Project News

Updates

4/23/26: Lawson Center Homecoming
4/1/26: MWRI (re)launches Power from the Past

Power from the past to inspire the future of organizing

The Memory Work Research Initiative brings together scholars, practitioners, students, and community memory keepers working together to preserve and share the history of organizing in Southern California. We strive to forge new, collaborative modes of remembrance grounded in the IRLE’s commitment to advancing the quality education and employment for all.

an older Latina in an all red outfit sits in a cubicle of an office. She is surrounded by a group of students (their backs to the camera) interviewing her. One student stands recording the interview on a phone.

Our Projects

Color photo of a group of smiling janitors with their fists raised holding red, white, and black picket signs reading "L.A. Should Work for Everyone" with a graphic of a raised fist holding a mop. Several are wearing red Justice for Janitors t-shirts.

The City Should Work for Everyone: Justice for Janitors in L.A.

The Justice for Janitors campaign pitted low wage, immigrant men and women against some of the wealthiest and most politically connected corporations in L.A. Using civil disobedience, dramatic public action, sophisticated corporate research, and community solidarity, the Justice for Janitors campaign combined top-down and grassroots approaches to social change. Learn more

Workers stand closely together holding up an orange and yellow quilt. A brown-skinned woman in the foreground looks off into the distance. She is wearing a maid's uniform with a name tag and a UNITE-HERE button.

Building Power for Hotel Workers

The history of L.A.’s hotel workers union (UNITE HERE Local 11) is one of labor history’s great turnaround stories. Members fought to make the union more responsive to their needs, elected new leadership, and built real power in their industry. Learn more

A garment worker carries a "Bill For Your Dirty Laundry" at a "Day of Conscience to End Sweatshops" rally and march in Los Angeles' garment district on October 4, 1997. Organized by UNITE and its allies as part of their campaign against GUESS Jeans, the event was part of a national day of action that aimed to pressure the Presidential task force on apparel manufacturing to enforce a strong accord that would protect garment workers' rights in Los Angeles and around the world.

Immigrant Organizing and the L.A. Garment Industry

Garment workers have been at the forefront of the labor movement in Los Angeles for more than a century. Pioneering new forms of union organization and workers’ education, garment workers have long been a leading force in the fight for immigrant rights. Learn more

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Our History

A small group of janitors sits around a table sharing photos documenting the history of their union. — Members of SEIU 1877 gathered at their union hall in May 2011 to share memories of their union. They later donated their collection to the UCLA Library.

The IRLE’s Memory Work Initiative began over a decade ago as the Justice for Janitors History Project. As the 20th anniversary of the Justice for Janitors 1990 strike in Century City approached, SEIU Local 1877 (now United Service Workers West) asked the IRLE and the Labor Center for help with their commemorations. We helped the union to organize and selectively digitize the records housed in the basement of their union hall and conducted nearly 20 oral history interviews, all of which were subsequently donated to the UCLA Library.

We have since collaborated on similar archival projects with UNITE-HERE Local 11, the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE). Materials from these collections and others donated to us by our community partners comprise the basis of our Memory Work website (https://memorywork.irle.ucla.edu/research) as well as our Memory Work Video Collection (https://vimeo.com/memoryworkLA) and our IRLE Photo Collection at Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/uclairle/albums).

These projects highlighted the need to document late 20th century workplace and community organizing in Los Angeles. In 2022, we began building our own L.A. Workers Justice Archive at the IRLE building on the collections of UCLA faculty and staff who have worked with the IRLE, and veteran organizers with significant collections documenting overlooked episodes, organizations, and personalities in the struggle for labor and immigrant rights in Southern California.