Author: Caroline Luce
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Expanding the Living Wage at LAX
Read more: Expanding the Living Wage at LAXAs written, the Los Angeles Living Wage Ordinance only applied to large companies with contracts with the Los Angeles city government, exempting some 2000-3000 low-wage workers at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), including baggage handlers, wheelchair runners, security officers, and janitorial staff. Their exclusion from the ordinance was based on a legal technicality: while […]
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Hold the Line Caravan
Read more: Hold the Line CaravanAs the Living Wage Coalition expanded its outreach, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors announced plans to restrict eligibility to, and cut benefits for, its General Relief (or “welfare”) program in accordance with the passage of the federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (better known as “welfare reform”) of 1996. Coalition members, including […]
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Living Wage Holidays Action at City Hall
Read more: Living Wage Holidays Action at City HallIn 1996, as the Los Angeles City Council’s holiday recess approached, members of the Living Wage coalition organized a Christmas-themed action at the last committee hearing on the ordinance. In the preceding weeks, they had sent delegations of workers to council offices and sent heartfelt Thanksgiving messages written by workers and their families to each […]
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Lobbying Day At City Council
Read more: Lobbying Day At City CouncilThe Living Wage was the first major campaign of LAANE (Los Angeles Alliance for the New Economy, then known at the Tourism Industry Development Council), who helped to conceive of and craft the ordinance in close collaboration with HERE Local 11 (representing hospitality workers) and SEIU Local 399 (representing building services workers). To ensure its […]
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Guess? Who Pockets the Difference
Read more: Guess? Who Pockets the DifferenceIn 1995, UNITE! (Union of Needle Trades and Industrial Textile Employees, formed after a merger of the ILGWU and ACTWU) launched a campaign against Guess? Jeans, the largest apparel manufacturer in Los Angeles. Known for its distinctive stone-washed jeans, Guess? operated its own retail stores and made down-market lines sold at department stores, averaging over […]
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Alto Prop 187
Read more: Alto Prop 187On May 28, 1994, Justice for Janitors organized a “March and Rally for the Respect and Dignity of Immigrant Rights” in Boyle Heights. The march coincided with the announcement that an extreme anti-immigrant proposition, Prop 187, would appear on the November ballot. Members gathered to defend immigrants’ “right to live in peace with justice!” The […]
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“Janitors Lash Out at Rebuild L.A. in Rally”
Read more: “Janitors Lash Out at Rebuild L.A. in Rally”In the wake of the 1992 Uprising, the Justice for Janitors campaign joined a coalition of community organizations calling for more significant public reinvestment in the communities most impacted by the destruction of their neighborhoods. In December, they held a rally at the offices of ReBuild LA, a nonprofit formed to coordinate the city’s rebuilding […]
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APALA Founding Convention
Read more: APALA Founding ConventionThe founding convention of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) held in Washington D.C. in May of 1992. The organization’s first president, Kent Wong, had proposed the idea of establishing a national organization of AAPI trade unionists years earlier to AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland with working as a staff attorney for the SEIU in […]
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Mop Man at Toyota
Read more: Mop Man at ToyotaThe 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. […]
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“Springsteen Strikes a Chord With Laid-off Steelworkers”
Read more: “Springsteen Strikes a Chord With Laid-off Steelworkers”In November 1984, Bruce Springsteen made an unusual stop on his “Born in the U.S.A.” tour: a Food Bank near a shuttered steel mill in Maywood, CA. The Food Bank had been established after the Bethlehem Steel Corporation shuttered its mill there in 1982, resulting in job losses for thousands of workers represented by United […]