[Traducción al Español en la próxima página]
“In 2003, I was able to buy, working here…a half acre lot in Victorville, a 4 bedroom house, 2,000 square feet for $140,000…You ain’t gonna find that anywhere, and the wages that we have right now are not gonna get them.”
Salazar began working as an emergency dispatcher for the county where, after 5 years, he would hit his peak hourly wage at $16. He talks about how he’d rely on his union to help soothe any grievances he had with his county job, to the point of frustration from his supervisors. Eventually, he was approached to work at a warehouse with Stellantis where he would start off at $16 an hour and make as much as $28 an hour. He entered the field and has stuck with the warehouse for 25 years.
He didn’t like who was representing the union or the contracts being handed by the UAW at the time and he wanted to take a prominent role in its change. He started working with UAW in May 1999 and was appointed to a standing committee position in 2001. Around the time that he was appointed, he began organizing with the Political Action Committee of the UAW. He explains that this committee helped choose which politicians were pro-labor in order to endorse them. This would help boost the politician’s campaign and help pro-labor bills pass in congress. Salazar reflects on times in which politicians claimed to be pro-labor solely for endorsements
“We try to weed out those types of politicians that we don’t want to support and unfortunately did support them…because they said they were going to support labor and when it came down to it, they jumped ship.”
In 2013, he began working as the Health and Safety Committee international appointed representative for UAW Local 230, Region 6. In this role, he serves as a contact for union members to send in their safety complaints for their workplace. He reminisces on the improvements made to heat illness cases in the workplaces and cooling technology that has been implemented in modern days. He attributes these accomplishments to unions and striking who help bring these issues to light.
He has more recently helped with the UC strikes, noting how large the turnout was for those strikes. The strikes were to fight for better wages for MFA and Ph.D student TAs.
Henry reflects on why employers at the UC level believe it is okay to mistreat their student workers. It is that the administration believes that because the TAship is secondary to their education, improper wages or treatment is unimportant. Henry clarifies, in reference to the contract students sign before starting their TAship
“…this contract is realizing the fact that they’re not just students, they’re actual employees.”
This sentiment is shared amongst students as well. When referencing the movement at UC Riverside, he reflects,
“[UAW at UC Riverside] have a lot of membership…This is just a small percentage of what could be out here and when you get that much massive support of workers, you’re going to get the results…”
