The Justice for Janitors campaign frequently used street theater to enliven their demonstrations and dramatize their cause. Among their most recognizable characters was a luchador named Mop Man, who in comics and performances defended janitors against abuses by the boss. Pictured here: Mop Man featured in a street theater performance at the headquarters of the Toyota Corp. in Torrance during Justice for Janitors’ campaign against ABM (American Building Maintenance) in 1992.

The campaign against Toyota also had an international dimension, as Local 399 linked their actions to the Federación y Asociaciones y Sindicatos Independientes de El Salvador (FEASIES), a union or urban workers in El Salvador. At one point, union members hung a sign outside a Toyota office building in Los Angeles that reads “Toyota Exploits the Worker in the U.S. and in El Salvador.”

Mop Man’s defense of the woman worker above can also be seen as a symbolic defense of all women immigrants who worked in the janitorial industry, many of whom came to the U.S. from El Salvador and other Central American countries seeking refuge from brutal civil wars.

From the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Service Workers West (USWW) records, circa 1935-2008 (LSC.1940), UCLA Library Special Collections.