hi please read the readings in additional files and answer this question

What were some of the most important elements of the L.A. carwash campaign and why was this campaign significant?

DO NOT NEED TO USE OUTSIDE SOURCE

 

 

 

 

LABOR AND THE CIVIC INTEGRATION OF LATINO IMMIGRANT WORKERS IN THE UNITED STATES: THE LOS ANGELES CLEAN CARWASH CAMPAIGN[1]

 

 

 

 

 

Denisse Roca-Servat[2]

Justice and Social Inquiry

School of Social Transformation

Arizona State University

denisse.roca@asu.edu

 

 

 

 

Revised Case study

August 2010

 

 

 

Prepared for Lowell Turner and Lee Adler for the project:

“Labor unions and the civic integration of immigrant workers”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please do not cite or circulate without permission of the author

 

 

In the last thirty years, Los Angeles (L.A.) has witnessed the emergence of a new labor movement composed primarily of Latino and Asian immigrant workers. L.A.’s labor movements have innovated by working at the intersection between traditional union organizing and a newer, more holistic, community-based worker center approach (Narro 2009:102). Though this movement has had many impacts over the decades, one of its most enduring legacies can be seen in the recent emergence of the Los Angeles CLEAN Carwash Campaign.

            Publicly unveiled on March 2008, the CLEAN Carwash Campaign is a joint effort between the Community-Labor-Environmental-Action Network (CLEAN) and the Carwash Workers Organizing Committee (CWOC) of the United Steelworkers (USW)[3] and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). One of the campaign visionaries, Victor Narro (2009), refers to it as a “cooperative, industry-wide strategy” (Narro 2009:102) which grew out of years of advocacy on behalf of L.A.’s carwash workers by progressive lawyers working through community organizations and worker centers. The CLEAN Carwash Campaign epitomizes the effort of carwash workers to assert their right to organize in order to improve labor conditions in the industry.

Hybrid in nature, the CLEAN Carwash Campaign is not only important as an innovative model for organizing labor but also because it incorporates the worker centers’ emphasis on immigrant workers’ social and political necessities. The campaign jointly focuses on building civic participation and social integration. But how is this hybrid campaign helping immigrant workers navigate the world of work and the larger U.S. American[4] society? I argue this is done through at least five forms of integration. Together, the first three forms represent a broader definition of social integration and manifest as collaborations between labor and community alliances, political integration, and socio-cultural integration. The last two forms of integration are tied more closely to the world of work and it can be seen through the efforts of CWOC’s Workers’ Brigade and the Health and Safety Committee.  

It is important to note, these processes of integration are possible because of a unique organizing model based on a mix of community and union networks and resources. Intrigued by the worker centers’ rapid success and groundbreaking organizing strategies, various unions, though gradually and in their own particular ways, have initiated a process of conversation and collaboration with worker centers. From the union side, the AFL-CIO and USW are crucial for understanding the success of the CLEAN Carwash Campaign.  As such, it becomes essential to begin to understand how the CLEAN Carwash Campaign became associated with these union conglomerates, a strategic alliance which may initially seem somewhat counter-intuitive? These are the two questions this study will try to answer. As such, it is the story of this campaign which I will relate in this paper.

 

Methods

For the study of CLEAN Carwash Campaign, I relied on a case-study research design based on two components. I used a qualitative methodological approach that combined fieldwork in the form of participant-observation and in-depth, semi-structured, and un-structured interviews. I carried out four fieldtrips to Los Angeles from November 2009 to May 2010. In addition, I gathered crucial archival information about the CLEAN Carwash campaign either written by internal and external campaign sources.

From 2002 to 2003, I worked in Arizona as a union organizer and community outreach coordinator for the Justice for Roofers campaign in Arizona (Roca-Servat 2010). Since then, I have kept in contact with union organizers, work colleagues and community activists. It was through my connections and acquaintances in the labor movement that I initiated conversations with people involved in the carwash campaign. I relied on purposive and snowball sampling in order to conduct interviews with a diverse selection of campaign participants. I conducted twenty informal interviews with carwash workers, union organizers, coalition members, and other community members. In addition to this I also conducted five phone interviews. The interviews followed a semi-structured and unstructured format. Semi-structured interviews helped me interview high-level union administrators and political and community leaders who had less time to chat with me. Unstructured interviews were used in situations when I had the opportunity to speak with an interviewee more than once in order to build trust. Interviews were conducted in Spanish and English according to participants’ preferences. Other than identifying public authorities by name, I have used pseudonyms when referring to other participants.

