Tag: HERE Local 11

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We call each other sister unions

Rocio Sáenz recalls the spirit of solidarity among unions in the early 1990s

I come from Mexico City, and I had a union there. Even though, looking back at the unions in Mexico, they were often very corrupt, at the time I thought it was better than nothing. When I came to the U.S., I did a lot of different jobs. I was a domestic worker, I was a salesperson in a store, and stuff like that. But I wanted to be in a unionized workplace, and so I was trying to get a job through a local union. I didn’t know that there was such a thing as being an organizer, but I was making posters and banners for he ILGWU. A few months later, I met someone in Local 11 of HERE and they hired me. Even then, for a few months, I didn’t do organizing. I didn’t even know what it was. But then I got very involved.

I saw a different way to organize [in HERE]. To bring the trust back from the members, and to show that this was a different union. In any organizing drive, you have to show the workers that, yes, you can make a difference. Little victories that you have to deliver, in order to say there is a change. It has to be very, very specific and concrete. And you have to see things as industry-wide. When I was with HERE I remember organizing my first hotel, reorganizing it for the first time in then years. That was in Manhattan Beach, close to the airport. We did it through elections. Well we organized 300 workers, and that was not going to make a big difference for the industry. You have to look at the whole industry, instead of one single work site. You have to do it in a market competitive way. If you’re going to organize, it has to be like all of downtown L.A. has got to go union. It has to be a long-term plan It takes a lot of effort, a lot of persistence, and a lot of resources.

“You’ve got to keep the heat on in different ways, and you’ve got to be very unpredictable

— Rocio Sáenz

Continue reading “We call each other sister unions”
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Miguel Contreras: Warrior for Working Families

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.

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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.
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Expanding the Living Wage at LAX

A crowd of people carrying homemade signs reading "Living Wage 4 LAX Workers" and "$7.25x hr no nos enrrianecero per vivid major." The man in the middle of the crowd wears a red union t-shirt and lifts his sign over his head.
Expanding the Living Wage at LAX, 1997

As 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 the airlines at LAX maintained contracts with the City of Los Angeles in the form of leases, thanks to a change in city policies, most services at the airport were provided by companies subcontracted by the airlines, which meant that the Living Wage Ordinance did not apply to them. The change in employment relations at LAX meant that jobs once filled by unionized workers employed directly by the airlines became low-wage subcontracted ones, with LAX workers paid wages of as little as $5.15 per hour and with no sick days, holidays, or health benefits. Mayor Richard Riordan, who had initiated the changes that enabled the subcontracting schemes at the airport, made clear his intentions to prevent the ordinance’s expansion at LAX. 

SEIU Local 399, representing building trades workers in Los Angeles, had been working to unionize the subcontracted LAX workers for several years before the Living Wage campaign began. When it became clear that airport subcontractors would not abide by the new standards, Local 399 worked with other members of the Living Wage Coalition to organize massive demonstrations at the airport, including this one in October 1997. After months of pressure, the Los Angeles’ Bureau of Contract Administration ruled that the ordinance did apply to the airlines and their subcontractors, but the airlines still refused to comply. Just a few days later, 450 workers at LAX announced their intention to unionize with Local 399.   

JIM NEWTON, “Mayor Trying to Keep LAX Exempt From New Pay Law,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 2, 1997 https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-oct-02-mn-38322-story.html 

JIM NEWTON, “Agency Says ‘Living Wage’ Law Covers Airport Guards, Janitors; Labor: Ruling is a loss for Riordan, who seeks only voluntary compliance by airlines. Carriers vow to appeal.” Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1998.  https://www.proquest.com/latimes/docview/421279834/abstract/D912AFE4172245AEPQ/211

JIM NEWTON, “LAX Security Staff Begins Union Drive; Airport: Workers seek benefits of city’s ‘living wage’ law. They also say employers have threatened retaliation.” Los Angeles Times June 27, 1998. https://www.proquest.com/latimes/docview/421305299/abstract/8DC00FDF184D44F6PQ/1?sourcetype=Newspapers 

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/

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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/

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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/