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.

(

Josie Huang

/

LAist

)

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.

(

Josie Huang

/

LAist

)

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.

(

Map data: ©2022 Google

/

Google Maps

)

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.

(

Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance

)

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.”

The $360 million effort to turn Exposition Park’s largest parking lots into green space won’t be completed in time for the 2028 Olympics.

State leaders announced the multi-million dollar investment into the park in 2024, planning to prep the park for an Olympic close-up by replacing the warren of asphalt lots on Expo Park’s southern edge with an underground lot and green park land.

Now park officials say the 6-acre project now won’t break ground until 2028, after the Olympic torch is extinguished.

Expo Park and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will be a centerpiece of L.A.’s Olympic image in the summer of 2028. But for residents of the surrounding South L.A. neighborhoods, the park and its facilities help fill a serious need for recreation and green space.

Andrea Ambriz, general manager of the state-run park, said the park hasn’t had an investment of this kind since the 1984 Olympic Games, but that the inspiration and funding for the park project go beyond the 2028 games.

“Whatever we do now is intended in full to support the community. It’s not just for these games,” Ambriz said.

Ambriz said park officials hit pause on project planning after realizing it would not be completed before the Olympics.

State leaders are still angling to get at least some of the park freshened up in time for the Olympics, with officials announcing in January that Gov. Gavin Newsom planned to earmark $96.5 million in proposed funds for renovations in the park.

The funding, according to the governor’s proposed budget, will be used for “critical deferred maintenance” to meet code compliance and accessibility requirements.

Ambriz said the lion’s share of the money will go to rehabbing roadways, sidewalks and ramps throughout the park to ensure safe pedestrian and vehicle access.

“This is a part of what we know we need,” Ambriz said. “It is a really significant downpayment from the state.”

How will the park affect the neighborhood? 

John Noyola is a 42-year resident of the Exposition Park neighborhood who sits on the North Area Neighborhood Development Council. For him, any major overhaul of the park still feels like an abstract concept.

He’s seen news reports about the proposed changes, but heard little more.

“It hasn’t really affected us or the community,” Noyola said.

The 150-year-old Expo Park has one of the densest collections of cultural institutions in Los Angeles, said Esther Margulies, a professor of landscape architecture just across the street from the park at USC.

Four museums, including the under-construction Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, will soon share the park with the BMO Stadium and the Coliseum.

Margulies said Grand Park, in downtown Los Angeles, has begun to fill a role as a “living room for the city” in recent years, but that Expo Park is falling short of its potential.

“People should see Expo Park as a place to begin their journey of visiting Southern California and Los Angeles,” Margulies said. “This is where you should come and there should be this energy of, like, ‘Wow!’”

Changing Expo Park, Margulies said, starts with building a space that serves its community.

In its current design, the park’s best-kept green spaces sit behind the fences of its museums, Margulies said, and large asphalt expanses act as heat sinks. Major events often come at the community’s expense.

“There’s tailgating, day drinking in the park,” Margulies said. “People don’t come to the park on those days.”

Noyola, the Expo Park resident, said his family and others in the community frequent the park recreation center, pools and fields near the intersection of Vermont Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. He worries that construction could block parking or other access to the park spaces that are available.

He remains wary of the unintended consequences of a park remodel, especially after watching traffic spike in Inglewood when SoFi Stadium and the Intuit Dome were built.

“It would be nice,” Noyola said of the remodel. “Looking at the greater vision of LA 28, it’s needed. But at what cost?”

Southern California is in for a wet week, with the potential for what the weather service is calling "widespread" impacts.

Ahead of the heavy rain, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has issued an evacuation warning for the Palisades, Sunset and Hurst burn scar areas due to the potential for mud and debris flows.

The warning is in effect from 9 p.m. on Sunday until 9 a.m. on Tuesday.

Storm details

When is the rain coming?

Rain is expected to arrive in Ventura and Los Angeles counties Sunday night, according to the National Weather Service.

When is the rain heaviest?

Weather forecast this week for Southern California.

(

Courtesy NWS

)

Moderate to heavy rain is expected early Monday, with significant snow and damaging winds starting at about 3 a.m. Heaviest impacts, including the possibility of widespread flooding and thunderstorms, are expected to last until around 9 p.m.

Rain continues all week

Light rain is expected to continue Tuesday through Friday.

Upcoming weather alerts for L.A.

