The Brief

Labor activity has surged in Los Angeles this year, with everyone from screenwriters to boba shop workers and school bus drivers racking up victories.

But it’s another story in Koreatown, where grocery store workers at the Hannam Chain supermarket have been locked in a year-long-plus battle with their powerful employer over unionization.

The supermarket’s owner, Kee Whan Ha, is one of Koreatown’s most politically-connected developers and civic leaders. Ha famously took up arms to defend the supermarket on Olympic Boulevard during the unrest of 1992.

Today he’s facing a coalition of employees — Korean and Latino immigrants who’ve overcome the language barriers among them to fight for better wages and workplace conditions that they say were particularly egregious during the pandemic.

“They don't care about us,” Hannam cashier Sun Ki Sim said of the company, which includes six locations. “They only care about the money.”

If Sim and other workers could have it their way, the Hannam Koreatown location could become the first Korean grocery in the country to unionize.

But the workers’ dream of a union anytime soon looks to be dimming.

A final vote is pending

Earlier this month, the National Labor Relations Board counted 65 votes in a union election. More employees voted against a union than for it — by a margin of almost 2 to 1. A final tally is pending, as both sides challenge ballots.

Union supporters claim Hannam ran an aggressive anti-union campaign. Ha did not respond to a request for an interview sent through his lawyer at Barnes & Thornburg, who also did not give comment for this story. A manager for the store declined comment, referring questions to the lawyer.

The L.A. office of the labor board is giving both parties until Wednesday to provide their positions on the challenges, according to an NLRB spokesperson.

Union supporters say they're not standing down

Union supporters at Hannam still hold out hope the final vote will go their way, but if it doesn’t, they’re not giving up on a union.

“Even though the progress is very, very slow, I have to keep here and then stand here,” Sim said.

Sun Ki Sim is a cashier at Hannam who supports unionization.

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Sim, who has worked at the store for four and a half years, said she realized workers needed a union during the pandemic when they were not given help with protective equipment or social distancing. As more co-workers caught COVID, Sim had a panic attack and called in sick. She said upon her return, a manager chastised her for missing work.

The message from management, Sim said, was “we have to protect the company. So you have to be here.”

Another employee, Antonia Gonzalez, said that over more than five years of working at Hannam, she would complain of sanitation problems such as a cockroach infestation in the kitchen where she worked. Management, she said, threatened to shut down the kitchen and eliminate jobs if health inspectors ever learned about the bugs.

Instead, the kitchen jobs were outsourced, and Hernandez said she was made a cashier six months ago.

How early momentum was dashed

Union organizers describe early momentum for the unionization effort, buoyed by support from labor-backing politicians like L.A. city council members Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martinez.

But any majority support was broken down by pressure tactics from Hannam and its lawyers over the last year, said José Roberto Hernández, president of the California Restaurant & Retail Workers Union, which has been organizing the Hannam workers.

“They just hire an anti-union law firm with anti-union dissuaders, so that they can start dividing the workforce, scaring some of the workers, promoting some of the other workers, bribing some of the other workers with $1 wage increase here and there,” Hernández said.

Hannam cashier Antonia Gonzalez said regardless of what the outcome of the union election is, she and other workers will keep advocating for worker rights.

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Both sides have been sparring vigorously over the last year which has protracted the union battle. The union election at Hannam actually took place Aug. 3 in a tent outside the store — nearly three months ago. But the labor board impounded the ballots, as it investigated the grocer’s charge that union organizers had used gift cards and pressure by supervisors to build support among workers.

The labor relations board dismissed the complaint, citing “insufficient evidence," and held the vote count earlier this month, during which 22 ballots were challenged.

Efforts to organize Korean BBQ and boba 

Before hitting an impasse with Hannam, California Restaurant & Retail Workers Union, or CRRWU, had notched major victories at other high-profile businesses founded by Asian Americans.

In 2021, workers at the famed Genwa chain, which has three locations in L.A., voted to form a union in what is seen as a first in the country for Korean BBQ restaurants. A contract ratified last year provides overtime pay and retirement accounts to employees, the union said.

Last month, workers at six L.A. County locations of Boba Guys, based in San Francisco, won their bid to unionize in what is also believed to be a first among boba shops in the U.S.

A screenshot of the Genwa Korean BBQ location in Mid-Wilshire.

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For the last several years, CRRWU has been working with Southern California employees of the Korean air purifier manufacturer Coway.

Worker support for the union is high, organizers say, but they are running into strong resistance from the employer, which is represented by the same law firm that works with Hannam.

