The Brief

In Los Angeles it’s rare to see actors and housekeepers standing shoulder to shoulder on picket lines, or TV writers standing behind UPS drivers fighting for better pay.

Yet such signs of solidarity across social classes are prominent features of what some are calling a “hot labor summer” sweeping California. Strikes have ground Hollywood to a halt. At the same time thousands of workers who make the city run are putting pressure on employers to pay living wages in an increasingly unaffordable state.

“There’s staggering solidarity,” said Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, head of the California Labor Federation. “I think it’s in levels we haven’t seen before. If you look at the difference between what a fast food worker makes and a writer makes, it’s smaller than the difference between what either of them makes and their CEO.”

This week alone more than 11,000 city workers plan to strike at several locations in Los Angeles, and hotel workers are expected to continue their “rolling strikes” that temporarily target various hotels.

It’s hard to say if the inter-union unity will work, experts say. Some employer groups haven’t returned to the bargaining table after weeks or months of strikes.

UPS recently reached a tentative deal with the Teamsters, averting what would have been a historic national strike. And recently, the group representing Hollywood studios met with striking TV writers about bargaining.

Unity across classes

Across-class solidarity isn’t the only factor boosting labor actions, union leaders and experts say. The size of the unions involved and an overwhelmingly union-friendly state Legislature also are bolstering the efforts of tens of thousands of organized workers.

So far this year there have been 53 labor strikes in California involving 276,340 participants, according to Cornell University’s Labor Action Tracker. That doesn’t include strikes that began last year.

In 2022, there were 96 strikes with 92,527 participants, and in 2021 there were 52 strikes with 64,849 participants.  

Participant numbers could be an overcount because they may include the overall membership of unions on strike, said Johnnie Kallas, the labor action tracker’s project director and a PhD candidate at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relation.

An example is The Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. It has 160,000 national members, but not all of them are striking in California.

Also fueling strike activity are such major union players as Unite Here Local 11, which represents 15,000 hospitality workers mostly in Southern California, and the Writers Guild of America, which represents 11,500 writers on strike.

On a recent sweltering July day outside the Warner Bros. Studio in Los Angeles, Maria Gonzalez, a housekeeper, led about 20 domestic workers with the National Domestic Workers Alliance in a march along a picket line.

Members of the Domestic Workers Alliance march with striking actors and writers at the Warner Brothers Studio in Burbank, on July 19, 2023.

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Though the domestic workers were dwarfed by the number of actors and other screen actors guild members surrounding them, their chants were loud and clear.

“When I say union, you say power!” they shouted. A screen actors guild picketer called back “Power!” throwing a fist in the air. Another actor waved and said “Hey!” in appreciation.

“I think we’re united because they, like us housekeepers, are working out of necessity, and we need to survive in this world,” Gonzalez said. “Nothing is free. The most important thing is to sustain our families. Unity makes us strong.”

California Democrats back strikes

Some California lawmakers are fanning the unions’ flames. Strikes have drawn politicians to join picket lines, including Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Los Angeles Democrat who championed Unite Here Local 11.

“What you are doing today is saying to the hotel industry that enough is enough — Ya basta,” Durazo told hotel workers during a June protest ahead of planned strikes. “Workers deserve a decent life. We will keep fighting until workers get the living wages they deserve.”

Democratic Assemblymember Wendy Carillo of Los Angeles and City Council members Nithya Raman and Hugo Soto-Martinez were among 200 people arrested at the protest while showing solidarity with hotel workers.

More recently elected officials, including Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, supported Unite Here by publicly pressuring Taylor Swift to postpone her Eras tour shows in Los Angeles.

And in May, state Sen. Tom Umberg, a Democrat from Santa Ana, introduced a constitutional amendment to make unionizing a right for all California workers. The amendment needs two-thirds approval in both state houses before it can be placed on the November 2024 ballot.

“If the voters overwhelmingly approve it, and I think they will, it sends a message to employers and employees that Californians in general feel workers should have the right to organize,” he said.

