Drywall Installers Halt Work Over Pay : Labor: Hundreds of workers are seeking higher wages that existed a decade ago when the industry was unionized.

Hundreds of men who put drywall in new homes throughout Southern California have walked off the job, shutting down work at housing tracts from Los Angeles to the Mexican border.

The men say their wages are lower now than 10 years ago before home builders and their subcontractors broke the union that represented most of the drywallers.

The workers want a union and a contract that requires the drywall companies to pay health benefits and wages higher than the $200 a week that the men say they average now. The drywall companies say they can’t afford to pay higher wages in a soft housing market.

The drywallers have been out of work since June 1 and have been picketing job sites sporadically since then. There are between 7,000 and 8,000 drywall workers in Southern California, workers say.

This is the third time in the last 10 years that the drywallers have walked off their jobs. But this time, they say, they are determined to stick it out until they get a union.

The workers say they are better organized this time, partly because many of them come from the same village in central Mexico, El Maguey. Many of them are also related.

The drywallers say they have been planning the job action since last fall and had urged their fellow workers to save enough money in the event of a prolonged walkout.

“Everybody, even people in the lowest-paid factories, got at least a 50-cent raise over the last 10 years,” complained Roy Navarro of Fullerton, a drywaller with two children. “We can’t even afford to take our children to the hospital. We have to go to the cheapest clinics and wait three or four hours, and I still have to pay $100 I can’t afford.

The drywall subcontractors, meanwhile, say they’re caught between their workers and the home-building companies, who insist on holding down costs in a bad market.

“Everyone agrees the men in the field should be earning more,” said Kathy Davidson, administrator at Nuwalco Inc. in the San Bernardino county of Upland, one of the larger drywall companies.

“But as long as one subcontractor underbids us, we all have to bid low to get the work.”

Drywall, or plasterboard, forms the inner walls of houses. It comes in panels that weigh more than 100 pounds each and has to be manually put in place, nailed down and then smoothed over.

“Hanging” drywall is said to be one of the hardest jobs in construction. The drywall companies now pay a piece rate of 4 cents to 6 cents a square foot. In the mid-1980s, the drywall workers say, they were paid 8 cents to 9 cents a square foot--and that’s all they’re asking for now.