Most of them come here from Mexico, Central America, and Asian countries around the Pacific Rim. LA is a city which lives on immigrant labor. As a result, it is the place where the commitment of the new leaders of the AFL-CIO to organizing workers on the bottom will be tested. These are big questions and high stakes. Organizing drives, Olney says, which once moved millions to redress the fundamental inequalities of a corporate economic system, have become mechanical and legalistic campaigns, littered with fired workers, closed plants and broken unions, where the companies hold all the advantages.
Fights involving immigrant workers are very militant.
They force unions to discard tired old tactics, and make us relook at the whole question of how to organize, at what organizing means. Over 100 people packed a community center in the poor southeast LA city of Huntington Park. A quarter were garment workers on strike at Good Time Fashions, a sewing company which contracts to Guess Jeans. Like many immigrant-based organizing efforts, this one started among the workers. When a new factory manager brought in time-study experts to videotape each of its 160 workers, and then cut the piece rates, the workers organized a spontaneous work stoppage.