If passed, it would enshrine in the state constitution the right to organize and negotiate with employers, including governmental employers, and it would invalidate laws and ordinances that violate those rights.

Umberg said protecting organizing rights is important because Congress and the Supreme Court recently have shown a willingness to roll back federal rights, including rights for women and LGBTQ communities.

Speaking up at summer strikes

Supported by politicians, many workers felt emboldened to speak up for themselves and each other. The same morning domestic workers joined actors at Warner Bros., striking writers joined UPS workers in a rally at their downtown Los Angeles warehouse.

The Teamsters were preparing to strike for better pay, particularly for part-time warehouse workers who make up the majority of their workforce. Writers, dressed in blue, stood behind Teamsters, who wore black union T-shirts or brown UPS uniforms.

Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien appealed to the groups’ sense of unity.

“I have a message for those white collar crime syndicates in Hollywood known as Amazon, Netflix and the rest of them: When you take one of us on, you take all of us on,” O’Brien said.

Oliver Sierra, who has worked for UPS for 10 years, said stress from working long hours during the pandemic hasn’t gone away. Customers as late as 10 p.m. stand in front of his delivery truck, demanding their packages, he said.

Sierra said his message to the writers supporting the Teamsters amid their own strike: “I just want to say thank you for supporting us.”

Christopher Keyser, president of the Writers Guild of America West, told the delivery drivers, actors and writers at the rally that all they want the same thing — to work.

“To find joy in that work, to have the resources to care for our children and for our parents, to retire with dignity,” he said. “If heaven does not distinguish between those who cash the checks and those who write them, why should people?”

A bargaining deal

The threat of a major national strike seemed to be enough for UPS to come to the bargaining table. On July 25, UPS and the Teamsters reached a tentative five-year agreement, avoiding what would have been the largest national strike in recent decades.

UPS CEO Carol Tomé said in a statement the agreement “continues to reward UPS’s full- and part-time employees with industry-leading pay and benefits” while allowing the company to stay flexible and competitive.

The Teamsters called the deal “overwhelmingly lucrative.” It features a $2.75 hourly raise this year for full- and part-time UPS employees and $7.50 per hour over the length of the contract. Part-time employees will earn at least $21 an hour.

The summer strike wave may cause ripple effects with non-unionized companies, said Nelson Lichtenstein, research professor directing UC Santa Barbara’s Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy.

“FedEx doesn’t have a union and Amazon doesn’t have a union, but nevertheless they’re going to have to meet the wage standard,” Lichtenstein said.

Meeting about a meeting

A long-awaited meeting between writers and the studios to prepare for negotiations recently went wrong. On Aug. 4, the writers group and the group representing studios met for the first time in months to discuss negotiation protocols and preview issues each side was to discuss.

The studio group asked that neither side make statements about negotiations to the press. According to a letter that the writers’ group sent to members, before anything was decided the studios leaked details about the meeting to the press. The writers union also said the studio group was unwilling to engage on key demands, such residual payments to writers.

The group representing the studios in the negotiations did not respond to a request for comment.

William B. Gould IV, a Stanford law professor emeritus and former chair of the National Labor Relations Board, said the benefits of cross-class solidarity will show over time if it helps unions expand organizing efforts.

“That this is happening amongst so many workers is a positive, but it’s difficult to determine whether this would have any impact on a given set of negotiations,” he said. “It might in some circumstances and it might not in others.”

At least from the perspective of L.A. hotels, it so far hasn’t made much of a difference.

Keith Grossman, an attorney representing a coalition of hotels negotiating with the Unite Here union, said the rolling hotel workers’ strikes “are misguided and have changed nothing although they undoubtedly have and can in the future hurt our employees.”

Hotel picketers last weekend clashed with security staff at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel and Bungalows in Santa Monica. Videos on social media show Unite Here picketers being tackled to the ground.

Hotel workers have been on and off strike since early July. They say they have felt betrayed by their employers.