Hannam owner is a powerful voice in Koreatown 

Union supporters at Hannam have a notoriously tough adversary in their employer, Kee Whan Ha.

During the civil unrest of 1992, Ha grew angry that the Korean-language broadcaster was not telling listeners to defend their businesses. He recounted to NPR in 2012 how he went to the radio station.

“So I know the owner of that Radio Korea, so I brought my handgun and I put it on the table. I told him that we established Koreatown,” Ha said.

As Koreatown was rebuilt, Ha, a UCLA-trained electrical engineer, went on to become one of its biggest developers and landlords. And he expanded his supermarket chain to five locations in Southern California and one in New Jersey, while becoming politically connected at City Hall.

“We know that we cannot survive ourself,” Ha said in the NPR interview. “We have to have a relationship with other communities, as well as the politics, all these things.”

Ha's profile grew as he led the Korean American Federation of Los Angeles and Los Angeles Korean Chamber of Commerce. In 2013, the City Council named an intersection in Koreatown after him: "Dr. Kee Whan Ha Square.”

Why the stakes are high

It would be no small thing if Ha’s store were the first Korean grocery in the country to be unionized.

“I think it will encourage other ethnic supermarkets to organize as well,” said Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center.

Wong said L.A. is a major hub for markets that cater to Latino and Asian communities.

“And yet their wages and working conditions are far inferior to those that are enjoyed by the unionized major chains, such as the Ralphs and Vons and Albertsons,” Wong said.

Hannam is not the first Koreatown grocery to face a unionization drive. Twenty years ago, the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance tried to organize the Assi market but was unsuccessful.

In Southern California’s world of ethnic supermarkets, only employees at El Super locations have collective bargaining agreements through representation by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

Local 770 represents a majority of approximately 600 El Super workers, employed across seven stores. A spokesperson for the chapter said workers were able to secure fair wages and recognition of sick leave and seniority.

Hannam workers and their supporters protest owner Kee Whan Ha (in the blue tie) at the 2023 World Korean Business Convention held in Anaheim this month.

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Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance

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Despite concerns of retaliation for their organizing, union supporters at Hannam have continued to confront Ha.

Earlier this month, the workers and their supporters went to the 2023 World Korean Business Convention in Anaheim to protest the company’s response to their unionization effort and to face Ha, who was the convention’s chair.

As Ha posed for group photos with other business leaders, Hannam Chain workers and their supporters lined up behind them and held up fliers with Ha’s face printed on them, demanding he meet with workers.

Cashier Sun Ki Sim said if she ever got to sit down with Ha, she would tell him that he “is not the only one who makes this business a success.”

Voters on Saturday rejected a measure that would have weakened California’s landmark environmental law by fast-tracking reviews for some projects.

With about 76% of votes counted, voters rejected Prop. 45 by 55.7% to 44.3%.

The vote maintains the status quo under the state’s Environmental Quality Act, which since 1970 has required public agencies to review project developments that could have harmful environmental impacts, and mitigate those harms.

“Californians have sent a clear message to corporate developers, utilities and data center builders that they will not stand for a broad assault at the ballot box on state law protecting our air, water and natural resources,” No on 45’s Woody Little said. “We were outspent but not outgunned.”

Supporters had said the changes would reduce building costs. The California Chamber of Commerce sponsored Proposition 45, the Building an Affordable California Act, which would limit the length of environmental reviews for projects deemed “essential” to 365 business days and require courts to resolve litigation in 270 calendar days. Those projects include housing, water, broadband and transit developments.

Proponents said the savings from building more quickly would pass to consumers and spent $41 million campaigning for the measure. The Building a Better California political action committee was the largest donor, giving $10 million to the campaign. The organization is funded partly by current and former Google executives Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt. Two of the largest investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric Company and Southern California Edison, together donated $4.4 million.

Environmental groups argued the measure would go too far in weakening a law meant to protect people from environmental harms. Opponents, including a coalition of environmental, health and union organizations, spent $30 million trying to stop it. Wendy Schmidt, a Democratic philanthropist, was the largest donor, giving $10 million to the campaign. The political action committee Clean and Healthy California Sponsored by Environmental Organizations contributed $7 million.

The California Democratic Party opposed the measure. The California Republican Party supported it, while county Republican groups were split.

Deborah Sivas, an environmental law professor at Stanford University, said Prop. 45 would radically change current law. It would shift power “away from local governments and to developers by giving them some new tools … and limiting what courts can do in terms of reviewing decisions that agencies and local governments make,” she said.

CEQA and housing

California’s environmental review law, signed in 1970, requires agencies to assess the environmental impacts of developments and help mitigate them.

