Dry Wallers Take Pay Protest to Job Sites : Immigration Law Is Factor in Unrest Among Mostly Latino Workers

Arriving in a procession of dented cars and old trucks, about 85 independent dry wall installers converged on several Orange County construction sites Tuesday to protest what they said were low wages and no benefits.

The protesters, mostly Latinos in the country illegally, represented the first visible sign of a labor movement in the county involving Mexican workers who hope to qualify for amnesty under the new immigration law.

“We’ve managed to recruit 500 people in five days,” said Jose Valadez, 27, of Anaheim, a spokesman for the loosely organized group of mostly immigrant dry wall workers.

“We’ve been going around residential construction sites asking other independent dry wallers to join us. These are frustrated guys who have families, been in unions but have quit because of decreased benefits and the same 6 1/2-cents-a-square-foot wage for many years now.”

Since June 22, many of the group’s members--who represent a fourth of the independent dry wall installers in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties--have walked off jobs, protesting wages they said have remained frozen since the county’s construction recession in 1982.

A year ago, Valadez said, organizing the installers would have been impossible because many refused to speak out for fear of deportation by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Under the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which took effect Nov. 6, hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who have either lived in the United States continuously since Jan. 1, 1982, or who worked at least 90 days in agriculture from May 1, 1985, to May 1, 1986, are expected to apply for amnesty and obtain legal status as temporary residents. Later, they may apply for permanent resident status and eventually for citizenship.

“One of our goals is to fight for our rights and even start our own union if we have to,” Valadez said.

Current Orange County wages range from 5 cents per square foot to 7 1/2 cents. The protesters are fighting for a full-cent increase, from 6 1/2 to 7 1/2 cents, for hanging half-inch-thick dry wall sheets. They seek 8 cents for thicker dry wall.

According to several labor-movement sources, Valadez’s dry wall installers, or “hangers,” as they are commonly called, have raised eyebrows in the county’s labor circles.

Bill Perry, secretary-treasurer of the Orange County District Council of Carpenters, said: “We’re going to see a lot more of these types of movements because the immigration law has changed. Ordinarily, these guys don’t say anything and never complain because they usually would get deported.”

But to Terry Martin, owner of Schetne Drywall Co., who was one of the subcontractors picketed Tuesday in Orange and again in Irvine, the installers protesting are “nothing but a bunch of vigilantes.”

“Some of my men have been threatened and intimidated. . . . But none of my men went (off the job) because I pay them a fair wage and they’re happy,” Martin said.

“As you can see, I’m one of those targeted, but they’re not going to shut me down. You can count on it.”

Martin refused to allow a Times reporter onto a building site to interview employees.

Tom Goo, administrator for Riverside-based G. L. Rawlings Corp., which daily hires 400 installers in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties, said: “They’re (the protesting installers) using this as an opportunity to take advantage of the immigration act. They feel that they can have that advantage now, where other companies stand to lose their illegal (alien workers).”

Goo said Rawlings recently increased wages, “but we did it ourselves, with no pressure from the Orange County group,” he said.

One subcontractor’s employee suggested to Irvine police who had arrived to investigate Tuesday’s protest that police contact INS to deport protesters who are in the country illegally. “That will take care of them,” the employee said. “When those (INS) buses arrive, watch them scatter.”

An Irvine police dispatcher did notify INS officials, “but they were not that interested,” Irvine Police Sgt. Steve Olson said.

Organizers hope to take advantage of a recent building spree in the county to get their point across to about 14 major residential subcontractors, Valadez said.

The value of construction permits issued in the county for the first four months of 1987 increased 28%, to $1.3 billion, compared to the same period in 1986. The increase significantly outpaced building activity in the state as a whole, according to figures released by the Associated General Contractors of California.

“Yet with all the new growth, our wages have stayed the same,” Valadez said. “But builders always increase the cost of housing, saying that it’s due to higher labor costs, which isn’t true in our cases.

“Our target right now is Orange County, but if we’re successful we’re going to try and organize in Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties.”

All of the union dry wall installers in the county are represented by Carpenters Union Local No. 2361.

Some of the protesters have signed cards authorizing the District Council of Carpenters’ Perry to bargain on their behalf if an election is held and the independents choose to join Local 2361.

If this happens, Valadez’s group would help revitalize the union’s sagging membership, which peaked at 1,900 in 1981-82 and has slipped to 1,400, union officials said.

But former union members who now support Valadez have so far declined to rejoin Local 2361, saying that union wages and benefits have not kept pace with the county’s current building surge.

“I’ve been with the union for seven years but I quit because I spent most of my time without a job, hanging around the union hall,” said Rosalio Munoz, 43, of Cypress.

“I’ve got eight children to support, with my oldest boy in college. We need higher pay, and I need health and dental benefits because of my family. That’s why I’m here today fighting this.”

When he does work, Munoz said, his average weekly take-home pay is about $350.

Before 1982, dry wall installers were paid 8 cents a square foot. It is a competitive trade in which the most highly skilled workers routinely earned $700 a week during the county’s construction boom.

But with the 1982 recession, wages dipped and most subcontractors began hiring cheaper non-union installers to remain competitive, labor sources said.

“Meanwhile, the vast majority of dry wallers who were unionized went into commercial construction rather than residential with the larger contractors,” Perry said.

“Commercial construction pays a little more, they stress safety and it’s strictly by the hour rather than piecemeal such as what the independents are used to.”

In Orange County, just 5% of the jobs in residential construction are union jobs, labor sources said. In contrast, most commercial construction sites are 90-95% union, said Jim Jones, financial secretary for Local No. 2361.

Jones said that Mexican immigrants, especially those willing to work hard for low pay, are in part responsible for the current situation. He said that they created an economic niche for themselves in the construction trades, but that they suffer from a lack of organization.

“They serviced the contractor and worked cheap for him. Most of the dry wall work in the past in residential construction has primarily been done by Hispanics, and a great number of them have been illegals,” Jones said.

Dry walling is arduous work that tends to favor younger, faster workers.

“This is a tough trade,” Valadez said. “And it burns out older dry wallers. My dad has been doing it for 12 years, but I don’t think he can keep up with the faster people anymore.”

One of the fastest installers among the group, Felipe Cobian, 22, of Fullerton, can carry and nail in place at least 30 dry wall sheets daily, each 4 feet by 12 feet.

“I’ve earned enough to buy my home,” he said. “But I learned from my father, and I’ve been doing it ever since I was 15.”

Like most of the protesters, the Cobian family came to Orange County from Mexico. When the Cobians arrived in 1972, the father began in the construction field. Three brothers are also in the dry wall trade.

Maneuvering a half-inch-thick sheet weighing 92 pounds “is not easy,” Cobian said. The thicker, higher-grade sheets with more fire protection weigh 122 pounds.

‘If I Wait, I Lose Money’

“You have to lift the sheets, carry them sometimes across three or four rooms and then hold them in place and hang (them),” Cobian said.

Any delay “means loss in pay,” he said. “I work piecemeal. If I wait, I lose money.”

Like carpenters, dry wallers carry their own tools. And unlike workers in other jobs traditionally held by immigrants, most dry wall hangers are proud that they have this skilled trade.

“This isn’t picking strawberries in some field,” Cobian said.