Latinos May Give Labor Key to City Hall Control

Bolstered by legions of new Latino voters and flush with success from last month’s state election victories, organized labor in Los Angeles has set an ambitious goal for itself in next year’s municipal elections: taking control of City Hall, one council district at a time.

Should the strategy succeed, local labor unions could play a major role in selecting the city’s next mayor in 2001.

Although unions in Los Angeles have been politically weak in the recent past, they are clearly emerging as a major force once again. The turnabout has largely been the work of a new generation of younger, mostly Latino leaders who have reinvigorated the political apparatus of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

With 440,000 labor federation members--the majority of them Latinos--living in the city of Los Angeles, organized labor has become what one observer called the 800-pound gorilla in local politics. The Service Employees International Union alone, for instance, counts nearly 4,800 members in Councilman Richard Alatorre’s 14th District.

“We will not only help elect council members but we will determine who that candidate will be, not only by our endorsements but by ensuring that they win those seats,” said Fabian Nunez, political director of the county federation. “We have demonstrated that kind of capacity [in the state Legislature]. The question now is for us to deliver City Council members . . . and we want to use that base to help determine who the next mayor will be.”

Miguel Contreras, executive secretary-treasurer of the labor federation, said simply: “We’re talking about recruiting, electing and monitoring” pro-labor candidates.

Under the leadership of Contreras and Nunez, local labor unions have used such well-tested, traditional techniques as door-to-door campaigning and precinct mailers to promote sympathetic candidates--including some former union activists--and to motivate new Latino citizens to vote. And recent election results have shown their newfound prowess, as unions have helped register thousands of Latino voters, who in turn have provided winning margins for pro-labor candidates.

The unions also have scored victories of citywide import: Labor wrested the momentum on charter reform from Mayor Richard Riordan by electing its candidates to a majority of seats on the elected commission in 1997. Unions also succeeded in pushing a “living wage” law through the City Council last year.

Helped Tip Assembly Races

Labor’s run of success began in 1996, when unions helped win state Assembly seats for Jack Scott in Pasadena and Scott Wildman in Glendale. Both were Democrats running in districts that had once been Republican strongholds, and both won reelection in November.

In a special 1997 election, labor support helped win an Assembly seat in downtown Los Angeles for former service employees union leader Gil Cedillo. In last month’s voting, labor support helped elect Los Angeles Community College Trustee Gloria Romero to an Assembly seat on the city’s Eastside.

And some veteran political analysts believe that Councilman Richard Alarcon’s narrow win in a hotly contested state Senate race in June over former Assemblyman Richard Katz was another demonstration of Latino political power, enhanced by the electoral experience of organized labor.

Not coincidentally, those three races were based in heavily Latino districts that have been notorious in the past for low voter turnout and a huge number of people not registered to vote. By one count, the unions, along with immigrant rights groups, identified nearly 9,000 newly registered Latino voters in one East Los Angeles Assembly district where fewer than 14,000 votes had been cast in previous elections.

The organized labor strategy is helped by term limits, which result in more open seats with no incumbents. In such instances, a well-organized, well-financed candidate has a huge advantage over many other lesser-known candidates. And labor unions can provide both organization and money.

Labor’s plan for next year’s city elections focuses on the 7th District, where union leaders aim to replace Alarcon with a labor-friendly candidate. Organizers will also help sympathetic incumbents like pro-union Ruth Galanter, who is up for reelection this year in her West Los Angeles district, and they will launch new voter registration drives among working people, again focusing on new citizens in the Latino and immigrant communities.

But the main focus for labor’s electoral participation next year will be in Alatorre’s Eastside 14th District, where it appears increasingly likely that the veteran councilman, besieged by personal and legal troubles, will not run for reelection.

The 14th District, a stronghold of working-class families and city workers, is prime territory for organized labor’s political strategy. Some of the city’s top union leaders live there.

Alatorre, who is undergoing drug rehabilitation after testing positive for cocaine recently, also faces a federal corruption investigation. Although he has said he will remain in the race, political aspirants are moving into his district, waiting for the veteran lawmaker to make a formal decision.

“There’s no question the labor movement is going to play a critical role here,” said Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), who lives in the district and has a cousin who is pondering a run for Alatorre’s seat. “They are key stakeholders in the city. Their participation is very significant.”

Despite a growing field of candidates in the 14th District--three of whom have labor ties--union leaders and others say their goal is to unite behind one candidate. By all accounts, that will be Alatorre if he stays in the race.

“For me, the goal is more important than the person who embodies it,” said Jorge Mancillas, the political director of the service employees union, who says he will run only if he receives union backing and Alatorre retires. “I want to go with whomever the large coalition decides to go with,” he said.

The unions, politicians and others refer to this as “the process.” The county federation will interview all candidates, including--for the first time--incumbents, and then make a recommendation that ultimately is ratified by union delegates.

“I think at the end of the day all the candidates are going to go through the process of seeing who can put together the best campaign,” said Villaraigosa, who represents a large part of the 14th District and who has been actively involved in discussions about the race. “Labor is a critical element in putting together a viable campaign. A critical one.”

In fact, most of the probable candidates in the 14th District have long-standing connections to labor, making the selection tricky. Mancillas works for the service employees union. John Perez, Villaraigosa’s cousin, is the executive director of the United Food and Commercial Workers states’ council. But Perez opposed Contreras when he ran for the executive secretary-treasurer post. And, political consultant and community organizer Victor Griego, who will run only if Alatorre doesn’t, has long connections to labor.

“I bet every candidate is saying he’s been with labor, that his mother was this, his father was that,” Griego said. “Everyone’s going to jump on the labor bandwagon.”

Next year’s council races also have implications for the mayoral race in 2001. Villaraigosa may be a candidate and council successes could lay the groundwork he would need for a citywide campaign.

“At the end of the day, whoever labor endorses should be Antonio’s candidate,” said one political observer, involved in the 14th District strategy. “That would be opening the door to his [mayoral] candidacy.”

Aid of Term Limits

Julie Butcher, general manger of service employees Local 347, said: “In a term-limited environment, it’s not about who serves for eight years but what we build. Whoever we elect in these seats now will end up being the most senior council members in the next few years. . . . We’re trying to think strategically.”

To that end, union officials say they probably will back incumbents, like Galanter, and that they will conduct interviews to decide which candidate to back in the Valley seat vacated by Alarcon. Labor also is expected to support veteran councilmen John Ferraro and Joel Wachs in their spring reelections.

“We want a friendlier government, one that really cares about the working poor and the middle class,” said Nunez. “We want more Jackie Goldbergs and Ruth Galanters.”

Labor’s renewed political influence is not without its critics, however. Some political analysts warn that labor unions can play special interest politics as well as any other group, particularly with the unions that represent city employees.

“If candidates feel they are not the anointed candidate, they have a tremendous uphill battle because these union kingmakers have declared very early on who their candidate will be,” said Arnie Steinberg, a veteran Republican campaign strategist and pollster. “For relatively small amounts of money, they [the unions] can achieve for their members tremendous gains in [public employee] salaries and benefits and even pensions.”

In the end, Steinberg and others say, the unions are buying their way to the negotiating table.

“They will go to the police and fire unions, send out mailers and make it sound like they are endorsing one candidate over another when most of the time there aren’t major differences between them except that one person at the negotiating table is more likely to sell out to the unions,” Steinberg said.

CORINA ALARCON WITHDRAWS: Councilman’s wife drops out of race for seat vacated by his move to state Senate. B3