Los Angeles County - News from March 11, 1996

A Union Temp: The executive board of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, is expected Thursday to name an interim executive secretary-treasurer to run its daily operations for the next two to three months. The federation’s unions represent about 500,000 workers. The board will also launch efforts to choose a permanent successor to the former leader, James M. Wood, who died of cancer last month at the age of 51. The front-runner to permanently succeed Wood is his former deputy, Miguel Contreras, 43, who is currently the federation’s political director. If elected, Contreras would be the first Latino and nonwhite to head the county federation. However, he is not expected to fill the interim post. The leading candidate for that is believed to be Rick Icaza, president of the federation’s executive board and head of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770.