Thursday, November 20, 1997
COLUMN LEFT / JONATHAN D. ROSENBLUM
Revisiting the 'Salt of the Earth'
The miners' union in Paul Jarrico's film faces disaster
from a rich and ruthless corporation.
By JONATHAN D. ROSENBLUM
There was a single-vehicle fatality on the Pacific
Coast Highway near Oxnard Oct. 28, and with it,
in a manner of speaking, went the salt of the earth.
The car carried 82-year-old film maker Paul Jarrico
on his way home to Ojai from a Hollywood ceremony
to (50 years after the fact) celebrate his work. One
need not know Jarrico to understand why his name
had recently been all over the news: blacklisted
producer, Academy Award nominee ("Tom, Dick and
Harry"), unflagging friend, creator of the classic union
strike film, "Salt of the Earth."
But Jarrico would have been surprised by the line
in his Times obituary stating that his most famous
movie chronicled "a Mexican mine workers strike."
Jarrico's lifelong radical credo was "With me, it was
not, my country right or wrong; it was my country, right
the wrong."
"Salt of the Earth," made in 1953, was emphatically
about a U.S. union of Mexican American zinc miners in
New Mexico--a fictionalization of a real strike in 1951
by the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter
Workers. Ironically, the very New Mexico union whose
struggle Jarrico discovered in the 1950s stands today
at the precipice, pitted against an end-of-the-century
corporate plague against unions known as Phelps
Dodge Corp.
Jarrico would not want those now waking up to his
life or to the film "Salt of the Earth" to miss the
dramatic, ongoing sequel. ["Salt of the Earth is
scheduled to be shown Monday at 6:45 p.m. on the
Turner Classic Movies cable TV channel.]
Phelps Dodge has built a reputation for what even
the Wall Street Journal has described as "sheer
ruthlessness" in its labor relations. In 1917, the
company arranged to have 1,200 alleged union
sympathizers forced at gunpoint into boxcars and
railroaded out of Bisbee, Ariz. In 1983, using legal
arsenals (but stocking the mine with rifles in case that
failed), the company permanently replaced more than
1,000 workers rather than agree to a union contract.
The unions are gone in Arizona. Just one big union
holds on in New Mexico, Steelworkers Local 890
(formerly the International Union of Mine, Mill and
Smelter Workers)--the union from Jarrico's movie.
But if Phelps Dodge has its way, that union, too,
will soon be on the way out. Despite the highest
profits in its more than 150 years in business--$740
million in 1995--the company in early 1996 launched a
brutal campaign to decertify Local 890, declaring,
"While unions may have had a purpose in the past,
that time is gone." The company also signaled
employees that they faced weaker job security if they
kept the union.
To underline its threats, Phelps Dodge has dug in
at the bargaining table, refusing a base wage increase
and leaving the union without a contract for the past
year and a half. Despite its massive profits, the
company has also demanded 12-hour shifts, more
nonunion subcontracting and reduced retirement
benefits.
If the union strikes, Phelps Dodge has left open the
option of using the same policy that made it famous in
1983--kill the union with nonunion replacements. Even
without a strike, the company has launched another
effort to decertify the union.
"Salt of the Earth" recounted wage discrimination
against Mexican Americans, their segregation in
separate facilities and dangerous mine conditions.
When the women's strike auxiliary took up the pickets
(and the jail cells) in response to an injunction against
the men, the union finally prevailed over Empire Zinc.
Forty years later, in "Salt of the Earth II," Phelps
Dodge is in the process of destroying the union
community that those families struggled for and won.
Instead, the company should be celebrating the
productivity and success of its work force by granting
a wage increase and ceasing its effort to decertify
Local 890.
To borrow from Paul Jarrico, it's time for the
company to "right the wrong."
- - -
Jonathan D. Rosenblum Is the Author of "Copper
Crucible," About the Arizona Miners' Strike of 1983 (Ilr
Press, Cornell University, 1995)
Copyright Los Angeles Times
===============================
Thursday, November 20, 1997
Cedillo Beats Castro in 46th District
Politics: Union organizer upsets former school board
member to win the Democratic nomination for Assembly.
By GEORGE RAMOS, Times Staff Writer
A concerted campaign effort by organized labor
and others that targeted newly enfranchized
Latino voters helped boost union organizer Gil Cedillo
to an upset primary victory in Tuesday's 46th
Assembly District special election, political observers
said Wednesday.
Cedillo outpolled Los Angeles school board
member and fellow Democrat Vickie Castro by a 2-1
margin to win his party's nomination for the Jan. 13
runoff election.
The effort by organized labor and immigrant rights
groups focused on 8,000 new voters with the
message that Cedillo was best-suited to oppose
Republican Gov. Pete Wilson's anti-immigrant
policies.
"We didn't want to fight Gloria Molina [who
endorsed Castro]," said Democratic Assemblyman
Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles who supported
Cedillo, a close friend since their days at Roosevelt
High School. "We want to fight Pete Wilson."
With all 45 precincts reporting, Cedillo garnered
44% of the votes, registrar-recorder officials said.
Castro, considered by many to be the race's
front-runner because of her six years representing the
Eastside on the school board, received 22%. Los
Angeles lawyer Ricardo Torres, also a Democrat,
finished third with 13%.
Cedillo, former general manager of Local 660 of
the Service Employees International Union, will be
heavily favored in the runoff against Republican
Andrew Kim and Libertarian Patrick Westerberg
because Democrats outnumber Republican voters 4
to 1.
