Carwash Workers’ Message Hits Sunset Boulevard
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Chloe Osmer of the Clean Carwash Campaign in Los Angeles reports on a new way the workers are delivering their message across the area.
Last week, the message that carwash workers are organizing for justice reached new heights—above L.A.’s famous Sunset Boulevard. The billboard, which reads “Wash Away Injustice: Boycott Vermont Hand Wash,” stands out starkly among the sea of corporate advertising signs that line the popular strip.
Vermont Hand Wash, owned by brothers Benny and Nisan Pirian, has been at the center of an organizing campaign and currently faces charges by the Los Angeles city attorney of criminal misconduct.
Two months ago, carwash workers and their supporters were shut down when they tried to send a public message about their struggle by renting a billboard near Vermont Hand Wash calling on consumers to boycott the carwash.
The boycott message was considered too radical by corporate advertising executives, so the CLEAN Carwash Campaign agreed to a billboard message that read, “Support Carwash Workers: Wash Away Injustice.”
22,000 L.A. Workers Win Pact with City that Saves Jobs—and More Bargaining News
Some 22,000 Los Angeles workers win pact with city that prevents layoffs—and more bargaining news from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,200 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
Multiple, City of Los Angeles: The Los Angeles City Council on Friday approved a pact with the Los Angeles Coalition of City Unions, a group made up of AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions and representing 22,000 city workers. The agreement avoids layoffs and furloughs and will save the city more than $77 million by offering an early retirement plan, reducing the number of hours worked and postponing pay raises until after 2011. A deal with the Los Angeles Police Protective League/IUPA also was approved Friday and will save the city $63 million.
L.A. Carwash Workers Celebrate Law Preventing Wage Theft, Spread the Word
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Chloe Osmer of the Clean Carwash Campaign in Los Angeles took part in a rally to celebrate a new law that protects workers from wage theft and later helped spread the word to carwash workers across the area.
Carwash workers and their community supporters celebrated passage of A.B. 236, a bill to renew the state’s Carwash Worker Law on Friday. Carwash workers, legal services, community organizations and unions announced the launch of an outreach campaign to raise awareness about the law to the roughly 10,000 workers in the Los Angeles-area carwash industry.
The Carwash Worker Law was one of only a handful of labor bills signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this legislative session. Manuel Zuniga, who worked at Florence Carwash in Los Angeles for more than three years, told the crowd:
Carwash workers helped pass this law, and now we want all workers in this industry to know it exists. We have found our voice and we are saying, “Ya basta” (”We’ve had enough”) to exploitation!
Justice for Car Wash Workers Too Radical for L.A.
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Looks like a billboard supporting workers’ rights is too controversial for the corporate hacks who seem to run Los Angeles.
The billboard, outside the Vermont Hand Wash in downtown L.A., carried this “radical” statement: “Wash Away Injustice! Support Carwash Workers.” Before it was unveiled, the Vermont Hand Wash, one of the most notorious anti-worker car washes in the city, pressured CBS Billboard to pull it down before a rally took place in support of car wash workers who are fighting to join a union to improve conditions in the industry. Nevermind that the language and design of the billboard had been approved in advance.
As the workers took down the sign, car wash workers and their supporters chanted, “Shame on you!” and “Don’t take it down!” The rally, with hundreds of workers in the Los Angeles area joining AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, members of Congress and local union, clergy and community leaders for the unveiling, carried on below the symbolically blank billboard.
Henry Huerta, director of the Community-Labor-Environmental Action Network (CLEAN) campaign, said:
We came here today to unveil a billboard with a message to Angelinos to “Support Carwash Workers” in their struggle against exploitation by the owners of this carwash. Unfortunately, the company that owns this billboard caved to pressure from the Pirian family. They have violated our First Amendment Rights to Free Speech and are complicit in this employer’s violation of workers’ rights to Free Association. SHAME ON CBS BILLBOARD! AND SHAME ON THE PIRIAN FAMILY!
