San Antonio was the center of the pecan shelling industry in Texas. Half of Texas's pecan grew near the city, whose large labor force made it the obvious choice for pecan shelling factories to be built in. The factories rid themselves of machinery and instead turned to the cheap labor of the working poor of San Antonio.
The Pecan Shellers' Strike took place on January 31, 1938 when pecan shellers walked off the job and began a 3 month strike to protest a decrease in already pitiful wages. However, it was not just lower wages that prompted the strike, but also the dreadful conditions inside the factory. Lighting and ventilation were poor and indoor toilets non-existent. The results of this were not just worker dissatisfaction, but also rampant disease. Poor ventilation in a room filled with dust from shelling pecans led to San Antonio having a very high rate of tuberculosis. The strike gained the support of about 12,000 workers.
Emma Tenayuca volunteered herself to organize the strike, which was led by Donald Henderson1. As Tenayuca notes in her Texas Observer article, she experienced difficulties with the leadership, particularly the CIO, which wanted her removed from organizing the strike due to her affiliation with the Communist party2. The whole strike was believed by some, including the San Antonio chief of police, to be a "red plot" by the Communists. The dispute was eventually settled when the shelling plant agreed to pay the workers 7-8 cents per hour rather than 6. This wage was further increased when federal minimum wage was established at 25 cents 3.
However, this did not solve Tenayuca's problems of affiliation with the Communist Party. As the continued her work, she became more and more despised by San Antonio's anti-immigrant forces. In 1939, she planned a Communist Party meeting to be held in the Municipal Auditorium. In a fit of rage, a mob of 5,000 people attacked the auditorium, and Tenayuca had to flee to safety. Tenayuca began to receive death threats and could no longer find work. Eventually, for the sake of her mental health and economic stability, she left San Antonio for California, and only returned 20 years later as a teacher4.
Sources:
1. Richard Croxdale, "Pecan-Shellers' Strike," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/oep01), accessed December 1, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
2.Emma Tenayuca, "Living History: Emma Tenayuca Tells Her Story," Texas Observer, Oct. 28, 1983, 10.
3.Croxdale, "Strike."
4.University of Texas in San Antonio, "Texans One and All- Emma Tenayuca," YouTube video, 8:11, Dec. 10, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxr2RaTeYuA.
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