Kim, an attorney who lost to Democrat Louis
Caldera last year, was the top Republican vote-getter
with 10%. Caldera in September gave up his seat to
join the Clinton administration.
Westerberg, the Libertarian candidate, will be in
the runoff although he received only 1% of the votes.
Officials said 20% of the district's voters turned out
Tuesday.
On Wednesday morning, Cedillo and Castro met
with Assembly Speaker Cruz Bustamante and several
other lawmakers for breakfast and Castro said she
has endorsed Cedillo in the runoff. "I embrace her
support," Cedillo said.
Parts of the predominantly Latino Eastside make
up a major portion of the 46th District. The district
extends west through downtown, Little Tokyo and
Chinatown to include immigrant neighborhoods in
Pico-Union, the Temple-Beaudry area and
Koreatown.
It was in these low-income neighborhoods that
labor and immigrant rights groups worked together on
Cedillo's behalf under Proposition 208, which allows
independent campaign spending as long as the
candidate that benefits is not directly involved.
Miguel Contreras, head of the Los Angeles County
Federation of Labor, said this coalition identified 8,000
new Latino voters and sent each of them five mailers
that stressed the importance of voting and that Cedillo
was "the Democrat that Pete Wilson feared most."
Radio ads on two Spanish-language radio stations,
costing an estimated total of $10,000, reinforced that
message in the campaign's final days, Contreras said.
He could not estimate the cost of the
independently funded effort under Proposition 208,
the state initiative passed by voters last year and
touted by supporters as campaign reform. But Castro
said the unions spent about $100,000 to defeat her.
Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the
Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University,
was critical of the independent money's role because
it turned what many thought would be a close victory
by Castro into a landslide for Cedillo.
The example set in the 46th District will be copied
in June's primary across California, Guerra said.
Cedillo defended the Proposition 208 money,
saying that the "early advantage went to [Castro]" in
the race.
Preliminary financial reports showed that,
excluding the independent funds, Castro spent about
$100,000 while Cedillo spent about $60,000.
There were other reasons for Castro's defeat.
Some said her attacks against Cedillo backfired.
Among other things, her mailers claimed that Cedillo
did not have a degree from UCLA.
Cedillo, who said he graduated from UCLA in
1977, never responded to the attacks in stump
speeches, preferring instead to talk about his
qualifications and his agenda if elected.
UCLA registrar's officials have refused to confirm
or deny that Cedillo has a degree, saying only that he
has "outstanding obligations" to the university.
Castro said she noticed an omen of bad things to
come when she telephoned prospective voters before
the polls closed Tuesday. A number of voters, about
25 of the 200 to 300 she called, said she should
remain on the school board, Castro said.
"I took it as a positive and a negative as the same
time," she said Wednesday.
The trend of Tuesday's voting was evident when
Cedillo took an early lead in the absentee-ballot
results. His lead grew steadily.
Castro, mingling with her supporters Tuesday night
at Casa Mexicana in Boyle Heights, was on the verge
of tears. "It's not over," she reassured the crowd, "but
it doesn't feel good."
Meanwhile, Cedillo's supporters at an Olvera
Street restaurant joyfully chanted "U-C-L-A"
throughout the evening--saying they were getting
back at Castro.
* * *
Times staff writers Erika Chavez and Amy Oakes
contributed to this story.
* * *
ELECTION RETURNS
STATE ASSEMBLY
46th District
CANDIDATE VOTE %
45 of 45 Precincts Reporting
Gil Cedillo (D) 5,312 44%
Victoria Castro (D) 2,624 22%
Ricardo Torres (D) 1,525 13%
Andrew Kim (R) 1,185 10%
Manuel J. Diaz (D) 568 5%
Roberto N. Galvan (R) 329 3%
Marijane Jackson (D) 203 2%
Patrick Westerberg (L) 159 1%
Khalil Khalil (R) 92 1%
Democratic, Republican and Libertarian
candidates listed in bold will meet in a runoff
election Jan. 13.
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Copyright Los Angeles Times
=======================================
Mattel bans child labor
No one under age 16 is
permitted to work in factories
making its products
November 20, 1997: 1:03 p.m. ET
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (Reuters) -
Toymaker Mattel Inc. said Thursday it
banned the use of child labor in its
factories around the world under a new
corporate code of conduct.
"Simply stated, Mattel creates
products for children around the world --
not jobs," said Mattel Chairman and
Chief Executive Jill Barad.
Mattel said its policy states, among
other things, that no one under the age
of 16 is allowed to work in a facility that
produces its products. Mattel said the
apparel industry sets its minimum age at
14.
Mattel said it established the code of
conduct for production facilities and
contract manufacturers and has
developed an independent audit and
monitoring system to ensure adherence
to the code.
An independent audit and monitoring
panel will provide recommendations to
support worker education and training, it
said.
Mattel said a comprehensive audit
conducted over the past six months
showed no sign of child or forced labor
in its factories.
However, it said relationships with
three contractor facilities had been
terminated: one in Indonesia for its
inability to confirm the ages of its
employees, and two in China for
refusing to meet company-mandated
safety procedures.
The code also sets maximum working
hours, minimum-wage standards, bars
the use of forced labor and bans
discrimination and dangerous work
conditions.
Copyright 1997 Reuters.
Copyright © 1997 Cable News Network, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
