Austin Commemorates the 1968 Economy Furniture Strike

On Diez y Seis de Septiembre — the holiday marking the beginning of Mexico’s independence from Spain — unions occupied the forefront in Austin as CapMetro celebrated a new installation in East Austin commemorating the Economy Furniture Company Strike.

Economy Furniture is long gone and with it the legal effect of the union contract that cemented victory after a 28-month strike by 400 workers from November 1968 to March 1971. But the longest strike in Texas history lives on 56 years later, having made history as a key moment in the Chicano Movement’s breakthrough elevation of community power.

A new three-sided stele at the Richard Moya Eastside Bus Plaza recounts the history of the strike and highlights a few of the community activists, most of whom went on to make barrier-breaking history as elected officials in Austin and Travis County.

Tony Valdez, now 79, who struck the company and was one of the few who didn’t return because he obtained a better job elsewhere, told us at today’s holiday event that the importance of the strike lies in the solidarity that it built in neglected East Side communities. The Economy Furniture strike, he said, became a major turning point in the politics of Austin and Travis County.

“The historic significance is seeing what…human beings can do when they band together as a team and work for the same purpose,” Valdez said. “I think that’s a key in everything.”

The strike was scary, Valdez said. The Upholsterers International Union of North America Local 456 (which eventually merged into the United Steelworkers union) paid just $30 a week from the strike fund, a low amount even for the times, because the company typically paid wages under a piecework system that came out to only about $1.60 an hour. Yet despite the widespread threat to livelihoods, Valdez cites an analogy: It might have been easy to break one stick, but it was impossible to break the sticks when they came together.

Two young community activists who marshaled support for strikers and later went on to big things in politics also offered perspective.

Travis County Commissioner Margaret Gomez name-checked Moya, who won election to Commissioners Court and later became a gubernatorial aide to one of his colleagues there, Ann Richards; former Austin Mayor Gus Garcia; and long-time Austin City Council member John Trevino. She remembered strike leader Lencho Hernandez, one of only five workers whose reinstatement was rejected by the company (i.e., the baddest of badasses) and noted when strikers would periodically march through neighborhoods, they always drew the strong support of neighbors and public officials.

“We made incredible changes in the way the city was run…but another thing began happening,” Gomez said. “In the middle of the strike in 1970, Richard Moya, who was one of the participants in this coalition,…became the first Mexican-American to serve on the County Commissioners Court.” Others would follow.

Gomez said the strike was triggered when 75 percent of the predominantly Mexican-American workforce voted to join the Upholsterers union, but management refused to recognize them or bargain.

“I remember those days fondly because there was a time when we learned what life was really about,” Gomez said. “It was about working hard for what we needed, and rights for the people of this city, of this community…All along though, they were not alone, because we were there from our community. People from the other parts of the city joined in on helping them continue, to encourage them,…’Don’t give up and don’t give in.’”

Gomez recalled an electrifying visit to the strike by United Farm Workers Co-Founder César Chávez in February 1971.

“It was February. It was nice and cool…and we took him to lunch at Joe’s Bakery (Joe has really played a very big part in everything in East Austin) and then from there, we took him to the Montopolis Recreational Center, where he met a huge, huge crowd…It was so full that there were people hanging from the rafters in order to see and listen to César Chávez. And I think that was a really moving point for all of us. We had the big guy on our side and he was here to support us.”

A month later the strike ended after the union won a court ruling requiring the company to bargain in good faith. Six months of negotiations ensued and the union ratified a first contract.

Former State Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos, also a community organizer in that era, reminded the 100 attendees that in the East Side and in Latino communities, that more progress is needed and progress can only happen with full participation in elections. The event included a voter registration table.

Barrientos recalled “in the early 1970s, Martin Luther King, César Chávez, Farmworkers and hundreds and hundreds of marches for myself, the strikers, my wife, my children — marches in the streets — and the strike ignited the rest of what needed to be done, in our country, in our state, in our city.”

“So we have come together today,” Barrientos said. “Let us give thanks to our Creator…los padres y las madres, los abuelos, las abuelas and those men and women of all colors on whose shoulders we stand today with so much more work to do.”

For more background on the Economy Furniture Strike, Preservation Austin posted a strong take that was coupled a while back with a walking tour of strike sites. The info on unsung women of the strike, along with some outstanding photos, brings the full breadth of the event to life:

The central role of Chicanas in the Economy Furniture strike is remembered by the local East Austin community, but their importance is not visible in the archival documents or historic news coverage of the 1968-1971 strike. An archival photo of strikers in the Austin Chicano Huelga Office shows some of the underrepresented women of the movement. Characteristic of the archival records, their names are not present on the back of the photograph unlike pictures of male strike leaders.

PBS video: https://tinyurl.com/yjtpznh4