50 Years Ago: Unions are criticized, new housing is approved

Fifty years ago, the subject of most conversation by tribal members was probably the ongoing race for Navajo Tribal Chairman between the current chairman Raymond Nakai and his opponent Sam Billison.

These two – with the addition of former chairman Paul Jones – ran against each other four years before and Billison said this time he was optimistic that he would win because he felt that he would get the vote of educated Navajos as well as those who supported Jones in the past election.

But at this point Billison was getting a little concerned because the unions on the reservation, and especially the one that represents the construction workers, are solidly behind Nakai.

There are not a lot of union members on the reservation at this time – probably less than 1,000 – but Billison is worried because union members tend to vote as a block and get their families to vote their way as well so this could swing as many as 1,500 to 2,000 votes to Nakai’s side.

At a meeting this week, Billison lashed out at the unions and Nakai telling chapter members that Nakai and the unions have made a secret deal in exchange for supporting Nakai, and that the unions will get his support in increasing the union’s presence on the reservation.

Billison was the main speaker at the grand opening of the new chapter house for Church Rock, N.M. as Nakai was in Washington and couldn’t make it to the grand opening.

Billison pointed out that the construction industry on the reservation was the only industry that was almost 100 percent Navajo and this was without “any regard for union membership.”

“I am not against unions,” Billison said, “because they are unions but I am against them because they have not treated our people fairly.”

Whenever there is a construction job on the reservation that is required to be a union because of federal law, Billison said, but the practice by the unions is to give non-Navajo workers preference in hiring for the jobs.

“We demand that suitable agreements be negotiated before any further unionization to assure our people that are qualified Navajo workers will be treated the same as any of the other workers and that unions will not simply take our initiation fees and then forget about us when it comes time to send workers to jobs.”

What Billison wanted basically was a Navajo Preference Law but this wouldn’t come about until 10 years later.

The other big news in the Navajo Times this week, however, had nothing to do with the election but with housing.

Officials for the Navajo Housing Authority announced that it had received a federal grant for $4 million to build low-rent housing on the Arizona portion of the reservation.

That would allow NHA to build 310 homes – at an average cost of $12,500 – in major Navajo communities. Under the proposal, Tuba City would get 60 units, Chinle would get 110, Kayenta and Fort Defiance would get 50 each and Window Rock would get 45.

The grant allows for the building of two-, three- and four-bedroom houses.

The big question that was raised is just how well-built will these houses be when the tribe plans to build them at less than half the cost of similar sized homes off the reservation.

But tribal officials shrugged off these kinds of remarks, saying that the other units built by NHA should prove that quality is the one requirement to get a contract to build homes for NHA.

And in breaking news this week, a fire at the cafe in Fort Defiance in the early morning hours of May 16 means that residents of this small Navajo community will have to go to Window Rock or Gallup for the next few months if they want to eat out.

The restaurant, located at Henry’s Corner, was the only eatery in Fort Defiance and was a popular place for residents. Volunteer firefighters managed to save the Laundromat located next to the cafe but there was extensive damage to the cafe itself, according to Trenton Crow, the fire chief for the volunteer fire department.

He estimated the total damage to be about $30,000. The owner of the cafe, Ocho Juan, said he had insurance for the building but not for the food.

Juan said that if his people had been notified earlier, they maybe could have saved most of the cafe but delays occurred because there were no phones in that area.

The fire department learned of the fire when an unidentified truck driver drove by the cafe, saw the smoke and when he couldn’t find a phone in the area started driving through town honking his horn until someone turned on their lights and he could report to them that the cafe was on fire.

Once he had done that, said Juan, the truck driver drove on to complete his route.

---