Feeling betrayed

Mirna Miloto, a phone operator for a Sheraton hotel in L.A., lives in Downey with a roommate and cuts hair in people’s living rooms to afford rent.

“I would like to live alone but I can’t pay rent by myself,” she said. “We don’t earn enough and they don’t want to renew our contract.”

Milioto said she is still hurt by the unpaid furloughs she and her colleagues endured during the pandemic, despite their hotels receiving federal financial aid. Hotels still haven’t rehired to full capacity, she said.

Unite Here Local 11 supporters participate in a sit-in protest at one of the main entrances to LAX airport on June 22, 2023.

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Workers already were struggling, but the pandemic shined the light on corporate greed, said Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center.

“You have people like Elon Musk and Bezos, who, as their workers are dying on the front lines, are spending billions for a joy ride in outer space,” Wong said. “There is no illusion among workers today that corporate America cares about them or is going to provide for them.”

Unite Here is seeking an immediate $5 raise and an additional $3 raise over the next three years. The Westin Bonaventure, Los Angeles’ largest hotel, has tentatively agreed to their terms, but other hotels are holding out.

Grossman said the hotels’ last offer was a $2 raise upon contract ratification, another $1 within 11 months and a total of $6.25 hourly over less than four years — plus up to $1.50 an hour to maintain affordable health care coverage.

The hotels have said Unite Here is not bargaining in good faith. The hotels’ group and the workers’ union have filed unfair labor practice charges against each other.

And hotel workers weren’t budging on their demands. In early August, for the fourth time this summer, employees of dozens of L.A. hotels walked off the job.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday that he has requested a yearlong extension of FEMA funding for L.A. fire survivors. Without the extension, the money will run out July 9.

Now the decision on FEMA support lies with the federal government.

The funds have allowed many survivors to afford temporary housing and other daily needs. Most have yet to return home — 2 in 3 survivors who were living in Altadena or Pacific Palisades at the time of the fires are still displaced, according to the latest survey of more than 2,100 survivors by the nonprofit Department of Angels. Nearly 40% of respondents reported they will either soon run out of temporary housing insurance coverage or have already.

The situation is particularly dire for low-income households: Nearly 80% of respondents making $50,000 or less said they didn’t think they could afford housing for three months once coverage ended.

“The data is clear: This recovery is not over,” said Angela Giacchetti of the Department of Angels at a news conference organized by the Eaton Fire Collaborative in Altadena on Thursday. “If you are a survivor, you know this in your bones. For many families, it has barely begun. People have just begun to stabilize. We need federal support that reflects the scale of this disaster and systems that survivors can actually navigate and access over time.”

FEMA assistance isn’t reaching most survivors

The FEMA Individuals and Households Program can provide funding for survivors of disasters to pay for temporary housing, repair their homes, and respond to other challenges that insurance may not cover. It can also help cover costs if a survivor has no insurance.

Gil Barel has been relying on FEMA funds to pay rent on a small back house for herself and her son for the last year. She said they still haven’t been able to return to their rent-controlled Pasadena apartment because of smoke damage, though she still has to pay the rent for it.

Gil Barel is paying rent on a smoke-damaged apartment in Pasadena while FEMA funds have helped her cut the cost of temporary housing.

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Barel doesn’t know what they’ll do if the FEMA funding runs out.

“ I'm really stressed out,” she said. “I think I'm just kind of trying to put that thought aside and hope for the best.”

But in the 15 months since the fires, most survivors have not accessed FEMA funding. About 60% have received no FEMA assistance beyond the initial $770 payments dispersed in the immediate aftermath of the fires, according to the Department of Angels survey.

Many have faced denials, according to disaster case manager workers with Catholic Charities of L.A. and lawyers with Legal Aid Foundation of L.A.

That’s the situation for Gayle Nicholls-Ali and her husband, Rasheed, who lost their Altadena home of 15 years in the Eaton Fire. They’ve relied on their insurance to pay for a rental in Montrose, but that’s rapidly running out. And because they have that insurance, FEMA has denied further support.

