SAN ANTONIO — On Labor Day, San Antonio christened a new space dedicated to labor on Market Street.
"I can still see 600 Farrah manufacturing company workers walking off their jobs in May of 1972," Joan Suarez said, reading the quote she had engraved as part of the new Labor Plaza in the public art garden on the Riverwalk.
"They went through their ups and downs and pains of trying to get the project under-way and moving along,” she said of the plaza. “But it came out beautifully."
The quote refers to the organizing drive and eventual 22-month strike that brought her to San Antonio - where she would stay for 17 years.
"They'd had enough of injustice; they'd had enough of Farrah not responding or listening to them," she said.
Suarez was one of six union leaders honored at the dedication of the plaza today. Also honored: executive vice president emerita of the San Antonio AFL-CIO Linda Chavez-Thompson.
The pair haven't seen each other in five years. Before they retired, Chavez-Thompson encouraged Suarez to become the of San Antonio Central Labor Council’s first woman President.
"And I haven't forgiven her since," Suarez said with a laugh.
Chavez-Thompson sees the new plaza, which features poetry and artwork dedicated to organized labor, as both a recognition of the contributions union labor has made in the past and a way to attract the labor leaders of tomorrow.
"We're hoping that what it means is that it gets into the minds of the younger generation coming up,” Chavez-Thompson said. “And saying, ‘that could be me. I'd like for it to be me. I'm going to do everything that I can so that it can be me.’"