Drywallers Close to Stunning Win: Union Contract

Southern California’s largest drywall companies are close to signing their first union contract in 10 years.

In meetings with the companies--the latest was Tuesday--striking workers agreed to accept lower wages than they had sought. But the contract is still a stunning victory for a union drive given little chance of succeeding when it began in June. The contract must now be approved by the 41 companies in the industry’s trade association, the Pacific Rim Drywall Assn.

Strike leaders, struggling to hold together thousands of sometimes fractious strikers for a few more days, said the contract could be signed as early as next week.

Drywall companies install the broad sheets of plasterboard that form the inner walls of houses and offices.

The companies and the home builders who hire them broke the union about 10 years ago by using less-expensive Mexican immigrant labor to replace unionized Anglo workers. After 10 years without a raise, though, and making as little as $300 a week, the immigrants went on strike five months ago to bring the union back.

Despite a summer of picketing, vandalism, violence and threats, the strike got nowhere until August. That’s when the workers began filing lawsuits in federal court accusing the companies of violating labor laws by not paying overtime.

The drywall business is notorious in the construction industry for practices such as evading taxes by paying workers in cash.

In a dramatic turnaround, the bigger drywall companies cobbled together a “fragile coalition” that agreed to negotiate. Because the union could represent as many as 4,000 drywall workers in Southern California, the organizing drive is the largest in the nation now, union officials say.

The strike is unusual because it was organized mostly by the workers themselves and because they weren’t even in a union at the time. Also, many of them are illegal immigrants who don’t speak English. Their goal has been recognition of the union and a contract--in one stroke.

If the workers succeed, their victory will be a major one for the region’s battered construction unions. The industry is in a slump now; even when it was doing well, though, unions had to contend with growing numbers of non-union contractors.

After four negotiating sessions during the past two weeks, the trade association representing most of the big drywall companies whittled down some of the strikers’ demands.

Workers had demanded a piece rate for installing drywall that would have paid a fairly productive worker about $675 a week. They agreed to a rate that would pay a little more than $500 a week--not much more than they were making before wages took a dive two years ago in the latest recession.

“But the important thing is that we have a union so wages won’t go down again,” said Jesus Gomez, one of the strike’s leaders.

Also important to strikers were benefits such as health insurance; they get none from their employers now. Insurance is included in the contract, Gomez said.

The strikers had wanted a three-year pact; they agreed to two years.

The strikers have endorsed the compromises, Gomez said.

The overtime lawsuits brought by employees would be dropped as part of a settlement, said Robert A. Cantore of Los Angeles, one of the strikers’ lawyers. But the suits will proceed against a couple of good-sized concerns that are still holding out.

Those companies worry both sides because, as non-union competitors, the holdouts may be able to underbid contractors that sign the union contract.

Some drywall companies and strikers also worry privately that the region’s home builders may still resist using union contractors or even try to hinder the signing of a contract.

While the builders clearly aren’t happy about the resurgence of the carpenters union, officially their trade associations have taken a neutral stance on the strike.