The Empire Zinc strike, also known as the Salt of the Earth strike, was a 15-month-long miners' strike in Grant County, New Mexico against the Empire Zinc Company for its discriminatory pay. The strike drew national attention, and after it was settled in 1952, a movie entitled Salt of the Earth (1954) was released that offered a fictionalized version of events.
Background The Empire Zinc Company, a subsidiary of New Jersey Zinc Company, owned and operated a zinc mine located near Hanover, New Mexico, approximately 13 miles east of Silver City, New Mexico. In 1950, Empire Zinc employed 128 people in Hanover, of which 92 were members of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (IUMMSW), Local 890, 12 Anglos and 80 Hispanics. Empire Zinc participated in, and exploited, the discrimination and racism toward Hispanics in southern New Mexico. Underground workers were Hispanics, while a large majority of hourly workers on the surface (mill and repair shop workers) were Anglos. All office and management employees were also Anglos. Hispanics and Anglos were also separated in the town of Hanover, where 90% of its employees lived. There were four tiers of housing—the best for managers, then office and technical workers, Anglo miners, and finally Hispanic workers, who often built their own houses on land owned and rented by Empire Zinc. Hispanics in company housing did not have indoor plumbing. While all 12 of the Anglo unionists went on strike, no Anglo striker participated in strike activities (though some Anglos who worked at other mines in the district were active in the union). Most Anglo workers at Empire Zinc found work elsewhere or returned as strikebreakers. Wage rates for laborers, muckers, and miners (jobs held usually by Hispanics in the Southwest) were significantly lower in Arizona and New Mexico than in Utah, Nevada, or Montana, where Anglos worked these jobs. Pay scales for trade workers and surface workers, on the other hand, were approximately the same in all western mining districts. In contrast to the film, Salt of the Earth, hours and wages were the major focus of the strike and negotiations, rather than safety and discriminatory housing.
The strike Negotiations for a new contract began on July 18, 1950. Representing Local 890 were international union representative Clinton Jencks, president Cipriano Montoya, vice-president Ernesto Velasquez, Vicente Becerra, Pablo Montoya, and Fred Barreras. Charles Graves, a negotiator and human relations manager for New Jersey Zinc, bargained for Empire Zinc. At this first meeting, Graves refused to address any issues other than wage rates. Local 890's negotiating team held firm on pay for all time spent underground, reducing redundant job categories (which were used to reduce pay for Hispanic workers), and paid holidays, which all other mining companies had provided since 1944, when prodded by the War Labor Board. At that time, the NWLB allowed Empire to pay a fixed differential pay scale that substituted for these benefits, which left its workers with a longer work day. Empire refused to increase the rate for it paid for lunch breaks when general wage rates increased in the mining district. These two issues—pay for lunch time and 6 paid holidays—formed the foundation of the union's demands. Local 890 had tried to negotiate housing conditions and rent with Empire Zinc for years, but the company refused to bargain on housing issues. Negotiations remained deadlocked for over two months. On September 29, Graves placed advertisements to local newspapers and sent letters to its employees announcing a 5-cent hourly wage increase and an increase in the work week to 48 hours (actually 51 hours, including lunch). Empire alleged that the union had created an impasse, and did not want a settlement. Local 890 requested continuing negotiations, but Graves left town, and no new negotiations were offered. On October 17, 1950, Local 890 went on strike.
Months passed with no sign of compromise. Despite record high zinc prices accompanying the Korean War, Empire made no attempt to reopen the mine through the winter and spring. The absence of detailed haggling over the prices of various benefit and wage packages suggested that Empire was intent on breaking the union. As the strike went on inconclusively for months, the leadership of IUMMSW increasingly felt that it could not be won, and urged Clinton Jencks, its representative in Grant County, to convince the strikers to accept Empire's offer. When Jencks and a majority of Local 890's membership refused to give up, IUMMSW's executive board voted to take control of the strike and negotiations. Following this development, dissent simmered within Local 890. A few men deserted the picket lines to find work and many others asked the strike committee to allow them to get jobs. Many of the miners who were released from strike duty complained about having to give 25% of their wages to the strike fund, and the rate was eventually lowered to 15%. Empire seized the opportunity to undermine the union, regularly sending letters to strikers, urging them to return to work. An attempt in Local 890 to hold a secret ballot on whether to drop some demands was derailed. By the end of May, 1951, 14 unionists had signed a back-to-work petition, and Empire added to that number salaried non-union employees and claimed in advertisements that 28 employees wanted to end the strike.