Gayle Nicholls-Ali and her husband, Rasheed, lost their home in the Eaton Fire. They plan to rebuild, but the cost is a major hurdle.

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“A lot of our ALE [Additional Living Expenses insurance] is going to run out before we even are able to get into a house,” Nicholls-Ali said.

Without FEMA or insurance support, they’ll have to find a way to pay rent on top of a mortgage. They also face a big gap in the cost of their rebuild versus how much their insurance covers. Nicholls-Ali said without the help of FEMA and other sources of funding, recovering feels further out of reach.

Funds for long-term recovery still in limbo

FEMA funding extensions have been routine in past disasters, including the 2023 wildfires in Hawaii and after devastating flooding in North Carolina in 2024.

But the agency has faced significant cuts during the second Trump administration, and there are indications that disaster aid is becoming increasingly political. For example, President Donald Trump has approved aid for just 23% of requests from states with a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators, compared to 89% for states that with Republican governors and senators, according to an analysis by Politico.

The state has also not received more than $33 billion for long-term recovery, which can help pay for infrastructure upgrades and repairs, as well as help rebuild schools, parks and homes. That money was requested by state and local leaders shortly after the January 2025 fires and hasn’t been appropriated by Congress.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Rabbi Amy Bernstein says the wind-whipped fire in January 2025 that scorched much of the Pacific Palisades, destroying her home and damaging her synagogue, “blew everything open” for the community’s faith leaders.

“If our hearts must break, let them break open,” said the rabbi, who leads Kehillat Israel where 300 families out of 900 lost their homes. “This tragedy has really pushed us closer to one another. We’re working to change the things we need changed.”

Faith leaders both in the Pacific Palisades and in Altadena and Pasadena — devastated by the pair of fires that tore across Southern California — have relied on interfaith and community partnerships to rally congregants who are picking up the pieces 16 months later.

They’ve had to learn on the fly about insurance coverage and local land use regulations while still trying to keep their scattered flock together and raising money for basic needs. Pastors in Altadena have had to fight to protect the rights of Black people who decades ago found pathways to home ownership in that community despite redlining — but now risk losing their land to outside developers who sense an investment opportunity.

And throughout this span, faith leaders have had to cater to the emotional and spiritual needs of their communities and think about how they want to rebuild their sanctuaries that were lost or damaged in the fire. More than a dozen houses of worship burned to the ground or were damaged.

Interfaith relationships have become stronger after the fires

This would have been difficult for faith leaders to handle but for the interfaith relationships that became closer and stronger after the fires, said the Rev. Grace Park, associate pastor at Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church, which burned down.

Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Jews and yogis have not just found common ground in human suffering and loss, but have learned how to lean on one another in a time of dire need, she said.

“It’s a sense of mutual affection and respect, learning from each other and leaning on one another,” Park said. “We’re sharing the joys and the deep valleys of what it means to lead through a time of tragedy.”

Brother Satyananda, a senior monk at the Self Realization Fellowship, lost his living quarters and belongings in the fire. Much of the campus, started by Paramahamsa Yogananda who brought ancient spiritual practices from India to the West, fortunately survived the fire.

Satyananda recalls one day when Bernstein picked up on his sadness and offered him “motherly compassion.”

“We share the same profession where we’re tuned to people in need,” he said. “Now, our relationship has changed because we’re tuning into each other. There’s a greater level of trust.”

Pastor BJ King, who leads LoveLand LifeCenter, worked with the late Rev. Cecil B. Murray to heal communities and build interfaith coalitions after the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

“Back then, there was a choice whether or not to get involved,” he said. “But with these fires, there is no choice. It has affected everybody.”

Pastors have had to acquire new skills

King’s congregation has switched to online services after their leased church building in Altadena suffered smoke damage. Twelve families lost their homes. In addition to helping meet people’s basic needs, King has created a program organizing gatherings to connect therapists with those in need of mental health.

“Many people didn’t even know they needed that,” he said.