In addition to conducting interviews, I observed and participated in public coalition meetings, campaign events, organizing trainings and marches. I took field notes during these observations of public behavior. Specifically, I looked at immigrant workers’ relationship with union members, community and worker center organizations as well as the larger U.S. American society. For the archival research component of my research, I collected all the literature I could about the campaigns from internal and external sources, using these respectively, as documents in action and documents as evidence (Prior 2003).

In terms of theoretical contribution, I have grounded this case study within the literature surrounding the worker center movement (Fine 2006; Narro 2008) and the new American labor movement (Turner et.al. 2001; Fantasia and Voss 2004; Milkman and Voss 2004). Through the use of non-traditional organizing strategies and community networks, worker centers in L.A. have advanced the use of public interest law (Narro 2008) while simultaneously inspiring and invigorating the new U.S. labor movement. According to Victor Narro, the current project director of the UCLA Downtown Labor Center, one of the architects of the CLEAN Carwash campaign, and a public interest lawyer himself, worker centers allowed advocates the opportunity to explore new models of using public interest law for empowering and integrating immigrant workers (2008:341). In this regard, I use theories of women’s integration into the labor movement (Fonow 2003) to understand immigrant workers’ integration into the workplace and the larger U.S. American society. There is not much research either in immigration or labor studies documenting this connection (Turner and Adler 2008). This article is written to contribute to this literature.

           

Story of the Clean Carwash Campaign

            “You won’t survive long without a car in L.A.,” friends told me before setting out to research the Carwash Campaign. Although I was eventually able to navigate the maze of pubic transportation in L.A., I was struck by Angelenos’ love-hate relationship with cars. Designed with the basic assumption of access to private transportation, the city of L.A. has the highest car density in the nation with 92 cars per square mile and one car for every 1.8 persons (CWOC 2008; Eidlin 2005). With a massive influx of affordable cars in the last two decades, the carwash industry in L.A. grew dramatically and without much regulation. There are more than five hundred carwashes in L.A., with combined reported annual revenues of more than $250 million (CWOC 2008). Many carwash sites function through the underground economy and use social networks as a hiring mechanism[5].

The carwash industry is extremely labor-intensive and work is fast-paced and often dangerous (Parker 2006:15-18). In L.A. County there are roughly 10,000 carwash workers (AFL-CIO 2010), approximately 64.7% of them are first generation immigrants from Latin America and at least 27.1% are undocumented (Haydamack et.al. 2005; Parker 2006). The vast majority of these workers are males although there are a small percentage of female workers[6]. Throughout the years, the labor standards of the carwash workplace declined and complaints of wage and hour violations, substandard working conditions, health and safety violations and harassment amounted (Garea and Stern 2006). Specific examples of worker wage violations consisted of workers being paid $35 to $40 per day for 10 hours of work ($3-$4 per hour), workers working only for tips, or not being paid at all when their paychecks bounced[7]. 

Between 1997 and 1999, many community organizations advocating for immigrant and worker rights in L.A., noticed a rapid increase of workplace violations in the carwash industry[8]. Through formal and informal advocacy networks, progressive public interest lawyers from different community organizations[9] and worker centers[10] began to share information about the alarming situation in the carwash industry[11]. It soon became evident these violations were systematic and commonplace. It was not hard to find sufficient documentation in order to win traditional litigation against wage theft violations. What was difficult, however, was making employers pay back workers’ wages as numerous employers used insolvency as a way to avoid their contractual responsibilities[12].

            In face of this situation, in 1999, Senator Tom Hayden drafted Senate Bill 1097 (SB 1097) to regulate the carwash industry and resolve the carwash employers’ “insolvency” argument. After heavy lobbying from the carwash industry and meager public awareness on the issue, Governor Gray Davis vetoed the bill (Hernandez and Mayer 2004).  Following the defeat of SB 1097, in 2002, the Los Angeles Workers Advocates Coalition (LAWAC), took the lead in the second attempt at the Carwash Worker Law, known as AB 1688. Modeled after Senator Hayden’s failed attempt, AB 1688 included information gathered by UCLA students that was not previously available (Garea and Stern 2006). On October 2003, LAWAC celebrated the passing and signing into law of the Carwash Worker Law, AB 1688. However, the bill saw complications early when newly instated Governor Schwarzenegger declared AB 1688 “too vague” and passed the bill on to the Labor Workforce Development Agency to clarify and regulate it (Garea and Stern 2006:6). After further advocacy coalition building in which LAWAC combined with other organizations to become the Coalition of Low Wage and Immigrant Workers Advocates (CLIWA), Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law bill AB 236, a bill that renews the “Carwash Worker Law” until 2014.

