Americans in the infant labor unions. These Arizona
mining companies began hiring Mexican and Mexican American workers. About
1875, they were forced to live in segregated camps. They were paid lower
wages than anglo american workers in comparable jobs. And out of this
situation, the first labor conflict developed.
The last of the 19th and the early 20th centuries marked a period of
mining strikes, of violent suppression of the unions and the striking
miners. Anglo american miners were the first to strike and as a result of
their strikes, an awakening occurred.
Mexican american mine workers in Arizona began to feel that they were the
victims, that their lower pay scale was an example of discrimination
And in October 1915, 5000 Mexican American Miners demanded pay increases.
When this concession did not appear to be forthcoming, they walked off
the job. Company action was immediate. The mines were closed and the
National Guard was called in to restore order. The strike was quickly
broken.
This occurred during an important period in labor history, a time when
unions were beginning to gain in strength and to demand more and more
concessions and benefits for their members. But in the Arizona mines, the
separate efforts of mexican american and anglo american workers had failed
to wring concessions from the company. These workers eventually joined
forces within the unions for the unions were the only vehicle through
which the workers could bargain with employers through their united
strength. Mexican american and anglo american miners hope to force the
company to improve working conditions, raise wages, offer greater benefits.
But it was also a period of extreme disruption. Companies often reacted
violently to union demands. Both private and government agencies operated
to break strikes by force, and most strikes were accompanied by rioting
and bloodshed,
and the discrimination against mexican american miners would continue. For
many, many years. It wasn't until 1944 that the National War Labor Board
brought the situation of the mines to the attention of the country. The
board discovered that mexican american miners indeed did receive lower
wages than their anglo american counterparts and the mining companies were
ordered to equalize the pay. The company's stalled in raising wages. Their
failure to comply with the order aroused the anger of the now strong
unions and in March 1946, a copper strike was called throughout the
southwest. A strike which ended in a union victory
as World War Two came to a close. Mexican american workers had succeeded
in gaining access to most of the industrial labor unions for a multitude
of new job opportunities had opened up during the war. The mexican
americans who had filled industrial jobs became active union members and
their participation has continued to this day. This trend never developed
in farm labor. The emerging unions had failed to organize farm workers
perhaps because so many farmworkers were migratory, perhaps because they
seldom stayed in one area long enough to become active in the union or to
make effective use of union power. And so these workers had no voice at
the bargaining table, no union power behind them to force employers to
increase wages to improve working conditions or to provide such fringe
benefits as medical insurance, paid vacations or job security. Now, in an
early effort to change this situation, some mexican american workers had
formed their own union.
One such union was the confederation, the union's cabrera's Mexicanas. The
C. U. OM. Founded in 1927 in southern California, the C. U. Om quickly
organized three Mexican American workers in 20 locals. Its main purpose
was the protection of mexican american labor.
It would have achieved this by arranging the repatriation of mexican
citizens living in the United States and by restricting further
immigration from Mexico. The C um argued that these actions would decrease
job competition.
One of the few successes of the confederacy in the union's cabrera's
Mexicanas was this, it was the first union to organize the mexican
american farm workers. In 1928, it demanded wage increases for the Melon
Pickers of the Imperial Valley in California.
The subsequent strike and others that followed were broken quickly by mass
arrests and deportations and by the use of *** and imported contract
laborers as strikebreakers. None of these early strikes were successful,
But during the 1930s, strikes were taking on a new meaning for Mexican
American farm workers, they came to use strikes as a tool of protest,
protests against an average family wage of $600 a year, protest against
poor housing conditions,
protest against discrimination. But it was to be more than 30 years before
this farm labor movement would come of age, 30 years before a farm workers
union would force growers to meet its demand As a young three. So you
screaming out your.
Mhm.
Yeah.