Over decades, developers have raised concerns about the process, arguing litigation and bureaucracy slow down construction.

State legislators have tried to fix the problem by passing laws that exempt or streamline certain projects from environmental review. In 2025, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed laws that exempt many urban housing projects from the full review process.

But some supporters of Prop. 45, including the California Building Industry Association and the California Council for Affordable Housing, say those changes don’t go far enough.

“It’s an important piece of the puzzle, but (that type of housing) does not produce quickly or at scale,” said Jennifer Hernandez, an attorney who helped write the measure. “We need quicker, at scale, affordable housing.”

Supporters say Prop. 45 would help California redevelop large, unused sites like malls and parking lots into housing and make it easier to build away from urban areas.

Pro-housing groups, public agencies divided 

Pro-housing and local government groups usually support CEQA reform, but Prop. 45 has divided many of them.

Housing advocates in the Bay Area, including East Bay for Everyone and the Greenbelt Alliance, oppose the measure. Other Yes in My Backyard groups are neutral, including Abundant Housing Los Angeles and both California YIMBY and YIMBY Action — the movement’s two flagship advocacy groups.

The split between pro-housing groups lies in whether California should keep building outward onto undeveloped land or promote construction in urban centers. Some supporters, including Oakland Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, have said the state needs all types of housing.

Others say building away from urban centers would make it harder to address climate change.

“We believe we can (and must) solve the housing and climate crises simultaneously. That means building communities with denser housing and alternatives to automobile dependence,” wrote Max Dubler of California YIMBY in a blog post explaining the group’s neutral stance on Prop. 45.

Public agencies and local governments that could benefit from the building rules were also divided.

The California Municipal Utilities Association opposes the measure. But most other groups representing local governments, including the League of California Cities and California State Association of Counties, remained neutral.

Financial impacts for Prop. 45

Prop. 45 supporters argued that streamlining development would make life more affordable for Californians, but the long-term financial benefits are unclear.

An analysis by Blue Sky Consulting Group, commissioned by the California Chamber of Commerce, estimated the measure would produce $1.5 billion in savings and additional revenues for public agencies over 10 years that would reduce overall housing costs.

But the measure would initially cost local governments and public agencies more as they adjust to the measure’s rules, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, a nonpartisan adviser to the Legislature.

Democrats have done well in recent elections when they win young voters by a margin of at least 20 points. On Tuesday, they carried Gen Z — those under 30 — by nearly 50 points, according to exit polling.

It's a stunning shift from 2024, when the party lost critical ground with young people. Long seen as a part of the Democratic base, voters under 30 shifted right towards Donald Trump, motivated by his pledge to better their economic prospects.

But this week, the youngest generation of voters issued a strong rebuke of Republicans, taking another chance on Democrats and their change-focused message at a moment when many of them feel as though the American Dream is out of reach.

How young voters powered Democrats to victory 

Americans ages 18-29 have a history of turning out at lower rates than older voters, and this year was no exception. Gen Z made up 11% of the total vote on Tuesday.

However, where young Americans may have made the greatest difference is on the margins in House and Senate races where Democrats flipped seats.

The Texas Senate race is a key example. Democrat James Talarico won the state by 12 percentage points; however, when looking at just Gen Z, he won it by 60 points.

Explaining the massive shift from 2024

When assessing gains more broadly, Democrats argue the party's strong slate of candidates helped drum up increased enthusiasm.

But another motivating factor remains strong opposition to Trump. Throughout his second term, Gen Z increasingly soured on the president, with some arguing he failed to make good on a number of core campaign promises — from pledging to lower prices and repeatedly vowing "no new wars," to calling for a crackdown on federal corruption and the release of the Epstein files.

Much of that disappointment was reflected in exit polling. Economic issues were the top concern for a plurality of 18- to 29-year-olds, at 43%, and these voters expressed broad frustrations with Trump's handling of the issue. More than eight in 10 said that Trump's policies have worsened economic conditions, with similar shares opposing his tariff strategy and the decision to go to war with Iran.

The young voters Trump lost

Early analysis from CIRCLE indicates that 15% of young people who backed Trump in 2024 voted for a Democratic House candidate in this year's midterms.

Democrats made gains with some young voters who backed Trump two years ago, including white men and Latino men, two blocs that narrowly voted Republican in 2024 and then voted blue on Tuesday by double digits. Democratic candidates also narrowed the margins with young rural voters and people without college degrees.  

Some of those gains may have been helped by young Trump voters who chose to sit this election out, but it's unclear how many of them there were.

