Documenting Social Movement Unionism in Los Angeles
In the last decades of the 20th century, working people and their allies transformed the political culture of southern California. Once a crucible for the politics of anti-immigrant and racist resentment, Los Angeles is now considered one of the most progressive and immigrant-friendly cities in the country. Driving this change forward was a network of unions, working-class community organizations, activist researchers, and artists. Sometimes separately and sometimes in dialog, they pioneered new forms of social movement unionism, political engagement, policy research, and political iconography.
Over the past decade, the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, History Department, and Library Department of Special Collections have collaborated with unions and community organizations to document and share this history. Major collections housed at UCLA include the papers of United Service Workers West (USWW, successor to SEIU Local 1877 and 399 and home to the Justice for Janitors campaign), the L.A. Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), UNITE HERE Local 11, and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE).
You can find some of these collections online:
Memory Work L.A.: Documents and resources for Los Angeles labor & working class history
Organizing Los Angeles Workers, 1980 to the Present (on Calisphere.org)
Memory Work L.A. video collection (on Vimeo.com)
Donde Haiga un Trabajador Explotado, Ahí Estaré Yo: Justice for Janitors’ Workers, Organizers, and Allies (Oral history collection in Spanish and English with the UCLA Center for Oral History Research).