New Group of Union Leaders Ready

The UCLA Labor Center today graduates its first class of trained union leaders--26 low-wage immigrant workers who have spent the last week studying labor history and learning to be better organizers and strategists.

“It was perfect,” said Oscar de Paz, 21, who works the graveyard shift at a Los Angeles optical warehouse. A member of the garment workers’ union, UNITE, de Paz said he could have used some of the strategies during recent contract talks with his employer. “I’ll be smarter next time,” he said.

The seminar for Spanish-speaking union members was the first in a “union leadership” series planned at the center. The series, funded by the state through the Institute for Labor and Employment, was created in the summer of 2000. In coming months, trainings will be run for African Americans, Asian Americans, gays and lesbians, and women union members, said center Director Kent Wong.

“Thanks to these expanded resources, we can reach out to certain growing populations with a comprehensive program,” he said. “We see this as just a first step. These people will go back and serve as teachers within their communities.”

This first training drew rank-and-file members from unions representing janitors, hotel housekeepers, nursing home workers, construction laborers and security workers.

Expenses for the seminar, and a week’s lodging and meals, were covered by the center, while wages were paid by the various unions who sent members.

None of the participants had been on the UCLA campus before. “With the kind of work we do, we could never afford something like this,” said de Paz, who earns $8 an hour driving a forklift and loading boxes from midnight to 8 a.m. A native of Guatemala, de Paz came to the United States to join his parents seven years ago. After taking the warehouse job a year ago, he became active in his union local and started helping co-workers deal with managers at work. Like other participants, he was identified by union staffers as a potential leader.

Stephanie Arrellano, who supervised the training for the center, said participants were surprised to learn that the current wave of immigrant organizing is not unique. “They saw this as one of many waves, that immigrant worker involvement is not something that just happened in the last 10 years,” she said. “That really resonated. People were extremely inspired by it.”

One day of the training was devoted to health and safety issues, such as repetitive stress injuries, and how they can be used to galvanize workers. In one exercise, participants identified physical stresses on their own jobs--such as pushing a vacuum cleaner in the same direction thousands of times per shift--and illustrated them with bright “ouch” stickers.

“One highlight for me was when we asked them to identify their visions for the future,” Arrellano said. “They took a really broad look. It wasn’t just about wages and benefits, but what kinds of communities we want to build.”

The 26 will attend a small graduation ceremony at the school today, to be immediately followed by--what else?--a trip to a protest by janitors in downtown Los Angeles.