How the election results broke down by age

The midterm results underscore how neither of the two major parties owns Gen Z, according to John Della Volpe, a left-leaning pollster who's extensively studied the politics of young Americans.

"The cohort of younger people in this cycle had a different set of experiences than the cohort of people two years ago, or four years before that," he said. "Every candidate, every party has to earn their votes."

Della Volpe, who runs the Harvard Youth Poll, notes that in the latest survey, released in October, there was a sizable enthusiasm gap between young Democrat and young Republican respondents. While half of Democrats said they definitely planned to vote, just a third of Republicans and less than a quarter of Independents said the same.

"I also think we shouldn't overread what's happened," he added. "Clearly a significant historic rebuke on the party in office — that's obvious — however, I think we need to more fully, kind of understand, the contour of the electorate, who showed up and who didn't show up."

By 2028, Gen Z and millennial voters will make up more than half of the electorate, a demographic shift with huge implications for Democrats and the GOP.

"Young adults can make a difference," said Elizabeth Matto, who serves as the director of the Center for Youth Political Participation at Rutgers University.

"They do care about politics. They can sway the outcome of elections. And they're a voting bloc worth paying attention to."
Copyright 2026 NPR

The morning after Tuesday's midterms was gloomy and rainy in Minneapolis, but people still gathered at the place where Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a VA nurse and U.S. citizen, last January. All week, community members have come here to place their "I Voted" stickers at the memorial.

Nicki Adams, who dated Pretti and was his close friend for nearly 17 years, watched quietly as a woman added her sticker to a street lamp completely covered in the red decals.

"I wanted to see all the stickers. I just wanted to be here," she says. "It just means a lot to me. I think it would mean a lot to Alex, too."

A few blocks away, people left their stickers where an ICE officer killed Renee Good, a mom of three and a U.S. citizen, just a few weeks before Pretti's death. In Houston, they left them where an ICE officer killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father of three and a Mexican immigrant, in July.

Adams says these stickers, and the election results this week, send a clear message to Congress: "You work for us, and please carry on these values that we care about … We want to be seen and heard and taken care of and have our neighbors taken care of."

The deaths of Pretti and Good during the ICE surge in Minneapolis marked a pivotal moment for the country, sparking intense public backlash to President Trump's aggressive deportation efforts. But federal law enforcement officials have given little indication they're progressing in investigating their deaths, or the deaths of at least seven other people killed by federal immigration agents since Trump took office again last year. DHS did not respond to an NPR request for the status of those investigations.

Now, after Democrats' sweeping wins this week, their deaths at the hands of immigration agents will likely be the targets of renewed investigations. With a majority in Congress, Democrats can issue subpoenas to the major players in Trump's mass deportation plan, compelling them to testify under oath before the legislature.

That could include White House Border Czar Tom Homan, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, former Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, and White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, among others.

Congress can also demand internal documents, like use-of-force reports.

"They can dissect these individual shootings, and really unravel the story of what happened," says Naureen Shah, who leads the ACLU's immigration policy work.

Democrats have already held shadow hearings on the ICE shootings, during which they've called in family members and witnesses to testify.

But Shah says now Congress can ask key questions of top decision makers: What orders were given to immigration officers in the field? What was training like for these officers?

Who made the decision to paint Good and Pretti as threats, including calling Pretti a "would-be assassin" and a domestic terrorist, when video showed otherwise?

"It's like we can turn the faucet on and actually find out so much more," Shah says. "There's an aspect of this that is really about a kind of reckoning with how it's possible that things that seemed unthinkable could happen on American streets. How do you have that reckoning if you don't actually have the ability to force people to explain themselves?"

Democratic leaders have already said that's the plan.

Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is expected to lead the House Judiciary Committee, told NPR in a statement that Congress will use "every tool" at its disposal to investigate ICE and that it is time for the agency to "start answering to the American people."

California Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, expected to lead the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, vowed to take on DHS and ICE abuses in a two-word statement: "Lawyer Up."

Mississippi Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, expected to lead the House Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter on Wednesday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, demanding the agency "comply with all document preservation requirements."

Illinois Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez wrote on social media that Noem, Miller, Homan, Bovino and Mullin should "clear" their schedules.

In response to that, DHS general counsel James Percival said Democrats are "more interested in political shenanigans than in governing" but said the agency is prepared to "deal with this nonsense."

There are key limitations to what Democrats in Congress can do with their majority when it comes to ICE accountability, says Rachel Moran, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.

Major changes, like clawing back funding for the agency, would require a veto-proof majority, something the Democrats don't have.

"You still have a president who has shown a complete lack of interest in accountability for federal agents and in fact, a great deal of knee jerk defensiveness about their conduct," Moran says.

