Juan José Peña, GI Forum, Chairman
Hispano Round Table of New Mexico
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, Hispanics 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 Hispanic 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 Hispanic 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
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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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