Víva La Huelga! Join the Actions Against Farah
[El Paso, TX]: Attica Brigade, undated [1973)]. 43x28.3cm: [2pp.]. Broadside printed on recto and verso. Recto features an image of a Chicana protester alongside Spanish text reading “Viva la Huelga!” (“Long Live the Strike!”) and text in English encouraging people to join the fight against the Farah Pants factory. The verso contains text detailing the working conditions at Farah, the importance for workers to unionize in the South, an overview of workers’ demands, and expressing solidarity between the Farah strikers and broader movements against white supremacy and patriarchy. Faint toning to edges with overall light handling wear. Smoothed out crease along lower left edge. Better than Very Good. Scarce, not separately catalogued in OCLC and not found in the online collection at the Oakland Museum of California.
The Farah strike began in May 1972, when more than 3,000 workers – almost all Chicano (Mexican-American) women – walked off their factory jobs at the Farah Manufacturing Company in an effort to unionize for improved working conditions, benefits, and rights. The following excerpt on the broadside describes some of these conditions: “The starting salary at Farah is $1.70 an hour; after three years perhaps $1.90; after twenty years, perhaps $2.20. The company has a medical insurance plan; it pays $14 a day, not enough for a bed sheet today, no less a hospital bed – and you only get that after you’ve worked at Farah for 5 years! There are no maternity benefits; a woman must take maternity leave and start back at “go” on the pay scale. Farah does have a retirement plan – but in fifty years almost no one has ever received any because everyone is either fired or forced to quit before they reach retirement.”
The strikers’ tactics were ultimately successful and, after nearly two years, the Farah Manufacturing Company recognized the labor union the strikers had joined, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA).
Price: $200.00
Item #10676