The start of the CLEAN Carwash campaign began as a “labor standards enforcement initiative that sought to address the near-universal non-compliance with wage-and-hour and health-and-safety laws and regulations throughout the industry” (Narro 2009:103). In this regard, the distinctiveness of this case stems from the fact that law was viewed as a vehicle to organize carwash workers (Narro 2008). This view of law departs from traditional litigation practice and instead ventures to alternative workplace organizing tactics (Narro 2008: 341). In the words of Victor Narro, the passing of the Carwash Worker Law “galvanized social and labor movements to view law as a medium that could promote social justice and empower low-income communities”[13].Over time, advocates realized that long-term systemic changes for carwash workers could only be achieved through a major grassroots organizing effort focused on building an enforcement mechanism in the form of a union and collective bargaining (Narro 2009:103).

After much discussion as to what type of worker organization was best suited to take on this challenge, CLIWA advocates opted to look for a union that would be interested in organizing carwash workers. The AFL-CIO showed interest in supporting carwash workers and aided in finding a union sponsor. Victor Narro presented the story of the carwash workers in L.A. to AFL-CIO and USW representatives. Following many conversations, the AFL-CIO and USW committed to endorse a long-term organizing strategy (the details of which are discussed in the “Union Involvement” section of this paper). As a consequence, the CLEAN Carwash campaign was publicly announced in March 2008.

The campaign is a joint collaboration between the CLEAN and CWOC. The CLEAN coalition includes more than 100 faith-based, neighborhood, legal advocacy, immigrant rights, environmental and labor organizations[14]. CWOC is composed of carwash workers from establishments throughout Los Angeles who are seeking to form their new union as an affiliate of the USW (Barry et.al. 2009). The CLEAN campaign has a two-prong strategy (AFL-CIO 2010). On one hand, it aims to require employers to comply with legally-mandated standards by persuading them to enter into a CLEAN agreement with the campaign[15]. The methods of persuasion include targeted litigation, administrative complaints, social mobilization and public education (Narro 2009:103). On the other hand, the campaign aims to secure worker rights to monitor and enforce labor standards by entering into collective bargaining (AFL-CIO 2010). The campaign is guided by a Steering Committee and a Community Advisory Board. The Community Advisory Board is made up of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA), the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Enlace and the Wage Justice Center.

As Narro puts it, “without this campaign, carwash workers would be in the shadows like they were for more than twenty years”[16]. As such, the success of the carwash workers movement is similar to the success of the women’s movement inside unions as depicted by Fonow (2003) and “depends on the ability of such movements to develop discursive frames of action, collective identities, and mobilizing structures that build solidarity across various lines of difference without suppressing the social and political significance of those differences” (10). In order to achieve solidarity among difference, the carwash worker movement acts as a site of resistance to cultural and social constructions of social and political inequalities. Inside the social inequality spectrum, carwash workers challenge racial, ethnic, as well as class oppression. On the side of political inequality, they confront the political membership status defined by national citizenship.

The carwash workers movement offers workers the possibility of integrating into the economic, political and social fabrics of U.S. American society in several ways. Though I have identified and described five forms of integration, in reality, all forms of integration are interconnected in the sense that one form cannot be understood without the other. First, by virtue of its vision and discursive framing, the CLEAN Carwash Campaign allows and encourages labor and community alliances. Second, it promotes immigrant worker’s political integration by means of civic and political participation. Third, it brings immigrant workers closer to understanding social and cultural aspects of U.S. American society by immersing workers in the U.S. multicultural mosaic (collective identity). Fourth, through the Worker Brigade model it is forming the future leaders of the union. Finally, through its safety and health committee, this campaign offers immigrant workers the opportunity to integrate into the workplace.

 

Community and Union Collaboration

Given that the CLEAN Carwash campaign began as a community-based movement promoted by visionary public interest lawyers, it was influenced considerably by the struggle of the day laborer’s movement and worker centers in L.A. Both of these local social organizations were structured and functioned very differently than a union. One key difference was the adoption of a social justice discursive framing rather than focusing particularly on economic justice. In this regard, both the day-laborer movement and the worker center movement, composed primarily by immigrant workers, viewed the worker first and foremost as a human being with various needs ranging from the material to the spiritual.

