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Power from the past

Tag: 1996

  • Guess? Who Pockets the Difference (1996)

    Guess? Who Pockets the Difference (1996)

    In 1995, UNITE! (Union of Needle Trades and Industrial Textile Employees, formed after a merger of the ILGWU and ACTWU) launched a campaign against Guess? Jeans, the largest apparel manufacturer in Los Angeles. Known for its distinctive stone-washed jeans, Guess? operated its own retail stores and made down-market lines sold at department stores, averaging over $500 in annual sales. UNITE estimated that some 5000 workers in Los Angeles cut and sewed garments for Guess? , including around 1000 employed at the Guess?  warehouse. Their campaign relied on creative new tactics, including “hot shop” strikes at two Guess? subcontractors and direct actions at retail stores targeting the Guess? brand. Their media strategy included videos like this one, where Guess?  workers shared their testimonios and rallied support for the union drive. 

    UNITE’s campaign against Guess?, while achieving some victories for workers, drained the union of resources and ended with the company relocating most of its production to Mexico. As UNITE organizer Cristina Vásquez described, the campaign was “like fighting an octopus” – when the union made progress in one of its subcontracted shops, Guess? would sever their relationship to the subcontractor and deny any liability for the conditions in the shop. The Guess?  campaign would be the last of UNITE’s major union drives, forcing garment workers and their allies to pursue new methods of establishing joint liability in the industry. 

    A Spanish language version of the video is available here.

    Both videos from the Steve Nutter Collection, IRLE.

  • Don’t be a Scrooge: Ghost of Christmas Past visits L.A. City Council

    Don’t be a Scrooge: Ghost of Christmas Past visits L.A. City Council

    This video produced by the LA Alliance for a New Economy documents elements of the Living Wage campaign in Los Angeles. An actor dressed as the ghost of Jacob Marley from Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” haunts Los Angeles city hall warning the mayor and council members to consider the needs of low wage workers in December 1996. The council passed the ordinance covering workers for city contractors, and later voted to override the veto of Mayor Richard Riordan in April 1997.

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    WRITER, JEAN MERL TIMES STAFF. “L.A. Council OKs ‘Living Wage’ Law for City Contracts: Labor: With Enough Votes to Override Promised Riordan Veto, Panel Approves Minimum Pay for Lowest-Level Workers.” Los Angeles Times (1996-Current); Los Angeles, Calif, March 19, 1997, sec. Orange County. https://search.proquest.com/hnplatimes/docview/2109359639/abstract/17BA1ABB1F7142F2PQ/101.
  • Taking on the New Otani (1996)

    Taking on the New Otani (1996)

    After a majority of workers at the New Otani Hotel in downtown Los Angeles supported unionization, hotel management refused to negotiate. Members of HERE Local 11 from other Los Angeles hotels pledged to support the New Otani workers with weekly demonstrations that escalated into long-lasting boycott. This 1996 video produced by HERE Local 11 documents the union’s strategy of targeting the Kajima Corporation, a large Japanese construction firm that was the major stakeholders in the New Otani, which led to alliances with Japanese trade unionists and the Japanese-American community in Los Angeles. An example of “corporate campaigns” that many unions mounted in the 1980s, the boycott campaign focused on Kajima’s role in mid-century Japanese military expansion, the privatization of public services in Japan during the 1980s, and the public development subsidies Los Angeles had provided to Kajima and its partners. The film ends with scenes of a large act of nonviolent civil disobedience in the streets outside the hotel.

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    Olivo, Antonio. “Hotel Workers, Riot Police Clash During Protest; Demonstration: Union Decries Conditions at New Otani. LAPD Responds in a Show of Force That Some See as a Convention Preview.: [Home Edition].” Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif., August 4, 2000, sec. Metro; PART- B; PART-; Metro Desk. http://search.proquest.com/latimes/docview/421672605/abstract/5058E2A1E6C543DBPQ/17.