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Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los Angeles

1990 JUSTICE FOR JANITORS

UCLA LABOUR CENTER:

JUSTICE FOR JANITORS

The Justice for Janitors movement has helped low-wage workers achieve social and economic justice, the comprehensive campaign not only earned the broad-based support, but employed diverse research strategies to illustrate the janitors’ counternarratives and the ways in which the community is impacted by their struggle.

VIDEO CONTENT:
https://youtu.be/Pf_CJGWwHSc
https://youtu.be/8QqkaF0FTQw

Making History

The Justice for Janitors movement was catapulted onto the national scene, workers deepened their resolve for a more just way of living, and they won our first union contract. Thousands of workers were lifted out of poverty. The videos below capture aspects of the movement and the support of communities.

Campaign Highlights

The comprehensive Justice for Janitors campaign brought together different organizations, policymakers, and community leaders to collectively advocate with the workers.

Personal Narratives

The Justice for Janitors campaign largely focused on affirming the experiences and challenges of the workers. The personal narratives were a powerful tool in creating campaign momentum and personalizing the struggle of the worker.

Preserving Memory: Working to Remember when Janitors Took to the Streets and Transformed L.A. History

Educators at UCLA are worked together with an L.A. union to remember three memorable weeks of struggle on the streets of L.A. when the city’s labor history changed forever. In 1990 members of the Service Employees International Union launched the “Justice for Janitors” campaign. Their red t-shirts came to symbolize the rising of some of the city’s lowest-paid employees, workers who were considered “unorganizable” by many labor leaders.

Their strike and public protest capped a campaign begun five years earlier, and transformed the California labor movement, helping to bring livable wages, health benefits and basic labor protections to members of the workforce dominated by poor immigrants. Now a group of researchers and archivists at UCLA’s Department of History and the university’s Labor Center are calling on the public to help in an effort to preserve the memory of this seminal event for future generations. Explore aspects of the project in this section, you can also download the press release.

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Article: https://www.kcet.org/shows/departures/justice-for-janitors-day-marks-25th-anniversary-in-l-a -A critical chapter in U.S. labor history - On this day, back in 1990, over 400 striking janitors, primarily Central American immigrants, members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 399, demonstrated peacefully in an effort to improve the living standards for their families by unionizing their employer International Service System (ISS), the contractor responsible for servicing most of L.A.'s office buildings at the time. The demonstration followed two weeks of intense organizing efforts by janitors and took place in Century City, a region in west Los Angeles that houses corporate office towers of the wealthiest businesses in the country. At first, the rally appeared to be another event in line with the organizing efforts of the strike, yet, this particular rally propelled the janitors' struggle to the national spotlight when members were confronted and injured by fifty police officers who were equipped with batons. In total, 38 janitors were injured during the incident, and many were arrested during the altercation. The violent images quickly began circulating across media outlets across the country and led to an increased public support for the janitors cause. Rather than back down after the confrontation, janitors remained on the streets and were eventually joined by over 2,500 supporters and prominent leaders, including Jesse Jackson, who publicly decried the meager wages janitors were earning at the time -- some as little at $4.50 per hour. The janitors' dedicated efforts, coupled with the widespread community support and the public outrage over the police brutality, resulted in janitors receiving an increase of wages over $2 per hour, full family health coverage, and the ratification of a union contract with ISS. "Our efforts that day and all of the efforts leading up to that action, represented a fight for dignity and respect," explained Jose Garcia, a janitor who was present at the march on June 15, 1990, and still services the industry today. "On this day we finally had a voice on the job and we were able to show the nation and the world that we were on the side of justice." Garcia further explained that prior to this victory, janitors in Los Angeles did not have any control over working conditions, low wages, and were subjected to numerous abuses by employers. Since then, unionized L.A. janitors earn between $12-$14 per hour, and form part of SEIU-United Service Workers West (USWW).
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