Fronteras: Preserving Fuerza Unida's Legacy — The Closure Of A San Antonio's Levi's Plant Sparked A Movement

By Norma Martinez,

Published July 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM CDT

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1 of 5 — Petra Mata (right) organized protests on behalf of Fuerza Unida, a social justice organization she helped found in 1990 to address issues confronting garment workers released from the Levis Strauss factory after its closing. | Courtesy of UTSA Libraries Special Collections, Fuerza Unida Collection

Petra Mata (right) organized protests on behalf of Fuerza Unida, a social justice organization she helped found in 1990 to address issues confronting garment workers released from the Levis Strauss factory after its closing.

2 of 5 — Fuerza Unida members sleep overnight at the site of a hunger strike in November 1993 where some members refrained from eating for 21 days. | Courtesy of UTSA Libraries Special Collections, Fuerza Unida Collection

Fuerza Unida members sleep overnight at the site of a hunger strike in November 1993 where some members refrained from eating for 21 days.

3 of 5 — Viola Cásares (far right) and members of Fuerza Unida take their first bites of food after undergoing a hunger strike for 21 days to bring attention to labor inequities. | Courtesy of UTSA Libraries Special Collections, Fuerza Unida Collection

Viola Cásares (far right) and members of Fuerza Unida take their first bites of food after undergoing a hunger strike for 21 days to bring attention to labor inequities.

4 of 5 — Petra Mata and Viola Cásares banded together with hundreds of other former displaced Levi Strauss workers to form Fuerza Unida, an organization that advocated for severance pay and labor rights. | Courtesy of UTSA Libraries Special Collections, Fuerza Unida Collection

Petra Mata and Viola Cásares banded together with hundreds of other former displaced Levi Strauss workers to form Fuerza Unida, an organization that advocated for severance pay and labor rights.

5 of 5 — More than 20 boxes of historical documents from Fuerza Unida have been donated to UTSA Libraries Special Collections to preserve the legacy of the social justice organization. Petra Mata (right) and Viola Cásares were on-site during the handover. | Courtesy of UTSA Libraries Special Collections

More than 20 boxes of historical documents from Fuerza Unida have been donated to UTSA Libraries Special Collections to preserve the legacy of the social justice organization. Petra Mata (right) and Viola Cásares were on-site during the handover.

Levi Strauss operated a plant in south San Antonio that employed more than 1,100 workers. It abruptly closed in 1990 when the company moved production to Costa Rica, where workers were paid a few dollars a day.

The company said at the time it was shifting its operations to ”increase manufacturing flexibility and reduce costs.” The laid-off workers, mostly Mexican-American women, felt they were the victims of a great injustice, so they organized to form Fuerza Unida, or “united force.”

They filed a class action suit in 1993 claiming the plant deprived or improperly calculated the workers of employment benefits, including pension, severance and disability. The suit and its appeal were ultimately dismissed, but it did not stop the group from holding boycotts, hunger strikes and protests.

“We weren’t able to win a victory and get back what we lost,” said Viola Cásares, co-founder of Fuerza Unida. “But on my part, I learned how to be a better organizer, mother, grandmother (and) friend and it opened my mind to the injustices at the workplace.”

Cásares and fellow co-founder Petra Mata said the work of Fuerza Unida continues today and is now getting a push to preserve its legacy. The nonprofit is donating its collection of historical documents — papers, photos, videos and other items that chronicle the group’s advocacy for the rights of garment workers — to the University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections. Library staff will process the collection this year and make it accessible to the public by fall 2022.

“They've protested on behalf of workers rights, women's rights, Mexican American civil rights and human rights,” said Dean Hendrix, Dean of Libraries at UTSA. “And these are to be celebrated, these are to be studied and we are going to make sure that they get the prominence that they deserve.”

Preserving Fuerza Unida’s Legacy — The Closure Of San Antonio's Levi's Plant Sparked A Movement

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