In an earlier era, labor unions had only themselves to rely on when engaging in bitter and violent battles with management, the police and company goon squads. That period, from the 1880s to the 1930s, seems like ancient history in today’s high tech, cell phone and media driven labor movement. These days self-help solidarity is only evoked during national elections when Democrats call for total union commitment to the party.
Times are a-changing. The LA labor movement, led by the mercurial Maria Helena Durazo, the head of LA County Federation of Labor, recently reached far back into the legacy of labor organizing with a citywide solidarity action. Between April 15 and 17, labor did something extraordinary: the entire breadth of unions in LA County collectively and successfully conducted “The March from Hollywood to the Docks.”
Designed to anchor labor solidarity, the march was also a launch for two years of coming intense wage and workplace negotiations involving almost 50% of the regional union membership. It sent a signal to management, key business associations and conservative politicians that they haven’t seen anything yet in terms of what the Federation is formulating to defend workplace rights, achieve wage gains and defend workers across the entire county.
The actions along Century Boulevard at LAX, combined with marches in support of the screen writers guild earlier this year and other recent labor activities, not only represented a monumental upgrade in labor cooperation, strategy and tactics, it drew in major support elements of the community at large. That has not always been the case. Labor for large periods was a house divided, with differing factions battling each other over resources and unionization strategy.
Indeed, the new labor movement in LA has transitioned beyond its hard-won stature as the vanguard labor force in the nation, into simultaneously being a pragmatic and effective political and labor coalition. It is now in the process of consolidating union power and workplace protections throughout the region while at the same time still pushing to bring other workers into middle-class wages. Recent actions to organize “rent-a-cops,” those grossly underpaid office building security guards, and the battle to get the private sector to recognize home health care workers, are among the most recent union drives.
Fundamentally, labor in LA has restructured its strategy to link middle class wages with regional growth and to force management in general across the region to enter into a pragmatic acknowledgment that labor peace is part of doing business. The April march, a triumph for Durazo, represented a European-scale grasp of what it takes to be a central player in LA’s future economic development.
Once it was endorsed by the Federation, the April mobilization saw a number of unions often at odds with each other -or more bluntly, with their leader, Ms. Durazo - not wanting to be left on the sidelines. Any labor leader caught “watching the procession on the sidewalk” might have faced the wrath of the broader membership. The march through the heart of LA with tens of thousands of union members and people from community support networks, probably forced the LA County Business Federation, the LA Chamber of Commerce and the powerful Central City Association, to spend as much time monitoring the historic action as did the federation itself. Hotel interests, manufacturers, the building industry association and media corporations, having tangled with labor in the recent past, were likely also keen observers of the march.
Hollywood to the Docks solidarity came in a time of other potentially disruptive factors to the movement beyond the coming wage negotiations, which will alone stretch even a united movement thin. A key challenge for labor is whether a supportive Mark Ridley-Thomas will be elected to the powerful LA County Board of Supervisors in the June election. Another test is The City of LA, specifically opposition to Mayor Villaraigosa’s proposals to eliminate hundreds of jobs this year to pay for more cops. Finally, the national elections will signal whether labor gets a Democratic break in organizing drives and in larger public policy issues, including federal attitudes toward public employee union contract issues.
Whatever the future challenges, if the solidarity of Hollywood to the Docks holds, LA and its economy are heading into interesting times.
Written by: David Diaz