One of the most powerful roles faith leaders have played after the fire is to “continue to talk with power, people in charge,” said Pastor Jonathan DeCuir, who leads Victory Bible Church in Pasadena. He and others in the region have continued to meet with local officials and even conferred with Gov. Gavin Newsom to keep things moving for their communities.

DeCuir chairs the board of a nonprofit called Legacy Land Project, which provides financial aid, legal support and guidance on building contractors, as well as medical care to those affected by the fires.

The disaster has brought a level of camaraderie that DeCuir says he has never seen among the region’s clergy.

“Denominational lines have been crossed,” he said. “Even if we have different theological stances or approaches to ministry, we are all now looking at how to care for our people and community. If we don’t come together, Altadena will never ever be the same. The people won’t be there anymore. That, to me, is terrifying.”

While a church is more than a building, physical churches do appear as “beacons of hope” in traumatized communities, said Pastor Mayra Macedo-Nolan, executive director of Clergy Community Coalition in Pasadena. Her group has lobbied for houses of worship to be prioritized on the same footing as businesses in the rebuilding plan.

“When people start seeing churches rebuilding in Altadena, they’re going to feel like it’s going to be OK because the churches are coming back,” she said.

Reimagining a purposeful future

Pastor Jonathan Lewis, fourth from right, holds a groundbreaking service at the site of the burned Fountain of Life Nazarene Church to mark the beginning of its rebuilding in Altadena, Calif., April 26, 2026.

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Members of the congregation join in prayer during the groundbreaking ceremony at the site of the burned Fountain of Life Nazarene Church, marking the beginning of its rebuilding, April 26, 2026, in Altadena, Calif.

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Pastor Jonathan Lewis poses for a photo with his congregation during a groundbreaking service at the site of the burned Fountain of Life Nazarene Church, marking the beginning of its rebuilding, April 26, 2026, in Altadena, Calif.

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On April 26, the Altadena Fountain of Life Church broke ground to build a new sanctuary after their house of worship, which had stood for over three decades, was destroyed in the fire. Pastor Jonathan Lewis, who ministers to about 75, hopes the church will be ready in time for Easter next year.

“It’ll be a Resurrection Sunday for our church, too,” he said.

Alexis Duncan, who grew up in Altadena attending that church, came to the groundbreaking with her 6-year-old daughter. She lost both her home and her church building.

“It means everything to me that they’re rebuilding because I want the church to be there for my daughter as she grows up,” she said. “This new beginning gives me and my family hope and the encouragement to come back.”

Some churches like Altadena Community Church, a United Church of Christ congregation, are pausing to rethink their future purpose. The Rev. Michael Lewis, who took over in February after the previous pastor retired, said the congregation is looking into several possibilities for the one-acre lot, including affordable housing.

“We know that a church is not intended to be a landlord and the pastor is no property manager,” he said. “But, we’re also thinking about who is able to return to Altadena? How will this rich, economically diverse community that was scattered by the fire come back?”

The church has been around since the 1940s. A haven for actors, poets and musicians, the former sanctuary also served as a vibrant performance space. Lewis said they hope to incorporate a performance stage into the new facility.

“It’ll look different from what we had before,” he said. “Once we figure out how to build community, we can decide what physical structures will help us support that community.”

As for Kehillat Israel, on May 15, members will carry their Torah scrolls back to their sanctuary, marking one of the first returns by a house of worship to the Palisades since the disaster.

Judaism has had “a long history of starting over,” Bernstein said.

“It’s encoded in our cultural approach to the world, that there are things that can always be taken away from you,” she said. “But what you become can never get taken away.”

The sky above Los Angeles State Historic Park in Chinatown will be dotted with color Saturday with the annual Kite Festival.

The festival had its beginnings as a joyful protest in 2021, back when a proposal for a Dodger Stadium gondola included cutting through the airspace above the park. Organizers say last year’s Kite Festival drew a crowd of about 7,000.

“The Kite Festival, [for] some people, it’s their favorite day in Los Angeles,” said Sue Bell Yank, executive director of Clockshop, the nonprofit arts org that runs the festival. “It’s the time when they really feel connected to their city. More so than any other time.”

