Strikes Southern California

The union construction workers in Southern California who run rock crushers, bulldozers and other heavy equipment are learning what it's like to get steamrollered. Hundreds of these workers, members of Operating Engineers Local 12, have been replaced over the last few months after going on strike at gravel pits, asphalt plants and public works projects. Still other operating engineers have crossed the union's picket lines rather than risk losing their jobs.

Fallout from Southern California's prolonged grocery strike continued to eat at the bottom line of Albertsons Inc. The nation's No. 2 grocery chain reported Tuesday that its second-quarter profit fell 36% as it rolled out bigger discounts to lure customers back. The Boise, Idaho-based grocer, which operates 2,500 stores in 37 states, said that net income fell to $104 million, or 28 cents a share, for the quarter ended July 29, from $162 million, or 44 cents, a year earlier.

Four hundred years ago, buccaneers roamed the Spanish Main, plundering galleons heavy with silver spewed out by the mines of Mexico's Guanajuato state. But now Guanajuato exports something entirely different: men. Over the last three decades, hundreds of men from one small village alone--El Maguey--have taken the 1,300-mile road north from central Mexico. Nearly every one finds the same job: Nailing up drywall for Southern California's housing industry. Many of them are related.

The union construction workers in Southern California who run rock crushers, bulldozers and other heavy equipment are learning what it's like to get steamrollered. Hundreds of these workers, members of Operating Engineers Local 12, have been replaced over the last few months after going on strike at gravel pits, asphalt plants and public works projects. Still other operating engineers have crossed the union's picket lines rather than risk losing their jobs.

Nearly 400 drywall installers and their families marched at the county courthouse Tuesday to dramatize their walkout against Southern California's beleaguered building industry as the strike enters its second month. Under a hot midday sun, shouts of "Si, Se Puede!"--"Yes, It Can Be Done!"--echoed off the towering building in Santa Ana as office workers and lawyers in pin-striped suits stared curiously.

Police officials are seeking a court order to quiet striking drywall workers who for more than a week have demonstrated outside a construction site, forcing the deployment of two police squads to keep peace in the small west side neighborhood. Police Chief Joseph T. Molloy said Wednesday that he did not want to deny the workers' right to protest but rather to end what he described as a continuous barrage of insults and taunts hurled at his officers by angry workers.

More than 50 striking drywall workers who were arrested last week after storming a construction site have been released on their own recognizance, leaving nearly 100 others still in custody, many of them facing probable deportation. Hearings on whether the 149 workers should be tried on trespassing charges begin Thursday.

H ey, what's with you guys? Can't you follow a simple script? Let's go over this one more time: Look, you hang drywall. You bust your hump all week and make peanuts. Most of you come from Mexico. Some are in this country legally, some not. In any case, don't cause trouble. Then there are home builders who hire you. They're the ones with the boats and the martinis. They live in the houses you build. They have the friends in high places.

A federal Immigration and Naturalization Service official said Monday that INS officers interviewed 52 striking drywall workers in custody over the weekend and intend to use the information to investigate some of the men's employers. "They've given us a lot of real solid leads," said John Brechtel, assistant director for investigations at the agency's Los Angeles office.

Southern California's home builders Friday denounced the violence and vandalism in a six-week-old walkout by several thousand drywall workers while 250 of the strikers, their wives and children protested outside. The home builders' powerful trade group, the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California, had kept a low profile in the bitter dispute.

After a summer of picketing, vandalism and lawsuits, drywall workers won a major victory Thursday when some of Southern California's largest drywall subcontractors agreed to negotiate with a union to settle the 4-month-old strike. The subcontractors, who met Thursday, issued a one-sentence statement saying "a number" of them had agreed to talk to the carpenters union about representing 4,000 drywall workers in Southern California.

Drywall subcontractors were to meet today at a secret location and discuss whether to settle a rash of lawsuits in return for agreeing to a union for their workers. Hundreds of workers walked out June 1 demanding higher wages and a union. The business of hanging drywall in houses employs 4,000 in Southern California, which makes the organizing drive the nation's largest, union officials say. Drywall is hung in broad sheets to form the inner walls of buildings.

Is the drywall strike that has slowed home building across Southern California near an end? Drywall subcontractors are to meet Thursday on whether to let employees have a union--a major breakthrough for the strikers. Until recently, most subcontractors had bitterly opposed a union. But after three months of fighting pickets, construction-site vandalism and lawsuits, some subcontractors now favor settling the strike.

Striking drywall workers filed nine more class-action lawsuits Thursday against drywall companies for allegedly violating the Fair Labor Standards Act and not paying any overtime. The lawsuits, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, bring the number of class actions against previous employers to 15, said Robert A. Cantore, a labor attorney who filed the actions on behalf of 1,000 striking drywall workers in Orange, Riverside, San Diego and San Bernardino counties.

An immigration judge Thursday threw out the government's case against a striking drywall worker who faced expulsion from the United States as more than 200 of the laborers staged another large demonstration at a construction site in Anaheim. Immigrant rights attorneys claimed a legal victory after an immigration judge in Los Angeles terminated the deportation case of drywall worker Carlos Garcia Lara.

Police officials are seeking a court order to quiet striking drywall workers who for more than a week have demonstrated outside a construction site, forcing the deployment of two police squads to keep peace in the small west side neighborhood. Police Chief Joseph T. Molloy said Wednesday that he did not want to deny the workers' right to protest but rather to end what he described as a continuous barrage of insults and taunts hurled at his officers by angry workers.

The hands of Antonio Vasquez seem to tell the story. The fingers on his big and paw-like hands have thickened like fat sausages from more than 16 years of drywall construction work. "I can remember the good years," Vasquez said during an interview in Spanish at his home Wednesday. "Well, '73 was good and so was '77 and 1979. That's when my daughter Nancy was born, and I used the medical insurance from my union to help pay for the hospital bill."

Since last week, when 153 drywall strikers were arrested after storming a construction site in Mission Viejo, the cost of processing them through the county's criminal justice system has reached nearly $50,000. Even though 42 cases have been dismissed because of a lack of evidence, trying the remaining 111 defendants, all of whom are charged with misdemeanor trespassing, could cost an additional $177,500, according to county officials.

Nativo Lopez, national co-director of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, an immigrant rights' organization with a branch in Santa Ana, was among three people arrested Tuesday by police for allegedly refusing to disperse at a demonstration of striking drywall workers. Lopez said he was arrested on misdemeanor counts of obstructing a police officer, obstructing a street and refusing to disperse. He was released after posting $500 bail.