The three CWOC organizers that were initially hired all began their careers as organizers in L.A. day laborer movement. Working with the Instituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de California (IDEPSCA), they helped organize day laborers and trained a new generation of grassroots organizers devoted to using popular education techniques that closely followed Paulo Freire’s (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed to empower immigrant day laborers. In this regard, they were convinced this campaign was different from a traditional union organizing campaign[17]. As such, they worked around the idea of forming community leaders and liberating the “oppressed”. Oppression was understood in a holistic sense to include cultural, social and political oppression in addition to economic oppression. Freire (1970) asserts that action against oppression requires critical consciousness among the oppressed. Critical consciousness in turn is the first step towards praxis, a cycle of reflection leading to challenge and transform oppressive social conditions (Fehrenbacher and Rangel 2010). The use of critical pedagogy as an organizing tool in the campaign was critical, in the words of student interns “the campaign seeks to engage workers in the process of praxis, so that they are empowered to take part in social action to demand the workplace rights and protections they deserve” (Fehrenbacher and Rangel 2010). Popular education required linking one’s personal problems with the larger society. In this regard, initial organizers were trained as community organizers, which in the words of one of these organizers, “endowed us with a great resource which differentiates us from union organizers who look at the organizing process in another way”[18]. In addition, Sara, the communications coordinator of the campaign highlighted the fact that initial organizers also represented workers through their ethnicity, race, gender and class[19].

A broader understanding of oppression opened the discursive framing under which the struggle of carwash workers was constructed. This allowed organizers not only to talk about workers’ rights but also about immigrants’ and social rights. In this regard, the campaign is also different in that it attempts to respond to different types of abuse. Most evident of these differences is the strong support from community organizations the carwash campaign has been able to secure; “community organizations in Los Angeles are fighting for immigrant legalization and they have adopted the Carwash campaign as the example of why there needs to be an immigration reform”[20]. The community recognizes employers are taking advantage of workers’ undocumented status. As a result, the campaign has recognized the need to become involved in discussions not just about labor reform but also immigration reform. As one of the organizers puts it: “legislation to legitimate the claims of immigrant workers would do much to allay some of their fears while opening legal channels to pursue in attempting to regulate companies”[21]. Community outreach coordinator, Chris, was convinced the campaign wanted workers to learn more about their rights, more so even than the specifics of a union; “they need to know they have the right to protest in the streets,” he said[22]. However, this approach was not universally supported within the campaign’s leadership. Internally, tensions arouse between those who supported a broader conception of oppression and those who adhered to a more traditional approach towards worker justice based on the achievement of economic and labor rights.

From the outset, the carwash campaign was able to expand the discursive framing of social justice and therefore gained strong support from community organizations in Los Angeles. Not only have community organizations and worker centers in Los Angeles grown but many of them now work in collaboration with one another. Solidarity among them is very strong[23]. Collaborations between community organization, worker centers and labor unions have also grown in the past decade. The carwash campaign has amalgamated organizations that don’t usually work together. These community organizations express their solidarity to carwash workers by participating in the picket line and related events. Importantly, following a more traditional organizing model, this sort of solidarity was not present during the Justice for Janitors campaign in the 1990s.

Similar to the women rights movement (Fonow 2003), the development of immigrant worker right politics requires cultivation of political spaces for constructing immigrant worker rights norms, strategies, and agendas. In this regard, the carwash campaign provides at least two different spaces in which to construct a discursive framework about immigrant worker rights. On one hand, the union space frames immigrant workers as workers no matter their immigration status. On the other hand, the community space allows for a framing of the immigrant worker as someone who wants to be politically recognized as a member of the larger U.S. American society. As Curtin (1999) notes about the importance of these spaces in the struggle for women’s rights, these separate spaces provide immigrant workers with an opportunity to shift the discursive frameworks through which they make their claims (33). Feminists have shown that success in organizing minority workers depends on achieving the right balance between autonomy from and integration with union structures and practices; too little integration leads to the marginalization of immigrants while too much integration means the struggle loses its radical edge (Briskin and Eliasson 1999: 17). Paraphrasing Fonow (2003), the rewards of a relatively successful process of integration are a sense of legitimacy and access to resources, while maintaining a relative sense of autonomy empowers immigrant workers to voice their own concerns (17).