• A Flood Watch will go into effect on Monday, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
• A Wind Advisory will go into effect Monday, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• A High Surf Advisory will go into effect Monday at 10 a.m. through Thursday, Feb. 19 at 9 a.m. for the Pacific Palisades, Playa del Rey, San Pedro and Port of Los Angeles areas. Angelenos are encouraged to avoid the ocean.
• A Gale Watch, which includes sustained surface winds near coastal areas, will go into effect Monday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. for all inner waters near the Pacific Palisades, Playa del Rey, San Pedro and Port of Los Angeles areas. Angelenos are encouraged to avoid boating until the weather is calmer.

Today, millions of Angelenos use the Central Library downtown (which turns 100 this year) and over 70 branch locations to access the Los Angeles Public Library’s collection of over 8 million books.

But this juggernaut wasn’t created overnight. What started with just 750 books in 1872 was transformed in part because of city librarian Everett Perry, a visionary who wanted books to be easy to access. Here’s a look at how his influence can still be felt today.

A library in disarray 

Perry got the job as top librarian in L.A. after working at the New York Public Library, which opened a main building during his tenure. He was accustomed to growth.

But when he arrived in 1911, the Los Angeles Public Library was struggling. With no permanent location, it had moved several times into different rented spaces, the most recent being in the Hamburger's Department Store, where patrons had to ride an elevator to check out books in between women’s clothes and furniture.

Perry aired his grievances in a 1912 library report.

Everett Robbins Perry in 1911.

(

Witzel Photo

/

Los Angeles Public Library Institutional Collection

)

“The modern library aims to be a vital force in a community,” he wrote. “It can not perform this function, if its usefulness is limited by an inaccessible location.”

This is an early look into his ethos as librarian. Perry was part of a progressive crop of librarians, whose ideas were shifting about how books should be stored and used by the public.

His goal was to create a library system focused on great service and that rivaled the very best on the East Coast. With others, he pushed for a central library to be built, funded by a $2 million bond measure. Voters passed that in the 1920s, which led to the creation of the impressive Art Deco building that still stands downtown.

But what was perhaps even more impressive was how he infused the building with novel ideas about how to make reading more accessible.

One key example was his decision to set up subject departments. For decades prior, libraries stored books on fixed shelves (these couldn’t be adjusted), so they were usually sorted by size or acquisition date. Libraries had only recently moved to the not-very-user-friendly Dewey decimal system.

By grouping books under subjects, Perry made it much easier for people to find what they wanted. His idea was so successful that it eventually spread to other libraries across the country.

Another innovation was where you could read the books. Perry put the circulation and card catalog area in the center of the floor, which was surrounded by book stacks and reading rooms along the edges. That meant they were next to the windows and full of natural light, which according to LAPL, wasn’t customary at the time.

The reference room of the Main Library, seen circa 1913, was in an enclosed section on the third floor of the Hamburger Building, a department store.

(

Los Angeles Public Library Institutional Collection

)

Building a teaching program

Perry earned a reputation as a fair, iron-fist leader who wanted top-notch library practices.

He issued a rulebook for staff that covered everything from the janitor’s responsibility to make brooms last longer to requiring librarians to go with patrons to find books.

But Perry’s legacy also includes the next generation of librarians. In 1914, he revamped an aging LAPL librarian training program into a full-fledged, accredited library school that was known as the best in California.

Artist Dean Cornwell, left, shows his proposal for the Central Library rotunda murals to city librarian Everett Perry sometime in the 1920s.

(

Los Angeles Public Library Institutional Collection

)

The history department at the Central Library in 1926. This was one of the largest reading rooms of the library.

(

Mott Studios

/

Los Angeles Public Library Legacy Collection

)

He aimed to professionalize librarianship by encouraging men to apply (it had commonly been women), urging all applicants to have at least some college-level education, and creating a formal internship program. The program covered technical librarian skills, as well new coursework that compared how other libraries functioned across the country.

Perry served for over two decades until his death in 1933.

His achievements were numerous. Aside from getting the Central Library built, he grew the staff from 98 to 600, helped the 200,000-book collection balloon to 1.5 million, and added dozens of more branch libraries.

In 2018 he was inducted into the California Library Hall of Fame.

Federal immigration agents have left a U.S. Coast Guard facility that's been a key staging area for them in the Port of L.A., according to U.S. Rep. Nanette Barragan who represents the area.

Since last summer, agents have been using the base on Terminal Island as a launch point for operations.

In a statement to LAist, Barragan, a Democrat, says she confirmed with the Coast Guard last night that Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol have vacated the base. She says it's unclear at this time whether the move is permanent or if agents are moving to another location in L.A. County.

Local officials and community groups are celebrating the agents' departure from Terminal Island. Volunteers with the Harbor Area Peace Patrols have been monitoring agent activity for months, tracking vehicles and sharing information with advocacy networks.

Earlier this week, the group said it received reports of the department.