Why LA Is The Center Of 'Hot Labor Summer'

In recent months, Southern California has seen a surge of union activity.

Hollywood screenwriters with the Writers Guild of America went on strike in early May, joined by SAG-AFTRA actors two months later. Hotel workers went on strike in July and continue on the picket lines, most recently walking off the job and protesting this week. Last month, thousands of L.A. city workers walked off the job for a day, protesting at LAX and City Hall. And the union representing United Parcel Service drivers narrowly averted a strike recently after ratifying a new labor agreement.

Even in less-expected industries, from a North Hollywood strip club to a Pasadena children’s museum, local workers have been organizing and unionizing.

As this happens, Southern California has become a hotbed of union activity: According to Cornell University’s IRL Labor Action Tracker, since the beginning of this year, the region has led the nation in terms of labor actions.

“Los Angeles has emerged as a focal point of strikes and worker mobilization,” said Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center.

There are reasons for this, Wong said. While union activity has been on the rise nationwide, he said, “I do think that in many ways, Los Angeles has emerged as a focal point because of the stark economic inequality that exists here in Los Angeles, bigger than any other major city in the country.”

Strikers were out in full force in front of Universal Studios this summer.

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Robert Garrova

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LAist

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That, and what he describes as an active labor movement that has successfully organized many workers of color, women, and younger workers — some of the same groups hardest hit by economic inequality in the city, including sky-high rents and a cost of living that for many has become untenable.

A 'sense of unfairness'

The uncertain post-pandemic economy has also played a role for these workers, Wong said.

“The pandemic has definitely heightened a sense of economic insecurity and also deep-seated discontent among workers who have seen record profits by corporations, rising costs of living,” he said. “So there is a fundamental sense of unfairness, in an economy that is not working for workers.”

Recently this has led to more workers, especially younger ones, looking to organize in what Wong describes as a “revitalization of the labor movement” after years of declining union membership.

One of those young workers is Lou Douglas, animal programs coordinator at the Kidspace Children’s Museum in Pasadena. This week, Kidspace became the first children’s museum in L.A. County to successfully unionize.

Undervalued, underpaid

“Especially as a non-profit children’s museum, non-profit work and child care work are two of the areas that tend to be really undervalued, and so the workers tend to be underpaid,” Douglas said, “We do this work because we love it, but you know, our passion isn’t going to put dinner on the table or pay our rent.”

Douglas, who is 24, said until recently he faced an hour-and-a-half commute by bus to Pasadena from his home in the more affordable neighborhood of Historic Filipinotown near downtown L.A. He only recently moved closer to work.

“We want to be able to have our workers be able to afford, you know, to live in the same place where they work,” he said.

About 60 Kidspace workers will now be part of Kidspace United, a member of AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) Cultural Workers United.

While there have been victories like these, many of those on the picket lines in L.A. remain in it for the long haul: There’s no agreement yet in sight for the hotel workers, represented by UNITE HERE Local 11.

And the WGA writer’s strike has by now entered its fifth month.