4. ADDITIONAL NEWSPAPER ACCOUNTS

In the midst of the strike, the Texas state AFL-CIO held its annual convention in Corpus Christi.

After considering a new location, union leadership instead chose to join the workers in their protest at City Hall and to use the convention to raise funds for their cause. The workers' wives and children also joined the march.

City leaders stuck to their position nonetheless, but in Deceumber, after several more months of hearings and appeals, the City Council partially relented, offering the workers an avenue to raises based on experience.

A) Ed Deswysen, “AFL-CIO Votes to Join in March,” Corpus Christi Times, July 16, 1969

Delegates to the 11th annual convention of the Texas AFL-CIO voted to join striking garbage workers here this afternoon in a protest march to City Hall.

The demonstration which was expected to take place about 1 p.m. was the climax in a day of suspense in which the labor federation had threatened to move its meeting to San Antonio over the discharge of 140 sanitation workers here last week.

In the opening session of the four-day convention at Memorial Coliseum, President Hang Brown drummed up financial support for the strikers by donating $50 to a food fund for the fired workers and their families.

Brown asked each of the estimated 1,000 delegates and guests in the auditorium to donate at least $5 for the support of the strikers. Everyone in the convention hall stood up when asked to indicate if they would give money to the campaign.

The threat to move the meeting out of the city at the last minute apparently was dropped last night when the executive committee discussed final plans in a closed session.

A notice distributed to delates this morning reported that the convention would be moved “to another facility in Corpus Christi” if the garbage workers should picket the city-owned coliseum.

No pickets or other reminders of the seven-day-old work stoppage were in evidence when the convention was called to order at 9:30 a.m.

Most of the morning session was taken up with welcoming addresses by local dignitaries. Noticeably absent was Mayor Jack Blackmon who, due to his stand in the garbage collection dispute, was declared unwelcome by the labor group.

Listed on the program as one of the welcoming speakers was Chief of Police R.T. “Dick” Runyan. However, neither the police chief nor any other city official was present in the coliseum.

Local speakers included County Judge Noab Kennedy, Sheriff Johnnie Mitchell, and Dist. Atty. William Mobley, Jr. They confined themselves to words of hospitality for the delegates.

Two local legislators, however, faced the strike issue head on and discussed the situation in the view of the working man.

“We need rationality, not rationalizing in this situation,” Rep. Frances Farenthold said. She apologized that the strike was dimming the image offered by the slogan: “Sparkling City by the Sea.”

Mrs. Farenthold drew a round of applause when she remarked, “There is a need for a statewide study on the need for unions in municipal employment.”

H.H. McCool of Corpus Christi, president of the Coastal Bend Labor Council who introduced the speakers, joined the applause. “She’s one of us,” McCool said.

Rep. Joe Salem, in a booming voice, lamented that despite advances in technology, which are putting man on the moon, “we still can’t send 140 garbagemen to City Hall to get their jobs back.”

Salem, who has offered to be an impartial mediator in the labor dispute, said the issue was not who was right and who was wrong. Comparing the situation to a fatal accident, he said: “The city might be right, but if this situation continues, the city might be dead right.”

Rep. L. Dewitt Hale and Sen. Ronald Bridges alluded to the local labor dispute in their addresses, although their comments concerned the labor movement in general.

Hale quipped: “I would like to ask each of you to go collect your own garbage and take it back home with you.”

McCool, touching on the strike after introducing the last guest speaker, said the garbage workers “could not longer tolerate the mistreatment they have been suffering through the ages.”

He said they had not sought help from his Coastal Bend Labor Council, but that his group was ready at any time to assist the municipal workers in an organizational movement.

Brown, who gave the presidential address at the end of the morning session, departed from his prepared script to discuss the federation’s interest int eh local labor dispute.

“We did not precipitate this dispute,” Brown said. “But we of the Texas AFL-CIO will support any worker, any time, in any place who fights for decency.”

At the point he asked for contributions to the food fund.

B) Rosalinda Benavides, “Wives Join Protest March to City Hall,” Corpus Christi Times, July 16, 1969

Feelings of hope and desires for an end to the city’s week-long garbage strike were expressed by wives of the jobless sanitation workers as they joined their husbands this morning for a protest march to City Hall.

Coupled with the desire to see the strike end, the wives of workers said today they want their husbands to be reinstated with all rights held before the work stop.

They said the city has agreed to rehire the workers but has stipulated a loss of seniority and sick leave for those who reapply.

As persons joined the march this morning, the wives, joined by children and relatives, echoed the workers’ request for “justice and deserved rights.”

Although the strike, now in its seventh day, left many families of the fired 140 workers in financial binds, women at the gathering said no one has gone hungry. Boxes of food and milk have been donated daily by churches and individuals for the workers’ families.

Overdue bills and unpaid services owed by the workers have been left to mount, one woman said.

Many of the workers received no pay last week when their last checks were passed out, due to withdrawal of taxes and other deductions.

Mrs. Celestino Garcia, of 2521 Halsey, wife of one of the fired employees, said this morning her husband’s entire check had gone to the credit union without their receiving it.

The fired sanitation workers and their families left about 11 a.m. today from the Bonilla Building, 2590 Morgan, and were to march to City Hall.

SOURCES:

Ed Deswysen, “AFL-CIO Votes to Join in March,” Corpus Christi Times, July 16, 1969

Rosalinda Benavides, “Wives Join Protest March to City Hall,” Corpus Christi Times, July 16, 1969