Category: Photos
Photographs from the UCLA Library, community archives, and the project team.
-
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 security guards who worked in the beachfront hotel district to $10.69 an hour and to require their employers to provide health insurance. As the City…
-
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 HERE Local 11 refused to sign a new contract until USC stopped contracting work out to non-union companies. USC retaliated by seeking an injunction to…
-
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…
-
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’…
-
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 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…
-
Hold the Line Caravan
Read more: Hold the Line CaravanAs the Living Wage Coalition expanded its outreach, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors announced plans to restrict eligibility to, and cut benefits for, its General Relief (or “welfare”) program in accordance with the passage of the federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (better known as “welfare reform”) of 1996. Coalition members, including CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice), the Community Coalition, the Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness, and ACORN…
-
Living Wage Holidays Action at City Hall
Read more: Living Wage Holidays Action at City HallIn 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…
-
Lobbying Day At City Council
Read more: Lobbying Day At City CouncilThe 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…
-
USC’s Workers Fight Back
Read more: USC’s Workers Fight BackIn August 1995, several union janitors working at USC were fired and replaced by non-union subcontractors with Service Master, launching a years-long struggle among service workers at USC. The campaign at USC brought together two unions and the forefront of the local labor movement: the Justice for Janitors (SEIU Local 399) campaign and HERE Local 11, which represented food service workers also treated by USC’s subcontracting practices. Both unions had prioritized organizing immigrant workers in…
-
Justice for Janitors Pasadena Convention
Read more: Justice for Janitors Pasadena ConventionOn Dec. 10, 1994, Local 399 hosted a statewide convention in Pasadena, where they launched their “April One” (“One Industry, One Union, One Contract”) campaign. The campaign took its name from the expiration date of their existing contract and announced the Justice for Janitors campaign’s intention to expand their organizing across L.A. county. Just a few months later, they waged a city-wide strike and won a first of its kind contract covering janitorial workers in…