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The Cigar Makers’ Strike An Economic Power Goes Up in Smoke, 1919 to 1945 As a child growing up in Cayey, Puerto Rico, Jesus Colon used to hear a clear, strong voice coming from a big factory down the street. The voice was that of “El Lector,” or the reader. His job was to read from the works of Zola, Balzac, Hugo, or Marx to the rows of cigar makers facing each other as they tenderly rolled fine cigars between their fingers (Colon 1982, 13). Puerto Rican cigar makers brought the tradition of El Lector with them to New York City around the turn of the century. Rolling cigars was not enough for them. Puerto Rican cigar makers also insisted on enlightening themselves about the critical issues rocking the world, enjoying fine literature they might not otherwise read, as well as reminding themselves to “keep on struggling and learning from struggle” (ibid.). What is interesting is not that Puerto Rican cigar makers wanted to work like this but that they could. The lector symbolized the power of cigar makers and by extension of the Puerto Rican community itself in the pre-1930s period. Though small in numbers and working class, Puerto Ricans were surprisingly successful in pressing their demands both on employers and on government. In their actions and words, cigar makers exhibited pride and confidence that they could generally prevail. The existing literature, however, has generally overlooked this period of relative power for Puerto Ricans. Researchers who have recognized power, on the other hand, explain it as the fortuitous consequence of effective Puerto Rican leadership or of the strategic interests of dominant political party organizations. But the social power of Puerto Ricans in this period was actually the result of the Puerto Rican ability to dance with, even to lead, cigar manufacturers. The evidence suggests clearly that power grew and declined for Puerto Ricans with changes in the capitalist need for their special skill at rolling cigars. The interest in Puerto Ricans was both objective and real. A perilous, major strike in 1919 by cigar makers exposed the roots of 2 53 their power. Puerto Rican and other cigar makers held up their special skill at rolling Havana cigars like a sword to cigar manufacturers in that 1919 strike. Cigar makers had a level of workplace freedoms, pension and unemployment benefits, and wages enjoyed by few other unionized workers in the United States. Cigar makers also knew that cigar manufacturers had begun to experiment with mechanization and automation in eager hopes of reducing their dependence on skilled labor. But they went on strike anyway. They never really believed that manufacturers could ever find a way to move forward without them. It was not just boldness that made cigar makers so confident. They were also the best organized, highest paid, and, before 1925, largest category of labor in the Puerto Rican community. They were vocal, active, political , intelligent, and, most of all, leaders. They helped form numerous political, economic, and cultural organizations, led them effectively, and formed the political and moral backbone of the Puerto Rican community well into the 1940s. Cigar makers thus made it possible for Puerto Ricans to move easily as economic agents. At times, that skill and resource was put to use at fomenting better cultural and political moves. Cigar makers were thus tremendous contributions and extended the Puerto Rican community ’s social power. All the real and potential social power they helped to generate, however, went up in smoke for Puerto Ricans by 1930. The decline in power centered on changes in structural and historical interests. At first, cigar manufacturers capitulated totally to the cigar makers ’ strike demands. Later, they moved quickly to automate and mechanize cigar production while moving consumer tastes towards smoking cigarettes . Second, these capitalist moves meant that though the cigar makers were still radical, independent, and intelligent, the Puerto Rican community ’s strength was dependent on a cigar-rolling skill that was quickly depreciating in value. Third, the new incoming wave of Puerto Ricans, who left the island for New York City, came with skills that were not comparable to or in as great demand as cigar making. The critical population mass in the Puerto Rican community was soon dominated by low-wage, unskilled labor employed at the lowest rungs of the job market. And finally, the Puerto Rican cigar makers’ experience was part of a much wider movement transforming the post–World War I relationship between labor...

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