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Century Blvd. Mass Civil Disobedience
Read more: Century Blvd. Mass Civil DisobedienceIn September 2006, UNITE HERE Local 11 organized what was likely the largest act of civil disobedience in Los Angeles History. Union members, religious leaders, elected officials, and community allies joined in a large march to protest low wages at corporate hotels along Century Blvd. outside of Los Angeles International Airport. The protest demonstrated the union’s ability to build a broad coalition in support of worker and immigrant right at a time when the union…
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“Day Without an Immigrant” March in Los Angeles
Read more: “Day Without an Immigrant” March in Los AngelesOn May 1, 2006 hundreds of thousands marched in Los Angeles and other large U.S. cities in support of immigrant rights. Called by many “A Day without an Immigrant,” the May Day protests were the culmination of months of planning in response to a punitive immigration bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 4437). Known as the “Sensenbrenner Bill,” the legislation would have introduced severe new criminal penalties on undocumented people for seemingly…
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Miguel Contreras: Warrior for Working Families
Read more: Miguel Contreras: Warrior for Working FamiliesAs 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. When Contreras was 17, his family attended a rally in support of Senator Robert Kennedy’s campaign for president where they met Cesar Chávez, leader of the United Farm Workers (UFW). Miguel and his father became active in the union and helped to lead strike in Fresno as part of the UFW’s…
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Victory at Last: Hotel workers reflect on contract victory
Read more: Victory at Last: Hotel workers reflect on contract victoryFor 14 months during 2004-2005, UNITE HERE Local 11 mounted an assertive 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. The union also mobilized community allies and the labor movement in boycotts and public demonstrations. In addition to wage and benefit demands, the union called for a contract that would…
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David Beats Goliath: How Inglewood defeated WalMart
Read more: David Beats Goliath: How Inglewood defeated WalMartIn 2004, WalMart announced its intentions to build a massive new superstore in Inglewood. The proposed developed was to be a supersized store that would be the size of 17 football fields, threatening to displace local small businesses and other grocery and retail stores in the area, many of which maintained union contracts with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). Working with religious leaders, including Rev. Jarvis Johnson and Rev. Altagracia Perez of CLUE…
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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 public demonstrations. The campaign in Los Angeles was part of a “Ten Cities” campaign mounted simultaneously in the U.S. and Canada to win higher standards…
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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 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.…
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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), proposing to slash employer contributions to their health care and pension benefits. When workers at Albertson’s stores went out on strike, stores owned by Ralphs…
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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 leaders to advocate for immigration reform. The mass mobilization drew its inspiration from the Black freedom struggle, when in 1961, Black and White civil rights…
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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), 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…
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