The Building Trades have been losing ground in construction since the massive counter-attack by contractors in the late 1970s and the 1980s, which included double-breasted companies, the rise of strike-stopping Project Labor Agreements, and the aggressive use of scab subcontractors and labor brokers. Immigrant workers- especially the undocumented- have been cynically used by the construction industry as a cheap, hard working labor force who can be threatened with deportation if they resist the exploitative and unsafe conditions of their work.
Jesus Gomez was a carpenter from Guanajuato who was working in southern California in the early 1990s, when he faced wage theft on his already meager check, hard won by working in sweltering summer heat for piece work. He had enough, and used his connections throughout the immigrant community to build up an organizing committee and through it, a movement of drywall workers. The workers approached the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and demanded entry into the union. Since they'd organized themselves, they took a militant hand in running their own strike- fighting back against police brutality and blocking highways as part of their tactics. Ultimately, they won- and in doing so, won the biggest upset that the Building Trades have seen for a long time, taking back a huge section of the carpentry trade in one of the biggest real estate markets in the US. They showed that aggressive organizing rooted in the most exploited workers, not concessionary contracts and partnerships with management, are the way for the Trades to build our power back.
lyrics
Em D C B7
The sun beats like a hammer in the south of California
4 cents a sheet at piece work, for the sixty hour week
The subs pushed out the unions, to build the little boxes,
And hired from the border men to hang the drywall sheets
The border’s not a place; it’s a weight that you carry
It’s a way to keep you quiet, so you don’t get put away
It’s an agent of the boss, with his rifle, always watching
Oversees you when you’re working, comes for you on pay day
Chorus
C D Em
When the workers said Ya basta! Enough is enough,
Am B
There was a power there between them that was more than any man
C D Em
You can’t beat it down or gas it, you can’t hold it in your cuffs
Am B
It’s power of people knowing that they can,
Em B7 Em
Si se puede, si se puede, yes we can
Sixty bucks were short on a check for Jesus Gomez
His sweat and body not enough, they even stole his pay
And the foreman laughed and said, we can always find another
Someone else to take your place, so let’s do it the easy way
But he told all his paisanos, his friends from Guanajuato,
How much of our dignity can cheated wages buy?
We’ll gather up our brothers, and we’ll go down to the Carpenters-
Say let us into the union- we’ll organize or die.
Chorus
The cops at Mission Viejo attacked us on the picket
And would hand you to La Migra if you wouldn’t scab
But we knew that we would win, one way or the other-
And if violence is what they want, then violence they will have
we marched on La Migra, and on the police stations
And put our bodies on the line, to force their freeways closed
Like a dandelion spreads its seeds whenever you will kick it-
The harder that they knocked us down, the stronger that we rose
Emmett is a working class rebel musician- a union carpenter, former river deckhand, raised on a farm in central Minnesota.
With American country and blues and Irish traditional roots, he keeps the Long Memory going while singing about today's struggles. His work is rooted in social movements he's an active part of, from labor to defending the earth to fighting hate....more
Bright and skipping songs that foreground the sound of the banjo and fingerstyle guitar in music that feels timeless. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 5, 2020
This album speaks to the continuum of African diasporic culture that is central to the vibrant canon of Americana folk music. Bandcamp Album of the Day May 29, 2020
