Tag: ILGWU
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“We call each other sister unions”
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Read more: “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…
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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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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 campaign to prevent the passage of Proposition 187 marked an important moment of convergence for the labor movement and the…
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No Hay Paz Sin Justicia
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Read more: No Hay Paz Sin JusticiaIn April 1992, the four white LAPD officers caught on video assaulting Rodney King were acquitted on all but one of the charges against them, unleashing a wave of anger and unrest known today as the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising (commonly referred to as the L.A. Riots). The destruction and violence that followed caused about $1 billion in property damage that impacted working-class communities most acutely. In the wake of the unrest, local unions, religious…
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Jobs with Peace
Read more: Jobs with PeaceHow can progressive political movements win power in geographically expansive and multiracial cities like Los Angeles? The answer, according to the Los Angeles Jobs with Peace campaign was “coalition architecture,” an intentional strategy to link the interests of organized labor with the peace movement, the women’s movement, and the African American civil rights movement through the shared goal of creating good jobs for all by redirecting money from military to domestic spending. In 1984 and…
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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…