 

Political Integration

            The political and civic participation of carwash workers was crucial in the formation of political alliances and in opening spaces of deliberation and participatory democracy. Viewing law as a tool to organize, the CLEAN Carwash Campaign placed its trust in the democratic mission of local, state and federal government institutions but, at the same time, it searched for ways to reconfigure political alignments within them. In the process of passing the Carwash Worker Law, carwash workers met with various local, state and federal political leaders. The passing of the Carwash Worker Law could only come about after meeting with and getting to know several members of L.A.’s city council, state legislature in Sacramento and federal representatives. In March 2008, a carwash worker delegation went to Sacramento for the AFL-CIO State Convention to lobby for the Carwash Worker Law. Before the event, workers went through training on U.S. legislation, on the meaning of the law and on how the U.S. American political system works[24]. Workers met with legislative representatives like Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, lobbied elected officials, and were given a voice during the convention. They learned about labor bills, about the legislation and about the overall union and government system[25]. In addition, workers received recognition and support from political leaders[26]. The CLEAN staff and workers participated with hundreds of other activists and union members in a rally at the Capitol to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (Osmer 2009a).

            The Carwash Worker Law functioned as the building block of the CLEAN Carwash campaign but it was not the panacea. Traditional litigation was used to file wage and hour claims as well as health and safety violations and challenge infringements of freedom of association and freedom of speech. Carwash workers attended and participated in city hall meetings and workers’ rights hearings, some of them presided over by Antonio Villaraigosa, Mayor of L.A. By participating in these hearings workers learned about the organization and functioning of the municipal and state government. Thanks both to these meetings and to the lobbying efforts of carwash workers, the L.A. city council passed a resolution in support of carwash workers and, after an investigation, voted to cancel a city contract with Auto Spa Express Carwash (Osmer 2008) . On another occasion, the L.A. City Attorney filed 176 criminal complaints against two owners of four carwashes and their machete-wielding manager “for repeatedly and willfully violating labor laws and creating a work environment that bordered on indentured servitude”[27] (Cathcart 2009). At the federal level, the CLEAN Carwash campaign filed charges with the National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) and reached a settlement, which included over $50,000 in back pay for workers who were unjustly fired (Parks 2009). 

            While interviewing carwash workers, it was clear that in the course of their interactions and participation with government agencies, workers had come to view these as democratic institutions. Before becoming involved in the campaign, workers felt they were isolated from the political system and powerless. In the words of one worker, “I remember that in April 2007, the newspaper “La Opinion” published the abuses carwash workers were subject to and then they published the Carwash Worker Law. I brought the newspaper with me to work and showed it to all my coworkers. That mobilized me to organize. I said, ‘Now is the time!’[28]. Workers like Mario are now willing to interact with governmental agencies with more trust and knowledge about their rights. Legal education on labor and human rights and responsibilities has sparked confidence in the U.S. American legal system.

            Carwash workers have also stepped into the political arena to participate in the discussion about immigration reform. The Carwash campaign has publicly participated in immigration reform rallies and marches. On May 1^st of both 2009 and 2010, carwash workers marched in L.A. for immigration reform. Members of USW Local 675, many of them white and African American, marched beside carwash workers in solidarity. Likewise, both the International USW and the AFL-CIO have not been shy in voicing the need for pro-immigrant reform. The CLEAN Carwash campaign openly talks about immigration reform as crucial for the respect of labor and human rights. In this regard, USW openly advocates for comprehensive immigration reform as well as civil and human rights (USW 2010). USW has historically organized immigrant workers and has an important legacy of fighting gender discrimination through Women of Steel. This is a tradition they carry on in their work with the CLEAN Carwash Campaign.

Akin to the union women’s movement, through the course of struggling for their rights, carwash workers develop a politicized group identity (Fonow 2003). In the case of the carwash worker movement, two forms of political identity are most salient. One of these is represented within the union movement and the other within the immigrant right’s movement. However, these two political collective identities don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. In this case, the visionaries and sponsors of the CLEAN Carwash campaign have brought these two political identities together and are working within L.A.’s political field to structure collective actions that take advantage of political opportunities. In this way, they aim to reconfigure the system of conflicts and alliances that serve as movement resources (Fonow 2003).

