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Hotel Workers Civil Disobedience
Read more: Hotel Workers Civil DisobedienceIn 2004, UNITE-HERE Local 11 launched a campaign to win a contract with employers represented by the Los Angeles Hotel Employers Council. Building on the union’s rank-and-file strategy, hotel workers organized repeated delegations to articulate their demands to hotel management and mobilized community allies and the labor movement in disruptive…
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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…
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Grocery Workers Justice Pilgrimage
Read more: Grocery Workers Justice PilgrimageIn the fall of 2003, grocery workers at Albertson’s stores in Southern California went on strike. Arguing that they faced increased competition from Wal-Mart, who was expanding their operations in California, the supermarket chains had taken a hard line in their negotiations with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW),…
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Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride
Read more: Immigrant Workers Freedom RideIn September 2003, immigrant workers from across the country joined a mass mobilization called the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride. For twelve days, delegations from 10 cities travelled on buses across the country, making nearly 100 stops along the way, including in Washington D.C. where the Freedom Riders met with Congressional…
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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),…
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Santa Monica Living Wage – Journey For Justice
Read more: Santa Monica Living Wage – Journey For JusticeIn 1999, hospitality workers and their allies formed a new coalition to expand Los Angeles’ living wage ordinance to neighboring Santa Monica. Calling themselves SMART (Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism), they advanced a proposal to increase the minimum wage for the estimated 3,000 housekeepers, valet drivers, restaurant workers, and…
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Fast for USC Workers
Read more: Fast for USC WorkersHERE Local 11’s campaign at USC began in 1996, when USC began contracting out janitorial and food service work on campus, threatening the good wages and benefits (including mortgage and tuition programs) of dozens of workers. In solidarity with their colleagues from SEIU Local 399 (Justice for Janitors), members of…
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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…
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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…
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Expanding the Living Wage at LAX
Read more: Expanding the Living Wage at LAXAs 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…