JOB DEATHS: What’s the No. 1 killer...

JOB DEATHS: What’s the No. 1 killer in the California workplace? Toxic gas, dangerous machinery? No, the grim answer is violence. . . . A state study released two weeks ago shows that more than a third of the 615 job-related deaths last year were caused by violence, marking the first time it has surpassed transportation accidents as the leading cause of death on the job. . . . In Orange County, violence accounted for nine of the 38 occupational deaths last year, with transportation accidents blamed in 11.

KNOCK, KNOCK: In an old-fashioned organizing drive, members of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 681 are canvassing neighborhoods in Anaheim, hoping to identify potential union members and leaders. The target: large apartment complexes in places like the Jeffrey-Lynne area, home to many Latinos who are hotel and restaurant workers. . . . “We’re trying to be pro-active,” says organizing director Alberto Mejia-Moreno. “We can’t just sit around and wait for disgruntled employees to call us.”

OUTREACH: This fall, the Orange County Central Labor Council is asking county high schools and libraries to display this poster of Samuel Gompers, the father of the U.S. labor movement. . . . The umbrella labor organization “wants to get the kids to vote,” says council head Bill Fogarty, who adds: “Maybe it’ll stir some interest in labor unions.” With 96,000 rank and file in 105 union locals in Orange County, membership has remained flat throughout the ‘90s.

LABOR DAY, 1946: What a heady time it was in Orange County. Men discharged from the service were re-entering the job market in droves, veterans were flocking to schools and colleges, and women--though accounting for a third of the county’s unemployed--were scrambling for openings in laundry and cleaning plants, ceramics and electronics. . . . It’s all in the county’s first analysis of the labor force--compiled in September, 1946. The report noted that citrus farms, walnut packing houses and oil fields accounted for half the 42,774 workers. Today’s total agricultural and oil production employment here: just a hair over 1%.