 

Social and Cultural Integration

Collective identity is also constructed as a shared social and cultural definition derived from common interest, experiences and solidarity. In this regard, the carwash worker movement was successful in fusing solidarity and organizational identification into an integrated movement identity. An example of this is the strong demonstration of community solidarity around carwash workers’ cause. When asked the reasons behind the overwhelming community support, campaign organizers and public interest lawyers told me the community in L.A. could identify with and was humbled by the appalling labor exploitation endured by carwash workers[29]. Collective identity “produces a ‘we’ feeling along with causal attributions that denote a ‘they’ that is held responsible” (Fonow 2003, 18). This collective identity amalgamated labor, immigrant, human and social rights movements and organizations.

College and high school students have also demonstrated their support of the carwash worker campaign. Through presentations and colloquiums, workers and students have started conversations that have resulted in powerful alliances. One such alliance was formed with the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) students and alumni (Casas 2010).Carwash workers like Mario have been invited to UCLA to talk with students. During that meeting, Mario asked the students to translate their college journal into Spanish so students could engage more directly with workers[30]. Workers like Mario saw this as an important alliance; “workers have labor experience and the student has the theory. In that way, the student can learn from the worker’s situation. In order for a lawyer or doctor to be able to defend the rights of people, he or she was to know what is going on in the community”[31]. In college students, workers see a means to initiate a dialogue with the larger society[32].

Another example of these alliances can be seen with high school students from Wildwood School in L.A who decided to raise money to purchase safety equipment for workers. While studying human rights at school, these high school students took the carwash workers situation as an example of human rights abuse. During a public gathering, these high school students told the community they were hoping to inspire change among students throughout L.A. According to Alice Berliner, a Wildwood student, “Students need to know that when one student speaks out, it makes all the difference. When hundreds and thousands of students speak out against human rights abuses, it starts making great change. Student involvement is vital” (Osmer 2009b). In another example of the power of building collective identity, the Los Angeles Unified School District signed a resolution stating they would only use carwashes that agreed to respect workers’ rights and the environment (LAUSD 2010, Osmer 2010).  Passed on June 2010, this is the first resolution of its kind in the country.

            Another group crucial in supporting workers is fellow union members.  Carwash workers continue to engage with and learn from other workers in a diverse range of industries. Carwash workers have supported the struggle of domestic and international workers. An example of an international collaboration is that of carwash workers learning from Korean guitar manufacturing workers during their visit to L.A. about their struggle against Cort Guitars & Basses, a global guitar manufacturer based in South Korea. An example of a domestic collaboration is that of carwash workers support of Transportation Security Officers at Los Angeles International Airport who are organizing with the American Federation of Government Employees. In turn, carwash workers have received the support and the experienced advice of a wide array of workers from domestic care workers and building trade workers to service workers, hotel workers, and teachers, all of them coming from different cultural, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds.

Locally, one of the most important relationships is with the day laborer movement. Initially, carwash workers knew little about day laborers’ situation. Through this campaign, they have not only learned about their social and labor condition but more importantly they have learned from day laborers’ social movement. Following the pedagogical empowerment of day laborers, carwash workers have undergone popular education workshops with community organizers from IDESPCA. In these workshops, workers’ rights and responsibilities are emphasized along basic principles of respect. “Popular education,” states IDEPSCA Project Coordinator Javier, “centers around workers’ needs. We are here for them”[33]. During one of the workshops, carwash workers mentioned the need to learn more about values and principles. Carwash workers talked about how different cultures had their own values and traditions which might be misrepresented or misunderstood in other cultures. They gave a simple example, that of chewing gum. “For some cultures”, Rosa stated, “chewing gum would be seen as disrespectful for other cultures it is a normal practice”[34]. Carwash workers realized they were interested in understanding U.S. American values and culture as well as the values and traditions of workers in their trade. This conversation expanded into issues of rules and regulations concerning, for example, proper conduct related to alcohol consumption and intergroup relations in the United States and how they differed from those of their countries of origin.

            Another area where carwash workers’ collective identity has bridged the socio-cultural divide is that of religious difference. Carwash workers received the support of various Jewish, Roman Catholic, Methodist and Lutheran religious communities. Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), an interfaith association of over 600 religious leaders throughout L.A. County, has endorsed the CLEAN Carwash campaign and held vigils with a large contingent of people of faith. More recently, Cardinal Roger Mahoney, who leads the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, participated in the National Workers Rights Board hearing on January 2010 and condemned carwash workers’ labor conditions and urged city, federal and private institutions to take action. These demonstrations of solidarity from different groups have helped garner support within the community but, most importantly, they have opened workers’ eyes to the social and cultural heterogeneity of the U.S.

