LA Times: Clinton Jencks, Organizer Who Led Mineworkers Strike Later Taught at San Diego State
Union organizer Clinton Jencks, who led New Mexico mineworkers in a McCarthy-era strike chronicled in the classic 1953 motion picture “Salt of the Earth,” has died. He was 87.
Jencks died Dec. 14 in San Diego of natural causes, according to his daughter, Linda O’Connell.
An organizer for a progressive union, Jencks led a 15-month strike begun in 1950 near Bayard, N.M., against Empire Zinc Co. by the Amalgamated Bayard District Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Local 890. The largely Latino strikers sought pay equal to that of white workers, improved safety conditions and healthcare — goals they eventually won with great effort.
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