In a statement, a White House spokesperson told NPR "if Democrats choose to pursue sham investigations and radical left policies, they are choosing to work against the American people."

Democrats, the statement added, "should be reminded that we still control the federal government and all of its powers."

But that's not true. Congress has its own powers, one of them being the ability to compel testimony. Moran says a deeper probe into the shootings could still serve important purposes, like making evidence available for states to use in their own criminal investigations.

Minnesota officials, for instance, have been fighting with the federal government to get evidence related to the Pretti and Good killings.

Brent Ganger, Renee Good's brother, says learning more information about his sister's death will be hard to hear, "but I think it's also super important for us to understand what happened that day. I don't want history to keep repeating itself."

It was painful, he says, to watch immigration agents kill more people after his sister. He thought her death would be a turning point. In a way, it might have been the start of one. After the surge in Minneapolis, most Americans said ICE had gone too far.

Ganger, who considers himself a moderate, was happy to see the Blue Wave this week. On election night, he was scrolling Instagram when he saw a photo of his sister's memorial site, with all the "I Voted" stickers.

"I was very grateful to see the repudiation of this administration from the country. It felt very supportive of my entire family," he says.

The next morning, in his home in Colorado, he got up and made biscuits and gravy, his sister's favorite breakfast.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Abraham Zavala was born at Adventist White Memorial. So were his kids. So late Friday, when he heard federal immigration agents were at the Boyle Heights hospital, and that local youth were out blowing whistles to warn neighbors, he went. 

“To me that’s sacred ground,” said Zavala, an organizer with Unión del Barrio.

“I’m a dad,” he said. “I wanted to be there to support the youth.”

He was among the Boyle Heights residents who converged on the hospital and stayed in a standoff with federal immigration agents into the early hours of Saturday. Agents detained at least two people, according to rapid response groups.

Neighbors alerted each other with noisemakers and fireworks. A woman pounded her pots and pans. Teenagers ran across Mariachi Plaza, shouting that ICE was in the area and urging residents to lock their doors. 

“Even though we’re afraid, you know we’re still showing up,” said Myra Vasquez, a Boyle Heights resident who rushed to White Memorial after hearing reports of ICE in the area. “We’re not going to allow them to just come into our communities and terrorize us because they’re the real terrorists causing harm.”

Myra Vasquez, a Boyle Heights resident and co-owner of Espacio 1839 rushed to White Memorial after hearing reports of ICE.

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The confrontation peaked around 11:30 p.m. Video shared with Boyle Heights Beat shows agents pushing back protesters who had moved toward them, and the two sides begin shoving. Agents appear to pepper-spray people on the sidewalk. One agent then tackles a man and pins him to the ground, while a second person is pulled from the crowd. Both were detained.

The standoff continued past midnight. Zavala said agents got out of their vehicles and formed a line in front of the parking lot where paramedics enter, blocking an emergency exit. “They literally became White Memorial’s private security detail,” he said. Zavala said he and another person were sprayed with Mace.

Adventist Health White Memorial Hospital in Boyle Heights.

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The Dept. of Homeland Security declined to comment about the incident in Boyle Heights, and, in a statement, the agency said they would “not disclose or discuss law enforcement operations.”

The spokesperson instead said that obstructing law enforcement is a federal crime.

“ICE does not target hospitals, schools, or churches,” the statement said, despite the large turnout of protesters who encountered the masked agents at the hospital.

Father Brendan Busse, who pastors nearby Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, rushed to White Memorial after seeing reports from the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network of ICE at the hospital.

Busse, a Jesuit priest, said he witnessed people caring for each other and tending to those suffering from pepper spray. People there advocated for them to find treatment at White Memorial, Busse said. Community members, he said, “were obviously doing their best, not just to communicate their feelings, but to push, to instigate the dispersal of this ICE presence.”

As clergy, Busse said their presence can help combat a narrative of those advocating for immigrants as “somehow dangerous, or violent, or vulgar.” 

“Just to be there is a sign that that’s not the only version of what this looks like,” he said.

Initially, Busse showed up wearing a hoodie, but he decided to change into his green stole he had in his car as things appeared to get tense. “Just try to do what I could to bring a presence of maybe a little moral authority,” he said.

“It’s bad enough that people have to lift up their voices to say something so obvious, that their lives matter, that our communities are sacred, that families belong together,” Busse said. “It’s bad enough that they have to be out at 3 a.m. in the morning to tell anybody that.”

“It’s even worse if they would have to suffer the consequences of retribution and violence that comes from speaking out in that way,” Busse added.

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