1996 – Memory Work | Los Angeles

December 17, 1996January 15, 2025

Holidays Action at City Hall

a crowd of religious leaders and workers gathered in Los Angeles City hall. On the right, a priest in his white collar and black suit holds a large sign reading "Stop Opposing the Living Wage Ordinance." On the left, a man stands wearing a costume, make up and a wig, posing while reading from a large book in his hands. He is dressed as the ghost of Jacob marley, wrapped in chains. In the background of the image, people hold signs reading "No Trabajo 40 Horas Para Quedarme...[illegible]" "Don't be a Scrooge, work deserves living wages," and other messages. — Lobbying for the Living Wage Ordinance, December, 1996

In 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 council member. On the day of the hearing, the Living Wage Coalition planned a theatrical action on the steps outside where staffers dressed as elves and community members carried handmade signs with holiday-themed messages. As Tom Hayden, then a candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, addressed the crowd, coalition-member Dave Clennon approached dressed head-to-toe in costume as the ghost of Jacob Marley from the Christmas Carol. He continued his slow march into the chamber, first addressing the press, and then the council, in character, warning them not to go the way of Scrooge by opposing the ordinance. The coalition’s efforts were ultimately successful: the ordinance passed a committee vote that day and was eventually voted into law in March 1997.

Pictured here: Clennon reads his address to the press outside of the City Council chambers with a group of workers and community members including (right to left): Reverend Joseph William Frazier, Rev. James Lawson Jr., Tom Hayden (then a candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles), and Epsicopal Bishop Chester Talton. The photo was one of 10 photographs by Linda A. Lotz featured in an exhibition called “Faith at Work” which was shown at several congregations and community spaces in Southern California in 1999.

JEAN MERL, “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.

Watch footage of Dan Clennon as Jacob Marley: https://vimeo.com/236469814

View more photos from the Living Wage Campaign: https://www.flickr.com/photos/uclairle/albums/72177720320809410/

View more photos from the Linda A. Lotz Photo Collection: https://www.flickr.com/photos/uclairle/albums/72177720320845755/

December 15, 1996January 15, 2025

Lobbying Day at City Council

Two rows of people stand facing the camera. In the front row are three women dressed in business attire, one of whom has stickers fixed to her blue and white blouse reading "Local 11" and "Do the Right Thing!" as well as a blue, red, and white Local 11 pin. Behind them stand three men, all with glasses. the man in the center, framed by two of the women in front of him, wears a priest's white collar and black sweater and a blazer. — Lobbying for the Living Wage ordinance at City Hall.

The 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 passage, they engaged local religious leaders inspiring the creation of CLUE, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. Many of CLUE’s founding members had been intimately involved in community organizing before—including civil rights activism, supporting central American refugees, opposition to nuclear arms, and Middle East peace—and wanted to build a new movement for economic justice rooted in theological values.

While CLUE’s members came from a variety of faith traditions, its model was based on the Quaker principle of accompaniment, a process of deep relationship building in which religious leaders spent time with workers to learn about their communities’ needs and brainstormed actions and strategies together and then accompanied those workers in supportive roles that would help move their campaigns forward. This photograph, taken by Lotz in 1996, provides an example of that accompaniment in practice. It depicts Rev. Richard Gillett (center back) and Rev. James Lawson Jr. (to his right), both founding members of CLUE standing with a group of workers outside of Los Angeles City Hall as they prepare to visit various City Council offices to encourage members to vote yes on the Living Wage Ordinance. The photo was one of 10 of Lotz’ photographs featured in an exhibition called “Faith at Work,” which was shown at several congregations and community spaces in Southern California before Lotz left Los Angeles to join the staff of the American Friends Service Committee International Programs in 1999.

Borsch, Frederick H, Beerman, Leonard, and Sano Roy, “Yes: It Makes Ethical and Economic Sense,” Los Angeles Times 30 Dec 1996: VCB11. https://www.proquest.com/hnplatimes1/historical-newspapers/yes-makes-ethical-economic-sense/docview/2047937342/sem-2?accountid=14512

View more photos from the Living Wage Campaign: https://www.flickr.com/photos/uclairle/albums/72177720320809410/

View more photos from the Linda A. Lotz Photo Collection: https://www.flickr.com/photos/uclairle/albums/72177720320845755/

December 2, 1996June 13, 2021

Don’t be a Scrooge: Ghost of Christmas Past visits L.A. City Council

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.

October 3, 1996November 30, 2021

Taking on the New Otani (1996)

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.