Tag: Garment Workers
Historically garment workers in southern California has been represented by the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) which merged with the Hotel and Restaurant Employees (HERE) in 2003 to form UNITE HERE. In 2010, UNITE HERE split up with the garment worker sections affiliating with SEIU as Workers United. The hotel workers retained the name UNITE HERE.
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Boycott Forever 21
Read more: Boycott Forever 21In 2001, the coalition of organizations that had come together to support the Thai Workers in El Monte pooled their funds to establish the Garment Worker Center (GWC), as a legal clinic to support workers in filing wage claims under the new procedures established by AB633. They hired three young Asian American women to run the GWC, including Kimi Lee as director, a lawyer who had previously worked on wage theft cases at the ACLU.…
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May Day Los Angeles
Read more: May Day Los AngelesThe Multi-Ethnic Immigrant Workers Organizing Network (MIWON) formed in the year 2000 to support immigrant and undocumented immigrant labor rights across Los Angeles. The coalition brought together the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California (Institute for Popular Education of Southern California, IDEPSCA), Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA), the Pilipino Worker Center (PWC), and later the Garment Worker Center (GWC), among other organizations. Throughout its ten years, these…
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“They were willing to break with tradition”
Read more: “They were willing to break with tradition”Maria Elena Durazo recalls her first organizing job “On a trip to Mexico I met Cristina Vázquez and others from the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU or ILG, now Workers United-SEIU). And when we came back, Cristina referred me to the union for a job. I was already familiar with the work of the ILG at that point. It was the only union that was openly, aggressively organizing immigrants. They were doing things like…
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“We were the union they’d call”
Read more: “We were the union they’d call”Cristina Vázquez on the lessons of organizing immigrant workers in the 1970s In 1976, when I started working for the ILGWU, we had several thousand members, but for ten years they had hardly organized a shop. The union had not paid much attention to the situation in L.A. … but then the ILGWU decided to bring an organizing director from back east, Phil Russo. He was an organizer himself and he had a vision. He…
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Fighting for Joint Liability
Read more: Fighting for Joint LiabilityWhile many recognize the 1990s as a time of the labor movement’s resurgence in Los Angeles, for garment workers, it was a time of existential crisis. Facing new competition from imported goods, local manufacturers returned to old ways of doing business, hiring mainly undocumented immigrants, firing union activists, and severing long-standing contracts. A raid on an apartment complex in El Monte revealed how dangerous the exploitation had become: the CA Department of Industrial Relations found…
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Day of Conscience Against Sweatshops
Read more: Day of Conscience Against SweatshopsA 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’…
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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 $500 in annual sales. UNITE estimated that some 5000 workers in Los Angeles cut and sewed garments for Guess? ,…
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Somma waterbed workers win back pay
Read more: Somma waterbed workers win back payIn 1984, workers at the Somma waterbed factory in East Los Angeles began organizing fellow workers at neighborhood soccer games and decide to join the ILGWU. Most of the workers were immigrants from Mexico and Central America, many without documentation. Their employer was Angel Echevarria, a prominent figure in the Latino community and in Los Angeles politics. In January 1985, Somma workers voted 117-48 for a union. The company refused to negotiate with the workers…
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The “Student-Industrial Movement” of the 1920s
Read more: The “Student-Industrial Movement” of the 1920sStudent-Industrial Movement Proves Worth I first became acquainted with the idea of the student-industrial movement in 1922 at a weekend party conducted by the Young Women’s Christian Association. At that time I was not much impressed with its importance, and wished I would not be invited again; however, since then I have learned to appreciate the value of this movement. When students actually go into industry, not for financial help only, but for the purpose…