LABOR LANDMARKS : Los Angeles may not have highly visible places to mark the labor movement, like San Francisco’s Union Square or Chicago’s Haymarket. But some sites still call to mind labor’s fight for better wages and working conditions.

1. SAMUEL GOMPERS MIDDLE SCHOOL

* 234 E. 112th St., Los Angeles

Near the turn of the century, the nationwide rallying cry of the fledgling labor movement led by Samuel Gompers, the father of the American Federation of Labor (now the AFL-CIO), was the eight-hour day. The call helped attract workers to the cause of unionism. California instituted the eight-hour day for women workers in 1913; it later was extended to minors. In 1974, adult men were finally brought under the state wage and hour law. Gompers always summed up what he wanted for his union members as “more.”

For more than a year after the Samuel Gompers Middle School was named after the union leader in 1936, PTA members protested. They wanted it named in honor of humorist Will Rogers. In the early 1950s, the Lakewood Unified School District also named one of its elementary schools after the union leader.

2. 3RD STREET TUNNEL

* Hill and 3rd streets, Los Angeles

On Jan. 20, 1900, 12 workmen were buried alive and others were disabled by a landslide in the half-completed 3rd Street Tunnel. Two days earlier, two workmen had been killed in a cave-in at the same site. The contractors declared they had no liability for workers injured on the job, and city officials decided that since it was an accident, no liability could be attached. Angry Los Angeles trade unionists lobbied year after year following the accidents to get worker’s compensation legislation to protect workers like these. It took more than a decade, but in 1911, legislators enacted a voluntary plan of compensation benefits. Two years later, benefits were made compulsory, regardless of fault.

3. EMBASSY HOTEL AND AUDITORIUM

* 851 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles

Originally built as a concert hall in 1914, the auditorium served as a rallying place for progressive organizations and immigrant unions from the 1920s to the 1950s. In 1933, Rose Pesotta, a Jewish woman who would later become vice president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, led 1,500 dressmakers in an organizing meeting here, launching a monthlong strike which won them a small wage increase and recognition. The hotel/auditorium has been closed since January’s earthquake.

4. LOS ANGELES TIMES

* 1st Street and Broadway, Los Angeles

Early on the morning of Oct. 1, 1910, a huge explosion tore apart the Los Angeles Times building on the northeast corner of 1st Street and Broadway, setting off a roaring fire that killed 20 men. The anti-union paper immediately blamed the bomb blast on leaders of organized labor. The confession of two ironworkers’ leaders, John and Jim McNamara, discredited labor’s fight against the open shop, and organized labor suffered a severe setback as a result of the bombing. The bitter and often violent struggle between labor and capitalists would grip the nation until the outbreak of World War II. However, Los Angeles, which embraced the open shop principle, remained mostly on the sidelines.

The Times building was rebuilt on the same site, with a plaque commemorating the men who died. When that building was torn down in 1938, the plaque went into storage. Today, the site, later occupied by a state building that was also torn down, is fenced off and filled with six-foot-high weeds. Plans for a new civic center office tower on the site have been collecting dust since 1987.

5. CESAR CHAVEZ AVENUE

* Through Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles

A former apricot picker and founder of the United Farm Workers union, Cesar Chavez fought to organize farm workers in California’s Central Valley and fasted to bring attention to the plight of the workers and their families. In 1965, Chavez began urging consumers to boycott table grapes, eventually forcing the growers to the bargaining table. Ten years later, the state Legislature passed the Agriculture Labor Relations Act, the landmark law that gave farm workers the right to collective bargaining and to seek redress for unfair job practices.

In honor of the late labor leader, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and City Council renamed Brooklyn Avenue, one of the city’s oldest streets, which extends from the Los Angeles River to Atlantic Boulevard.

6. UPTON SINCLAIR’S HOUSE

* 464 N. Myrtle Ave., Monrovia

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and social reformer Upton Sinclair shocked the nation in 1906 when he described the filth in Chicago’s slaughterhouses and the horrors of working conditions there in his book “The Jungle.” Government inspection of meat began soon after his book was published, but it wasn’t until 1970 that the Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed.

After Pasadena became too crowded for him, Sinclair moved to Monrovia, where he lived from 1942 to 1966.

7. STRAWBERRY FIELDS

* Bounded by Rush Street, Central Avenue, Whittier Narrows Recreation Center and the Rio Hondo River, South El Monte

In May, 1933, years before developers paved over the strawberry fields that were part of the City of El Monte, several thousand pickers went on strike, protesting their low wages of 9 cents an hour. Their leader was Zenaida (Sadie) Castro, a feisty Mexican American and one of the few pickers who spoke English. When she wasn’t holding off the union busters, she was cooking rice and beans for the strikers. As news of the strike spread, Mexican and Japanese immigrant workers in the celery and onion fields of Venice, Culver City and Santa Monica demanded higher wages. Within a few months, pickers’ wages were increased to 20 cents an hour.