Juan José Peña, GI Forum,Chairman
Hispano Round Table of NewMexico
Post Office Box 27217
Alburquerque, New Mexico 87126-7217
Home: (505) 242-8085, Work: (505) 348-2092, Pager: (505) 247-5998, Fax:
(505) 242-1603, E-mail: jjp3000@aolcom, Work E-Mail: jpena@nmcourtfed.us
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OFFICERS
Ralph Arellanes, IMAGE, Vice-Chairman; Jose' de Jesse's Cervantes,
Bernalillo
NEA, Treasurer; Alex Gonzales, Hispanos for UNM, Secretary
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS
James Arellanes, IMAGE; Alfred Valdez, Hispano Round Table of Las Vegas,
Juan Fidel Larrañaga, GI Forum; Karen Sánchez Griego, APS Hispano Educators;
Evangeline Sandoval Trujillo, MANA
Honorable Governor Johnson, Lieutenant Governor Walter Bradley and
Honorable New Mexico Senators and Representatives:
I am writing on behalf of the Hispano Round Table of New Mexico to
support the efforts of New Mexico's labor Unions to obtain the renewal of
the New Mexico Collective Bargaining Act and to oppose the repeal of the
Little Davis- Bacon Act. I am sure that you are well aware of the fact
that our native New Mexican Indohispano ancestors struggled mightily to
get decent wages for the hard work they carried on both in the public and
private sector since New Mexico became a part of the United States on
February 2, 1848 under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. We organized
under the Caballeros de Labor, the National Mine Union , the United
Brotherhood of Carpenters and Jointer of 1910, the Railroad Brotherhoods,
the Liga Obrera de Habla Española, the International Union of Mine, Mill
and Smelter Workers, and in more recent decades under the affiliates of
the AFLCIO, the NEA, the United Mine Workers and many other national and
local unions. New Mexico's Indohispanos have been at the forefront of
union organizing in New Mexico, but despite these efforts, far too many of
our people work in jobs, even in state employment, for which they are
underpaid and overworked. Many jobs in state government in New Mexico
still pay only minimum or near minimum wage, which leaves many of our
state employees at or below the poverty level. I know this firsthand,
because during my hard times after I ran out of money and had to leave my
Ph.D. studies at the University of New Mexico in 1981, I worked as an
attendant I at the New Mexico State Hospital. As an attendant I, I
received $667.00 per month. My take-home pay was $220.00 every two weeks.
Many of the attendants I worked with, mostly native New Mexican
Indohispanos, had been working there for ten to twenty years and were at
the attendant I or II level and despite their longevity, their salaries
were not much better than mine.
Far too many of New Mexico's employees, especially native New Mexican
Indohispanos, are still in this status and their only hope for improvement
given New Mexico's slow economy, low wages and lack of employers who pay
adequate living wages and medical and retirement benefits, or the lack of
employers altogether, as is the case in many of New Mexico's rural areas,
is via the collective bargaining route, and they need the assistance of
the collective bargaining strength of the unions to help bring up their
status in the work force state government. Many other workers need the
unions and the strength of the collective bargaining act to keep the wages
up to at least the level of inflation and to work for even better wages.
New Mexico's unions have serve our workers as leverage for the large body
of voiceless, faceless workers who do not make waves or have political
clout but who come to work every day and labor away at the task of doing
the state's work.
With regard to the Little Davis Bacon Act, we know that many of New
Mexico's workers, especially in the building industries outside of the
metropolitan areas, are underpaid, and who, if not the State of New
Mexico, should support the payment of a decent living wage on state and
local government projects. The State of New Mexico should be in the
forefront of ensuring that our workers, especially the low wage workers of
New Mexico's native Indohispano, Native American and African American
communities, get a decent living wage when their companies do work for the
State of New Mexico or the county and local governments of the State. I
remember that for many years, Hispanos who worked for the Franken
Construction Company in Las Vegas were paid only minimum wages, and the
only wage increases they saw came when the minimum wage was raised. They
worked for minimum wage all of their working lives with the company until
they retired under Social Security. The Little Davis-Bacon Act, had it
existed then, could have ensured that when Steve Franken did jobs for the
state, county and local government he would have paid his workers at a
better wage level.
We must honor the long, hard, often dangerous work our native New Mexican
Indohispano forefathers and other union organizers who worked and
organized the labor unions of the state of New Mexico in the private
industries and the public sector of the state of New Mexico. We must
recall the hardships and suffering they endured to make the employers pay
a decent living wage, especially for the native New Mexican Indohispano,
Men like Padre Antonio Jose' Martínez; Juan Patrón, Juan Jose' Herrera,
Leader of the Caballeros de Labor; Octaviano Larrazolo, who as a lawyer
defended Hispano workers before the railroad for better wages and working
conditions; Jesu's Pallares, President of the NMU and the Liga Obrera de
Habla Española; Carolina Sa'nchez, President of the Woodmen of the World;
Eusebio Navarro, who took over the leadership in the Liga and the NMU
after the deportation of Jesu's Pallares; Don Florencio Arago'n, Liga
Obrera de Habla Española organizer in Las Vegas who organized the Hispano
WPA workers in the Las Vegas Area to seek leadership positions for
Hispanos and Juan Chacón, who organized the Hispano miners in Silver City
in the early 1950's. In their memory and for the above cited reasons, on
behalf of the organizations and members of the Hispano Round Table of New
Mexico, I respectfully request that you reinstate the New Mexico
Collective Bargaining Act and retain the Little Davis-Bacon Act.
Thank you for your time and kind consideration of this matter.
Respectfully,
Juan Jose' Peña, Chairman --------------------------
I am writing to
request that you support SJM 13 for the Ce'sar Cha'vez holiday which will
be heard Thursday, February 11, 1999 before Committee in room 324. We
request that you also please have your staff request the support of those
of your colleagues who do not have electronic mail and have them pass this
message on to them. The work of Cesario Estrada Cha'vez influenced many
positive improvements in the wretched working conditions suffered by the
poorest among us who through their hard labor, the sweat of their brows
and the detriment to their health and the suffering of their children have
kept us fed for these many decades. It is only fitting that we honor
their, consequently our, champion, for the improvement in their lives has
brought about by the work of Cesario Estrada Cha'vez have immeasurably
improved our lives because we have recognized the human dignity of these
humble people in our midst.
Furthermore, we also request that you
oppose the repeal of the Little Davis Bacon Act, which will be heard
Thursday, February 11th at 12:30 and that you urge your colleagues to do
so also. This act has greatly improved the lives of the humble
construction workers among native New Mexican Indohispanos who often have
had to labor for minimum wage from the beginning of their careers as
construction workers until the time they retire to their meager Social
Security pensions. It has also assisted native New Mexican Indohispano
skilled craftsmen obtain a wage more in keeping with their brethren in our
neighboring states, and in a state as poor as New Mexico in per capita
income, we need to bring our wages, especially on state, county and local
government projects, more in line with the wages of our neighboring
states. Far too many of New Mexico's employees earn wages which do not
raise them above the poverty level in their wages. The state of New
Mexico must do what it can to improve the wages of its workers, not keep
them down and further impoverish our already impoverished work force.
Recent statistics show that New Mexico has the largest number of Children
living in poverty; let's not add to that statistic by further
impoverishing their parents. Please also have your staffs relay this
message to your colleagues who do not have electronic mail
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