From L.A., a reinvention of Big Labor

Still, the labor organizing in L.A. may mark the development of a new model of activism – one that organizers in other parts of the US are studying.

What most characterizes the new look, says Clark University's Mr. Chaison, is the increased use of coalitions. Groups that formerly faced off as opponents, he says, are now seeing ways to come together to support causes of mutual interest.

That means civil rights and immigrant groups are joining with workers to fight discrimination. It means environmental groups are supporting low-wage earners such as truckers, who can't afford to fix pollution-spewing trucks. It means teachers unions are asking for support from advocates for the aging in standing up for public health, because it affects the progress of students and seniors.

"It has taken awhile for all these various groups to find common ground, but they are realizing that without strong mutual support in big numbers, they can't stand up ... against the powerhouse of city government," says Peter Dreier, director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Program at Occidental College in Los Angeles.

One major component of the new unionism is cooperation between "blue-collar" unions and "green" environmentalists. There's even a buzzword to describe it: the "blue-green alliance."

"There is a new sense of unified agenda from labor, community, and environment that is historic," says Madeline Janis of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, a group that has backed several union campaigns and become a model for similar campaigns in other states. "For 50 years it has been jobs versus the environment, and now we have jobs and the environment."

The new unionism of Los Angeles reflects a changing political mood in America, says Mr. Dreier.

"We are seeing all kinds of signs of moves back to equality, justice, fairness, poverty, social rights, workers' rights," he says. "Some of this is reaction to the perception of clumsiness of the Bush administration, but a lot of it has to do with a mood of hope and optimism born out of lots of new organizing at the grass roots."

Because of such grass-roots organizing, many of the gains that have been won so far have come by letting workers tell their own stories in a bid to win the public's sympathy, rather than letting union bosses fight it out with business representatives, observers say.

"All these fights have benefited hugely from the workers themselves being their own best spokesman," says Maria Elena Durazo, head of the L.A. Federation of Labor. "The public sees the person who cleans the office, makes up their beds, helps them at the checkout counter."

Some business associations and chambers of commerce, though, say the current union activity and the threat of more to come are unnerving to businesses that already have reasons not to settle in California. Businesses regularly complain of taxes and regulation, and neighboring Nevada and Arizona have reaped the benefit of business flight.

"A very robust number of companies and industries in southern California are wondering if they are going to get targeted by one of these campaigns, and they are very unsettled," says Gary Toebben, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. The issue is not so much wages, he says. Rather, the concern is over long-term rules and benefits that employers find constraining.

"They have seen what has happened in the American auto industry, where companies became obligated to benefits for a very long time for retired employees," says Mr. Toebben.

But others say the resilience of the southern California economy is, in fact, one reason union activity is thriving. Indeed, distance from the former industrial and political centers of America has given organizers and followers creative space for innovation.

"Not being under the thumbs of the national union bosses in Washington and New York, and being in a place where the economy and population are growing, has helped tremendously," says Ruth Milkman, director of the Institute of Industrial Relations at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Page: 1 | 2