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The Southern California drywall strike of 1992 was a movement by the Mexican drywall hangers in demand for fair wages and health insurance. With the help of the California Immigrant Workers Association (CIWA) they fought the threat of deportation and arrest. Eventually aligning with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners the strikers succeeded in getting union contracts that ensured fair wages and benefits. The strike left the residential construction industry in a different state. While the industry remained an open shop, contractors were forced to pay their Mexican workers with wages and benefits closer to that of the white workers.

Photograph of workers protesting the jailing of fellow drywall strikers in 1992

Background

Drywall hanging in Southern California had traditionally been a well-paid union job for US born white workers, as well as a minority of Mexican immigrants who came to California looking for work. But the work was difficult and dangerous. Drywall workers were responsible for nailing heavy drywall boards to the frames of houses and other buildings. Injuries were frequent, and the work eventually could lead to deterioration of workers' joints. Throughout the 1980s, the construction industry saw a decline in union representation due to the conservative trend in national politics, which aimed at rolling back the gains of the New Deal era--coupled with a sharp recession in the early 1980s that halted the construction industry across the country. The crushing of the PATCO strike by air and traffic controllers under the Regan administration was the iconic beginning of the end for working people who felt they were "middle class." As the recession hit, the construction bosses followed Reagan's example and forced open-shop policies through employers' organizations like the Associated Builders and Contractors. Unions were kicked out of California's residential housing industry and replaced with highly exploitable undocumented immigrant workers from Mexico and other Latin America countries. By the early 1990's, drywall hanging was a job filled with misery and humiliation. Workers were paid $300 for a 60-hour week, with no health care, no overtime, no vacation or sick days, and no prospects to improve their conditions.

Struggle

The first spark for the drywallers' uprising came in October 1991 when a worker named Jesus Gomez, a disgruntled drywaller and eventually a leader of the strike, made a decision that would change his life and the lives of thousands of drywall workers in the region. After a dispute over $60 in stolen wages from his employer, Gomez decided that he would no longer tolerate the conditions at his workplace. Gomez contacted the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and, along other drywallers, began organizing meetings in the region, with the aim to once again unionize the industry. Gomez and his followers visited worksites across Orange County, holding meetings and gaining support. Most of the initial strikers were from the same town of El Maguey in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. Support was won through the complex social networks of "paisanos" that had shared similar work conditions. With newfound support, Justice for Drywallers, the organization formed to carry out the strike, presented demands for a pay raise, a health plan and union recognition to the local contractors and threatened to strike on June 1 if no agreement was reached. Yet the employers were not intimidated, they did not believe the workers could sustain a strike for a long period of time and expected they would return begging for their jobs in no time. That same day, hundreds of drywallers were found carrying signs and disrupting worksites with picket lines across Southern California. At the time the Drywall Strike was the largest organizing force taking place in the United States. The following day, June 2, 1992, strikers picketing in Orange County were met by the authorities, the police arrested 160 people, sending 60 of them to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to face deportation back to Mexico. The odds weren't great for the mostly undocumented immigrant workers who had just gone on a wildcat strike during a period of recession and high unemployment, against well organized and overzealous residential construction bosses. But the drywallers had little to lose and a lot to gain, and their struggle quickly captured the support of labor, immigrant, clergy and community organizations like the Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, Los Amigos de Orange County and the League of United Latin American Citizens.

Aftermath

By late November, the strike had grown into a bitter battle that had crippled residential construction in Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and San Diego Counties, and involved about 4,000 drywall workers. On November 10, the Pacific Rim Drywall Association, which represented about 60 percent of the industry, agreed to negotiate with Justice for Drywallers. A formal agreement was signed on November 12, which gave the drywallers their first raise in 10 years, a health care plan and recognition of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners to represent the workers. Even so, pickets continued for months afterwards, until nearly all of the industry in Southern California was unionized. Wages for the predominantly Mexican drywall hangers went from $300 a week to between $400 and $500 a week. Immediately after the agreement was reached employers sued the carpenters Union, they won injunctions on picketing which substantially reduced the impact of the strike. The strike did increase the amount of contractors who signed contracts with the union, but the majority did remain nonunion. Also, the movement failed to reach the same level of success as it moved south to San Diego and it did not succeed in extending to other industries in the residential construction market. Some attribute this to the lack of policing done by the union to protect their gains, allowing contractors to resort to their old ways after contracts expired. After the strike employers made it clear that while they were signing contracts the industry remained an open shop where non-union workers could still participate.