This year’s programming includes a kite-making station where you can build your own flying art for a donation of $5, along with art workshops and the unveiling of a large floating, inflatable sculpture by Guatemalan kite artist Francisco Ramos.

An international team of disease detectives is now racing to connect with the more than two dozen passengers who disembarked the MV Honius cruise ship on the Atlantic island of St. Helena before the hantavirus outbreak was identified.

These individuals have flown across the world, including to the United States.

The risk of further spread of this virus is low since it requires close and prolonged contact with an infected individual — and those infected seem to transmit the virus for only a brief period of time. But public health officials want to make sure the outbreak is contained.

Here's how authorities are using the practice of contact tracing to contain the outbreak and keep the hantavirus from spreading.

Contact tracing 101

The concept of modern contact tracing dates to the 1930s and was part of an effort to stop the spread of syphilis. It involves locating the close contacts of anyone who may have been infected. "By identifying people who are at risk of infection," says Preeti Malani, an infectious disease physician at the University of Michigan, "you try to get ahead when people don't have symptoms yet with the goal of preventing the infection from continuing to propagate."

This is a well-tested approach for containing an infectious disease. "It's the oldest tool in the epidemiologic toolbox," explains Malani. "We thought about this a lot early in the pandemic with COVID. But we also do contact tracing for sexually transmitted infections, for things like meningitis and even measles."

Malani likens contact tracing to monitoring ripples in a pond, "trying to prevent those outer rings from propagating by isolating individuals and by identifying individuals who might be at risk of infection."

The idea that "there's a time period where people don't have symptoms but could be harboring the virus, that's what contact tracing helps identify," says Malani.

It starts by pinpointing someone with an infection or suspected infection of the disease in question — in this case, hantavirus. Epidemiologists then look to see with whom they've recently had close contact since these individuals are more likely to have been infected.

This hunt for those with the greatest probability of infection is important. "Otherwise, it becomes an impossible web to contain because everyone is connected to everyone," says Boghuma Titanji, an infectious diseases doctor at Emory University. "So you have to stratify by high, intermediate and low-risk contacts."

The next step involves public health agencies ordering precautions for those who are infected or who may be infected but aren't showing symptoms yet. Such measures may include quarantine, so that an individual doesn't come into contact with even more people — who may then become infected.

One challenge that hantavirus presents is that its incubation period can last up to several weeks. In other words, "people take a long time to become symptomatic after they've been exposed," says Titanji. "Some of these primary contacts would have to be monitoring themselves for symptoms for up to 45 days to be at the tail end of that very long incubation period."

Aboard and ashore

The work isn't high-tech but it is painstaking, requiring officials to reconstruct the many interactions someone may have had over days or weeks.

Onboard the cruise ship, "you might have an individual who is a source of an infection," says Titanji, laying out a hypothetical example. "And then they were sitting at a dinner table with one individual who then goes back to their cabin and shares a bed with their partner who has a conversation with someone else on the deck."

Once someone disembarks the ship, the number of potential interactions can grow quite quickly. This is why officials were concerned when a KLM flight attendant fell ill after being aboard a flight with one of the infected cruise ship passengers. Fortunately, the flight attendant ultimately tested negative for hantavirus.

Titanji is heartened by what she's seen playing out so far. "It seems like the international collaborative effort has been really robust and the mechanisms for containment are in place and underway," she says.

Public health officials argue that contact tracing is a powerful approach that will reduce further spread. "We can break this chain of transmission," said Abdi Mahmoud, the director of the World Health Organization's health emergency alert and response efforts, at a press conference on Thursday.

He has good reason to be confident. Contact tracing was vital during the fight against COVID-19 and helped end the Ebola crisis in Liberia, containing the epidemic there more than a decade ago. Some of the contact tracing even involved hours-long hikes through the jungle to a remote village.

Authorities are hoping for similar success with this hantavirus outbreak.
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