"I think in 1947, [I started to work for P.D.]. I used to work for Vialante. He had a company that brought roofing panels and I worked piling them on the trucks to take them to Morenci. Every morning before we started, I would go to the Office of Employment. In those days, the agent of the company was, Willie Holt. He was the one who hired people. Every morning I went to see him. I went to the office to wait for him. There were lots of people that went. I would go and he would tell me that there was nothing. Then I would wait for the truck to go to Clifton to pack the roofing panels. One time, luckily, he sent me to the hospital to be examined. I went and everything came out fine and he hired me. I passed it [the physical] and they gave me a job and I no longer went with Vialante to load roofing panels.

They paid me very little, $1.56 a day. I worked on a churn drill, machines that drilled 12 inch holes 50 feet deep to place dynamite. Yes, [I retired from P.D.] I do not remember [what they paid me]. Nine dollars plus because they used me in the dynamite and as a churn drill helper. $3.96 is what I think they paid me. As a helper to churn drill they paid more but there were times that they sent me to work there and they should have paid me as a helper. They should have paid me as a helper but they did not. One time I was with the dynamite and I told Bob Maddox, he was the foreman of the dynamite, “I do not want you sending me as a churn drill helper.” “Why?” “Because they do not pay me. They should have signed my card twice and they did not pay me.” Then he said, “I will keep on sending you, but don’t give the card to that foreman. Bring it to me.” “That is fine,” I said.

You should have seen the discrimination there was. I did not know how so many Okies wound up working there in Morenci. Not until lately, have I learned that they announced the jobs in Oklahoma and from there they came. The foreman that did not pay me, one time I was there and the operator let me get the stick of dynamite. I took it out and that is when the foreman was coming. I took it out and I put away the apparatus with which I took it out and I was going to put in the bar, a big bar. The foreman told me to go and put a border around the hole so that nothing would fall. While he sent me over there, he spoke to the operator. When he left, I did what he told me to and I put some boards as a platform. The operator stopped the machine and I went to pull out the stick when he told me not to. “Charlie Bush told me not to let you learn how to use the machine because then you would take my job.” He was an Americano, an operator, one of the ones they brought from over there [Oklahoma].

There was a lot of discrimination. One time I talked to a friend from the Union. I belonged to the Mine Mill and Smelter Workers. I talked to him about the discrimination. I told him that I was embarrassed to talk about it. He told me that he had wanted to enroll in a university and “when they find out that I am a Jew, they do not accept me.”

Sometimes they sent me to work as helper but they came and took me away to put me to work with another operator because I knew how to make out the report and talk. They did not know how and that is how they did it. They were very astute to discriminate. I was very outspoken. Cayetano Murillo was a foreman of dynamite and I was working with him. Jack Hammond was from Ajo. He was a forman [who was] above Murillo. I solicited a meeting with Lawson. Cayetano said to me, “ Are you going to the meeting?” “Yes, I am going.” “Do not go,” he said. The foreman, Jack Hammond came and spoke with him [Murillo] about what I had said, was I going to the meeting. Murillo told him I was going. Then he said to me, “Tom, you are going to the meeting.” “First I want you to tell me one thing. What they are doing is discrimination?” “Yes,” he said. I told him, “I am going to the meeting, especially now that you have told me what you have told me. I know that that is what it is.” When I went, Lawson asked me what it was. I told him. He said to me, “There may be something to that.” They asked the others and every one of them said the same thing I did.

They removed Jack Hammond as a foreman. He spoke very good Spanish. But as I said, I argued. You know how Mexicanos are. There were some who said why was I getting involved. They said, “What you will get is get fired.” “They are not going to fire me, you are going to stay here so they will keep on exploiting you.” This happened not too long after the union started.

One time I heard another foreman complain about me to Jack Hammond. I hear him say, “Why don’t you get rid of him?” (Laughs.) William Merrill was one of the ones who came from Ajo. He was a foreman. Some call them Papagos but they are Toho Odoms, the Desert People. He used to say, “There is going to be a big cutting back.” I would say to him, “They will have to tell me why they are going to fire me!” (Laughs.)

I was not well informed about that [how the Mine Mill and Smelter Union started]. I did not go [to the secret meetings]. I think I was working on the other side. David Velasquez was active. They beat him up; the same workers who were against him. It never fails. [It was] because he was so active in the union. We could not get a job where they paid us more because we were Mexicanos but when the AF of L were gathering dues, then in the meetings that we had, I was for us paying a portion of all. I said that we match what ones in the crafts union paid. But how could we designate the AF of L for all of us when we were not getting the jobs they covered. That appeared badly to them too, but they did it. “Why should I be paying dues so that you can be benefiting from them?” There were many irregularities.

I thought it [the union] was good. No, [I was not on a negotiating team but] in strikes, yes. They used to have a little shack. Sometimes they [PD] would go to do repairs of the plant. They [PD] would gather everything and when the union struck, they [the company] would go into to do repairs. It was convenient for the company. In the little shack we were on the picket line. They [PD] did their repairs. They had to do but since there was a strike, well. One time a negotiator asked me, “How do you see the strike?” I said to him, “It is not a strike. It is a convenience of the company as one might say. They want to do their repairs and they say it is a strike and they go in.” That is how they did it. The contractor [went in] to do repairs on the plant. Yes, they did [pass the picket line].

They [the union] fought for the workers. Henry Marquez was an officer of the union. Burt Cunningham was a negotiator, more smart than anything. One time they were negotiating and he called from the office for money because he ran out. I felt badly when I found out. He was a fighter. He was one of the negotiators. They [the union] chose the negotiators, they were almost always officers [of the union]. No, [I was never an officer in the union].

The work on the churn drills [was for Americanos] and they used us [Mexicanos] in the dynamite and the machines for drilling. There were a lot of Indians that lived in Metcalf. When I was working in the shop, they put me as night watchman. At the break of dawn, the big foreman would ask me to go to Metcalf for the Indians so they could work and I would bring them. That was during the war."