Ladies Auxiliary picket line
On June 7, 1951, Empire escalated its attack on the union, running a full-page ad in the Silver City Daily Press, announcing that it would reopen the mine because of the back-to-work petition. Company officials had already met with County Sheriff Leslie Goforth and District Attorney Thomas Foy and obtained assurances that the road to the mine would be opened. Goforth said he needed more deputies to deal with the union, and Empire promised to provide funds for 24 new deputies. The picket lines were reinforced by unionists from other mines and, for the first time, many women and children joined them. Arrests were made, but as soon as picketers were arrested, more stepped in to take their places. No strikebreakers were able to enter the mine. Empire immediately requested a restraining order from District Judge Archibald Marshall, and he granted it the next day. The strikers met that night at the union hall to discuss their options—the discussions continued past midnight. Some called for a general strike in the mining district, others pointed out that they would face huge fines if the injunction were ignored, but everyone agreed that giving up after eight months of deprivation would be too bitter of a pill to swallow. Jencks and Bob Hollowwa, another IUMMSW representative brought in to help, argued that having the women of the Ladies Auxiliary take over the picket line could circumvent the injunction because it prohibited only "union members" from blocking the road. Most of the women present embraced the idea and said they were capable of handling the job. Most men were against it, saying it was too dangerous. After several votes, with all having a vote, a motion for the women to take over the strike lines for 24 hours passed by a small majority. The next day the women successfully defended the strike lines and confidently returned to the union meetings to secure an open-ended extension of their status as defenders of the strike line. On June 16, Sheriff Goforth and his new deputies made a full-scale assault on the picket line using tear gas to disperse the women picketers. They withstood the assault, but Goforth arrested 62 people: 45 women and 17 children. District Attorney Foy asked New Mexico Governor Edwin Mechem for assistance, but he was aghast, replying that all picketers should be released on their own recognizance, and stating that the NM State Police would not serve as strike breakers. At first, the DA told the women he would release them if they would promise to stay away from the picket lines, but they steadfastly refused. Late that night, he relented and let them go without conditions. Time and Life magazines and the New York Times covered the story. On June 24, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service called on Empire and Local 890 to allow them to arbitrate the issues. Local 890 accepted, but Empire rejected the offer.
Media attention
Editorials in the Silver City Daily Press became increasingly hostile to the union and openly racist. Todd Ely, editor of the Daily Press, wrote: "Mexico, of course, is poverty stricken because its early settlers lost their identity in a mestizo melting pot that lowered the general level of culture to a point little above that of the swarming aborigines." Moreover, the District Judge, District Attorney, and the Silver City magistrate judge remained unmoved by the union's arguments. They not only belonged to a socio-economic class very different from that of the miners, but also were not politically vulnerable to the rural labor vote, and so had little reason to accommodate the miners.
As the strike gained national attention, the issue of communist subversion, which was a national preoccupation in those years, began to overshadow the labor issues upon which the strike was based. A very public conflict between the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and the IUMMSW over political policy and charges of communist infiltration had played out in the years leading up to the strike, and had resulted in the expulsion of IUMMSW from the CIO. Even more publicity over this issue occurred when Maurice Travis, President of the IUMMSW, and Nathan Witt, its chief counsel, traveled to Silver City to attend a hearing on the extension of the injunction against blocking Empire's mine road. Both were either former or current members of the CPUSA. Travis, a large man who wore a black eye patch to cover an eye he lost as the result of a KKK attack when organizing in Alabama, asserted that Empire had bought its injunction—this later resulted in a contempt of court citation. Witt drew even more attention because he had been a prominent member of Franklin Roosevelt's administration, serving as Secretary of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from 1937 to 1940. Witt had become a frequent target of Joseph McCarthy. Whittaker Chambers accused Witt of being a leader of the Ware Group, and Lee Pressman confirmed that Witt was a member of the Ware Group in testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950. Witt did not disappoint reporters when he spoke at Local 890's union hall. The Silver City Daily Press quoted him as saying: "The International Union is not forgetting that your fight is tied up with the big question of peace. If there is a war and the atom bomb is dropped, your working conditions will not be important."
Legal events
District Judge Marshall made his injunction against the union permanent. Witt's strategy was to appeal the decision to a higher court. When Marshall handed down his decision, the negotiating committee walked out of the courtroom, and Marshall cited them with contempt of court. New arbitration efforts in subsequent days again proved fruitless. Local 890 said it would accept any other contract they had (Peru, Asarco, and Kennecott). Empire Zinc said the union's position amounted to new demands and rejected it. Local 890 turned to demonstrations and sit-down protests at the Sheriff's office and the Daily Press's offices. Empire offered half-pay to any worker who was willing to attempt breaking through the picket lines, which led to daily clashes between strike breakers and pickets. Women pickets resorted to rocks and ground chile pepper to bruise and blind the special deputies and strike breakers.