Dolores Huerta, Jesse Jackson support USC workers.
In 1999, UNITE HERE leader Maria Elena Durazo led workers, clergy, and activists in a fast to protest the failure of the University of Southern California (USC) to negotiate with their workers. In an editorial printed in the Los Angeles Times, Durazo compared the fast to those of United Farm Worker leader Cesar Chavez. “How could I ask others to work harder in the labor movement, to take even greater risks for their children and their co-workers, unless I was willing to fast side by side with them?” she wrote in explanation of the fast.
Durazo, Maria Elena. “Commentary; PERSPECTIVE ON LABOR; Fasting to Right Worker Injustices; They’re Following in Chavez’s Footsteps to Call Attention to Conditions and Pay at USC and Elsewhere.: [Home Edition].” Los Angeles Times, May 25, 1999, sec. Metro; PART- B; Op Ed Desk. http://search.proquest.com/latimes/docview/421383380/abstract/83E4E2B59F3C4A4APQ/17.
The Los Angeles Living Wage Coalition explains the fight to extend the city’s living wage ordinance to workers at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). This 1998 production features interviews with Madeline Janis-Aparicio (LAANE) and Jackie Goldberg (L.A. City Counsel) as well as scenes of Mike Garcia leading a protest by SEIU Local 1877 at LAX. Rank-and-file workers explain the struggle of living in L.A. while earning low wages.
Cedillo, Gilbert. “All Should Feel Pain of Reform; Welfare: Business Must Pay Living Wages and Provide Health Benefits for All Workers.: [Home Edition].” Los Angeles Times (Pre-1997 Fulltext); Los Angeles, Calif., August 19, 1996, sec. Metro; PART-B; Op Ed Desk. http://search.proquest.com/latimes/docview/293362291/abstract/E3F4F4E3BCAF413CPQ/1.
Cardenas, Jose. “She’s Working Overtime for L.A.’s Living Wage Battle; Success Made Madeline Janis-Aparicio Labor’s Alter Ego. But Can She Do It Again in Santa Monica?: [Home Edition].” Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif., August 21, 2000, sec. Southern California Living; PART- E; PART-; View Desk. http://search.proquest.com/latimes/docview/421550115/abstract/1B2E1DCAC8744E85PQ/2.
As leader of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Miguel Contreras (1952-2005) reshaped LA’s unions into a powerful political, economic, and social force. The child of farm workers, Contreras was an organizer for the United Farm Workers union (UFW), and later the Hotel and Restaurant Employees union (HERE). He led the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor from 1996 until is death in 2005. The LA Alliance for a New Economy produced this video documenting Contreras’s life story and his impact on the city’s labor movement and working people.
Milkman, Ruth, Kent Wong, and Miguel Contreras. “L.A. Confidential: An Interview with Miguel Contreras.” New Labor Forum, no. 10 (2002): 52–61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40342341.
This video produced by the LA Alliance for a New Economy documents elements of the Living Wage campaign in Los Angeles. An actor dressed as the ghost of Jacob Marley from Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” haunts Los Angeles city hall warning the mayor and council members to consider the needs of low wage workers in December 1996. The council passed the ordinance covering workers for city contractors, and later voted to override the veto of Mayor Richard Riordan in April 1997.
WRITER, JEAN MERL TIMES STAFF. “L.A. Council OKs ‘Living Wage’ Law for City Contracts: Labor: With Enough Votes to Override Promised Riordan Veto, Panel Approves Minimum Pay for Lowest-Level Workers.” Los Angeles Times (1996-Current); Los Angeles, Calif, March 19, 1997, sec. Orange County. https://search.proquest.com/hnplatimes/docview/2109359639/abstract/17BA1ABB1F7142F2PQ/101.
After a majority of workers at the New Otani Hotel in downtown Los Angeles supported unionization, hotel management refused to negotiate. Members of HERE Local 11 from other Los Angeles hotels pledged to support the New Otani workers with weekly demonstrations that escalated into long-lasting boycott. This 1996 video produced by HERE Local 11 documents the union’s strategy of targeting the Kajima Corporation, a large Japanese construction firm that was the major stakeholders in the New Otani, which led to alliances with Japanese trade unionists and the Japanese-American community in Los Angeles. An example of “corporate campaigns” that many unions mounted in the 1980s, the boycott campaign focused on Kajima’s role in mid-century Japanese military expansion, the privatization of public services in Japan during the 1980s, and the public development subsidies Los Angeles had provided to Kajima and its partners. The film ends with scenes of a large act of nonviolent civil disobedience in the streets outside the hotel.
Olivo, Antonio. “Hotel Workers, Riot Police Clash During Protest; Demonstration: Union Decries Conditions at New Otani. LAPD Responds in a Show of Force That Some See as a Convention Preview.: [Home Edition].” Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif., August 4, 2000, sec. Metro; PART- B; PART-; Metro Desk. http://search.proquest.com/latimes/docview/421672605/abstract/5058E2A1E6C543DBPQ/17.
