Tobacco Industry and Labor Exploitation

Puerto Rico's tobacco industry, which grew rapidly after the U.S. invasion, employed tens of thousands of workers in cigar and cigarette manufacturing. The industry became both a site of colonial extraction and a crucible of labor organizing.

Working Conditions:
- Women comprised the majority of cigar rollers (tabaqueras/despalilladoras)
- Wages were as low as $2-5 per week
- 12-14 hour workdays were common
- Child labor was widespread
- No worker safety protections
- Company housing and stores created debt bondage

The Lectores (Readers): Puerto Rico's tobacco workshops had a unique cultural tradition: the lector (reader). Workers collectively paid a fellow worker to read aloud to them during the long hours of hand-rolling cigars. Lectores read newspapers, novels, political philosophy, and labor theory. Through this tradition, tobacco workers became some of the most politically informed workers in the Caribbean.

Lectores read works by Marx, Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Tolstoy alongside the novels of Victor Hugo and Emile Zola. This practice cultivated a radical political consciousness among tobacco workers that fueled the labor movement.

Labor Organizing: Tobacco workers were at the forefront of Puerto Rico's labor movement:
- The Federación Libre de Trabajadores (FLT), affiliated with the AFL, organized tobacco workers
- Luisa Capetillo, a legendary labor organizer and feminist, began her activism as a lectora and organizer in the tobacco industry
- Multiple strikes in the 1910s-1930s challenged both local employers and American tobacco corporations

The tobacco industry declined after the 1940s as mechanization and competition reduced demand for hand-rolled cigars, but its legacy in shaping Puerto Rico's labor consciousness and radical tradition endures.