Earlier this year, the Los Angeles City Attorney filed criminal charges against Benny and Nisan Pirian, the owners, and Manuel Reyes, manager of the Vermont Hand Wash, with 220 counts of criminal misconduct altogether—including conspiracy, witness intimidation, grand theft, brandishing a deadly weapon, failure to pay wages and failure to comply with wage orders of the state’s Industrial Welfare Commission regulating workplace conditions.
5,300 Employees at Southwest Airlines Reach Tentative Pact, and More Bargaining News
Some 5,300 employees at Southwest Airlines reach a tentative pact, and more updates from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 900 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
IAM, Southwest Airlines: Some 5,300 customer service and reservation agents at Southwest Airlines, represented by the Machinists (IAM) District 142, reached a tentative four-year agreement. The agreement, which still needs ratification by workers, is retroactive to last year and runs through October 2012.
Permanent California Carwash Worker Law Takes Step Forward
The effort to bring justice to Southern California car wash workers took a step forward this week when a state legislative committee voted to renew the Golden State’s “Carwash Worker Law” after hearing from a Los Angeles car wash worker who testified about conditions on the job. The 6-1 vote in the Committee on Labor and Employment sends the bill (AB 236) to the Committee on Appropriations. If Appropriations approves, the bill will move to a floor vote.
Manuel Zuniga described for the committee the conditions at the Florence Car Wash in Los Angeles, where he worked for more than three years until he was fired last December after filing a claim with the state regarding stolen wages.
Zuniga told the committee he worked 10- and 11-hour days and was only paid between $35 and $48 per day. The state’s minimum wage is $8 per hour, and any hours worked in excess of eight must be paid at time and a half. Zuniga said:
I have a wife and children who need my support. I cannot pay for life’s necessities on those wages. There was so much injustice in our workplace. Some of my co-workers worked for tips only, getting no wages at all. Many times, the boss would not let us take breaks to rest or eat meals.
Carwash Campaign Highlights Success of Community-Labor Teamwork
One of the best ways for unions to reach out to new groups of workers is by joining with community-based worker centers across the country—and the campaign to gain better working conditions for carwash workers in Los Angeles recently has done just that, according to several union leaders involved in the campaign.
AFL-CIO General Counsel Jon Hiatt, speaking at a brown bag discussion yesterday at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., said worker centers and unions have a lot in common. They both fight for enforcement of wage and hour laws, oppose misclassification of workers and they fight for immigrant rights. Hiatt says:
We have the experience, the expertise. Worker centers have a strong community base. Bringing the two movements together is good for workers. A few years ago, I couldn’t imagine local or national unions would be working so closely with worker centers.
20,000 Telecom Workers Set to Strike, and More Bargaining News
Some 20,000 telecommunications workers at AT&T are set to strike, and more updates here from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 900 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
WORK STOPPAGES AND ACTIONS
CWA, AT&T: Some 20,000 telecommunications workers at AT&T, represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), voted to authorize a strike. The contract expired Saturday at midnight. When the two parties met Sunday, AT&T made what it called its “last, best and final offer.”
Message to Solis: Get Tough with Labor Law Violators
Yesterday, Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo filed a 176-count criminal case against two Los Angeles carwash owners for allegedly abusing and intimidating workers, and for failing to pay the minimum wage. Delgadillo said the work conditions “bordered on indentured servitude.”
With Hilda Solis poised to become the next secretary of labor, Art Levine, writing on Huffington Post, asks if Solis will be equally as tough on companies that violate labor laws. Writes Levine:
One of the challenges for Solis is whether she’ll be tough enough in cracking down on such rampant abuses with a Labor Department gutted by eight years of pro-business GOP hacks in charge. It’s not that likely, though, that the moderate Solis will pursue criminal cases against the top CEOs who have yet to face the prospect of jail time over wage theft.
Even so, as the AFL-CIO’s general counsel, Jon Hiatt, observes, “My dream is that the first act of the new Secretary of Labor would be to identify top executives of companies that routinely violate wages and hours laws—and take them out of their offices in handcuffs. The deterrent value would be enormous.”
