Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Research Paper

First Advisor

Julie Collins-Dogrul

Abstract

Union membership and organizing has declined nationwide since 1983, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics first began collecting data on union membership. I found that while union membership has been decreasing nationwide, in Los Angeles, unions have been more successful in terms of organizing members starting with the Justice for Janitors Campaign of the 1980’s. In order to explain why Los Angeles has had better union membership rates, I will discuss the structural organization and strategies unions in Los Angeles have adopted. Unions in Los Angeles have structured themselves to involve working with community groups, worker centers, begins directly with the union, and bottoms-up tactics, where the organizing begins with the workers themselves, is a big source for success in the Los Angeles area. Besides union strategies, California and especially Los Angeles, has been a major hub of immigration from Latin America because of the demand for low-wage labor. It is the low wage industries that are now often targeted by unions to organize; the demographics of the people in these sectors are very important to the mobility of organizing. The mobilization of the Latino community has helped increase union membership due to the stronger family and friendship networks found particularly in Los Angeles among the Latino community. The literature I have read illustrates that the union organizing strategies used in Los Angeles have been quite effective in which union recognition is accepted with or without the NLRB process and working conditions are improved once the group is organized. Because the low-wage sectors are the most prominent to Latinos in Los Angeles, it is important to understand the ways unions can increase their organizing to provide better standards in these industries particularly for Latinos.

Comments

WSP Major: Latin American Studies

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