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/

December 2, 1996June 13, 2021

Don’t be a Scrooge: Ghost of Christmas Past visits L.A. City Council

This video produced by the LA Alliance for a New Economy documents elements of the Living Wage campaign in Los Angeles. An actor dressed as the ghost of Jacob Marley from Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” haunts Los Angeles city hall warning the mayor and council members to consider the needs of low wage workers in December 1996. The council passed the ordinance covering workers for city contractors, and later voted to override the veto of Mayor Richard Riordan in April 1997.

October 3, 1996November 30, 2021

Taking on the New Otani (1996)

After a majority of workers at the New Otani Hotel in downtown Los Angeles supported unionization, hotel management refused to negotiate. Members of HERE Local 11 from other Los Angeles hotels pledged to support the New Otani workers with weekly demonstrations that escalated into long-lasting boycott. This 1996 video produced by HERE Local 11 documents the union’s strategy of targeting the Kajima Corporation, a large Japanese construction firm that was the major stakeholders in the New Otani, which led to alliances with Japanese trade unionists and the Japanese-American community in Los Angeles. An example of “corporate campaigns” that many unions mounted in the 1980s, the boycott campaign focused on Kajima’s role in mid-century Japanese military expansion, the privatization of public services in Japan during the 1980s, and the public development subsidies Los Angeles had provided to Kajima and its partners. The film ends with scenes of a large act of nonviolent civil disobedience in the streets outside the hotel.

December 7, 1995June 5, 2021

“Immigrant workers have always agreed with us philosophically”

In this excerpt of a 1995 speech on multi-union organizing strategy, David Sickler recounts the changing relationship between immigrant workers and organized labor in southern California and identifies some of the mistakes unions have made in their approach to immigrant workers. As the Regional Director for the AFL-CIO and head of the Los Angeles-Orange County Organizing Committee (LAOCOC), Sickler launched the California Immigrant Workers Association (CIWA) to organize undocumented workers into unions. This speech was delivered at the UCLA Labor Center.

Now I’m somebody who’s tried to organize immigrant workers in this town for 20 years. We’ve had some success here and there, but the movement’s never been able to prove to immigrant workers that it could deliver. That it could put its money where its mouth was.

Immigrant workers have always agreed with us philosophically. They know we’re advocates; they know we’re on their side. But they’ve been reluctant to get on board with us on a large scale because they’ve watched our failures. They know that some of our own unions in the past, when they’d go out and organize companies that had immigrant workers, if those workers went on strike and the employer replaced them with other immigrant workers, the union would call the INS and have the scab workers deported. The employer would then call the INS and have the strikers deported. That’s a great deal for immigrant workers. Welcome! Welcome to the institutions of the United States. But the labor movement changed its act in the 70s and the 80s, and we aren’t doing those kinds of things any more. Still, these workers just weren’t sure we could deliver. What happened with the signing of the Justice for Janitors contract sent shockwaves through the immigrant community in Southern California. It will never be the same, ever. Because about six months after the signing of that contract, 900 workers at American Racing Equipment in Rancho Domingas-and I’m telling you it’s 100 percent immigrant-staged a five-day walkout.

Now, I’m an organizer. I’m gonna tell you, 900 workers do not spontaneously walk out of a plant. There’s some leadership in there somewhere. There’s some organizing going on. You hear about hot-shop organizing? This was a super, super red-hot shop. These people organized themselves. And, of course, this is a classic example of how we as a movement respond. The day after 900 workers at American Racing Equipment go out on the street in a wildcat by themselves, 97 unions are out there with their jackets and their leaflets. “Join us; I’m with the Office Workers!” “Join us; I’m with CWA!” “Join us; I’m with the Steel workers!” “Join us; I’m with the IUE!” “Join us; we’re with UAW!”

A group of men raise their fists in celebration. The hold a sign in Spanish reading, "Union, Yes!"

“People wanted to change things so bad they organized themselves and went into the street.”

January 26, 1995May 26, 2021

On Any Day (1995)

The Tourism Industry Development Board (later known as the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, or LAANE) takes visiting journalists on a tour of four Los Angeles working class neighborhoods. LAANE’s partnership with HERE Local 11 aimed to change the public perception of Los Angeles and highlight the lives of tourism industry workers.