Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics during World War II

Chapter 7: Negotiating Mexican Workers’ Rights at Corpus Christi

Chapter 7: Negotiating Mexican Workers’ Rights at Corpus Christi Like the refineries in the upper Gulf Coast, the American Smelting and Refining Company and the Southern Alkali Corporation, two of the city’s largest war plants in the Gulf port city of Corpus Christi, denied Mexicans equal employment opportunities. The companies hired them at a lower rate than Anglos, assigned them to the lower-wage laborer occupations, and rarely allowed them to move into the skilled jobs. African Americans did not participate in the fight over workers’ rights mostly because they did not figure prominently in the plants nor in the region’s population. The Mexican workers looked to the FEPC, LULAC, and the Mexican consul for help. The FEPC’s ineffectiveness was pronounced in Corpus Christi as well. This time, however, union officers and management adopted new methods for maintaining job control and defending the company’s record of discrimination. The workers had already confronted the companies and the unions when the FEPC arrived in Texas, and they submitted their complaints around the same time that the Mexican and black refinery workers from the Houston area were initiating their own cause. The Mexican consul, Lamberto Obregón, and LULAC officers assisted them in submitting twenty-eight complaints against American Smelting and sixty-seven against Southern Alkali , and their respective unions, the Zinc Workers Federal Labor Union, AFL Local , and the Alkali Workers’ Industrial Union, CIO Local . Although the workers made similar claims of hiring, classification, wage, “For the Same Victory! MEXICO,” , Secretaría de Gobernación, Mexico. (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, New York.) 182 Chapter 7 and upgrading discrimination against other employers in the area, their fight against the two manufacturing firms was among the most contentious and involved the largest number of complaints. The grievances were numerous, a virtual “avalanche of cases which practically doubled our case load in one day,” noted the overwhelmed Castañeda. Soon after he opened the Dallas office, Castañeda sent Cochran to interview the complainants and to make a preliminary determination on the merits of their grievances. Once Cochran submitted his report, Castañeda decided that the complaints had sufficient merit to conduct a fact-finding meeting, or hearing, with management, the unions, and the workers. The meeting, however, resulted in a major disappointment for the workers. Although Castañeda had said that he wished to settle the cases in favor of the workers, he grew ambivalent during the hearing as company and union officials accused him of accepting the workers’ claims before hearings their side of the story. FEPC officials agreed that Castañeda had mishandled the cases and ordered him to declare the cases closed because of insufficient merit. The Southern Alkali complainants continued their struggle and also expressed reservations about the FEPC’s abilities to assist them. The final settlement with Southern Alkali confirmed their doubts. Although the case against American Smelting ended with this  dismissal, there is no evidence that conditions changed in the plant. American Smelting Established in , American Smelting was primarily involved in the production of zinc. Its workforce grew steadily between  and , from approximately  to . Mexican workers constituted less than one-fourth of the workforce throughout the war. By , the workers had organized an ethnically mixed union and obtained a charter from the AFL. Despite an impressive number of Mexican unionists—somewhere between forty and fifty percent of the organization’s membership—they were unable to influence the union to challenge the company’s practice of racial segregation. According to the company’s  reports to the USES, all Mexican workers as well as the two black workers in the plant were classified as unskilled. The company hired less than ten women during the first two years of operation; they were Anglos and most probably worked as secretaries. One black worker worked as a gardener and another as a chauffeur. No appreciable change occurred in the occupational standing of Mexicans at the plant. They remained concen- Negotiating Rights at Corpus Christi 183 trated in laboring jobs for the duration of the war. A few worked in the next higher category of third class operators. These included semiskilled helpers and skilled workers such as boiler tenders and acid loaders. No more than ten Mexicans worked in the higher-skilled jobs such as tradesmen, clerks...