Tag: GWC

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May Day Los Angeles, 2003

Black and white image taken at a May Day march. Two garment workers are carrying a large banner from the Garment Workers Center, the only word fully visible is "Trabajador." other people in the image are carrying picket signs, one that says "immigrant bashing" that is crossed over. and another is shaped like a dove and reads "no war"

The 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 groups committed themselves “to the struggle for dignity, justice, and the human rights of immigrant workers and all peoples,” through sharing strategies and information, fostering interethnic and interracial solidarity, and promoting political consciousness and civic engagement among low-wage workers in Los Angeles.

MIWON campaigned for the passage of the “Immigrant Workers Bill of Human Rights” at the Los Angeles City Council in 2001, and to expand undocumented immigrants’ access to drivers’ licenses and government-issued identification. But perhaps their most enduring tactic was their annual commemoration of May Day (International Workers Day), marches that promoted solidarity among multiethnic and immigrant workers in Los Angeles and beyond. 

Pictured here: a scene from MIWON’s May Day march in 2003, where protestors connected “immigrant bashing” in Los Angeles and the United States government’s invasion of Iraq weeks earlier. 

View more images from the 2003 May Day march here.

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Boycott Forever 21

Image from a demonstration on the Santa Monica 3rd street promenade. Two protestors hold a larger banner reading "Boycott" with Christmas holiday symbols. Behind them looms a large, handmade puppet being held up by other protestors. On the right side of the march, a woman directing the protestors wears an orange safety vest.

In 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. But soon after they opened, the GWC’s small organizing staff began to notice that many of the workers seeking their support were coming from the same shops. And some additional research revealed that those shops were producing garments for the same company: fast fashion retailer Forever 21.  

The GWC launched its multi-pronged campaign against Forever 21 in 2001. With support from the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, they filed a lawsuit on behalf of thirty-three workers alleging wage theft and dangerous working conditions. They organized picket lines at Forever 21’s subcontractors across the city and at its various retail stores, and even demonstrations outside the homes of the company’s owners. And they organized a nationwide boycott campaign calling on their fellow workers and allies to join through loud and colorful public demonstrations like this one. Pictured here: María Pineda, one of the thirty-three workers who filed the lawsuit, and GWC Director Kimi Lee (in the orange vest). 

Check out more photos from the GWC’s campaign against Forever 21 here.

Watch the 2007 documentary about the Forever 21 campaign, Made in L.A. at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juvhOO2RdgA