 

Carwash Worker Leadership Brigade

In terms of integration within the workplace and the union, CWOC’s Carwash Worker Leadership Brigade program stands out as an innovative idea. Started in 2009, with the help of UCLA Downtown Labor Center this program is “designed to recruit and train carwash workers as leaders in their communities and on the job, and to grow a base of grassroots advocates” (Osmer 2009c).  During the first session (Oct. 2009- Jan.2010), five students (also known as Brigadistas in Spanish) participated in the program. Currently in the second phase, the program now has ten students. Students are carwash workers who were fired or to whom hours were reduced because they were union advocates in the workplace. All the students receive a fellowship to participate in the program. The fellowship funds come from union donations and from private grant and foundations. For the union side, USW Local 675 has played a key role. Local 675 contributed by donating money directly but in addition to that they spearheaded the fundraising initiative by approaching other unions and organizing fundraising events with their members[35]. USW Local 675 Secretary Treasurer, Dave Campbell, narrated how they approached other unions: “during the last AFL-CIO L.A. County Federation Congress, USW Local 675 asked the Federation to put in the agenda an item on the Carwash Workers Brigade. Ron Herrera with the Teamsters Union Local 396 made the pitch at the delegates Congress, by challenging other unions to contribute to the fund and by referring us [USW Local 675] as an example for having contributed. Following this, other union locals stood up and offered donations. And that is how we raised an important amount of the funds for the Workers Brigade”[36]. As mentioned earlier, the Brigade also is funded by non-union based foundation grants. The fact that funding comes from union and non-union sources promotes diversity within the content and vision of the Worker Brigade program.

Campaign organizers describe the Workers Brigade as a program that provides carwash workers with intensive weekly training on fundamentals of leadership and community organizing that included time in the classroom and in the field (Osmer 2009c). USW Local 675 members looked at it, as a program training the central leadership of the future carwash worker union local[37]. Through my fieldwork I was able to confirm the vision and goal of the Brigade. Every week Brigadistas received training in the classroom and in the field about a range of topics, from workshops that focused on general skills building such as public speaking and media interview skills, communicating with co-workers, how to run a successful meeting, to trainings on organizing collective actions in the workplace, working with community groups and faith-based organizations, and how to meet with an employer (Osmer 2009c).  The group also received carwash industry-specific training which gave them tools on spotting labor and health and safety violations as well as assessing environmental impact of carwashes. In addition to this, educational panels were also provided which situated the Brigade with an historical context for their studies, including immigrant rights movements, labor organizing in L.A., and domestic and international non-violence movements (Osmer 2009c). The nature of the campaign and the diversity of funding sources made the Brigade program’s curriculum strong in workplace and community organizing.

 

Health and Safety Committee- Workplace Integration

            Exposure to hazardous chemicals is one of the major concerns of carwash workers. Prior to the campaign, workers complained about health and safety violations but were not really aware of their rights regarding these matters. In August 2009, the CLEAN Carwash Campaign formed a worker committee which focuses explicitly on these issues. They have begun working with community partners such as UCLA’s Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program (UCLA-LOSH), IDEPSCA’s Health Program, Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (SoCALCOSH) and Worksafe. In doing so, this committee has organized training sessions on health and safety in the carwash workplace, developed education materials on the topic, filed health and safety complaints in California’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal/OSHA) and put together worker health fairs to bring workers much needed access to basic health care services[38]. The three expert organizations worked with carwash workers to form a powerful coalition to pressure Cal/OSHA to regulate the industry[39].

            Through the partnership with UCLA-LOSH, carwash workers have documented health and safety violations by mapping hazards in the workplace and have found ways to educate other workers and the community about these threats. In a project conducted by the members of this committee, workers used disposable cameras to document the health and safety workplace conditions in the industry. These pictures were then exhibited at various campaign events. They were even presented to OSHA in the form of posters at various conventions, one of them the 2010 National Action Summit for Latino Worker Health and Safety in Houston, Texas. By establishing a relationship with OSHA, carwash workers were able to provide firsthand testimony about industry conditions, assist with agency investigation without fear, and expand public education about health and safety issues[40]. UCLA-LOSH course coordinator, Jessica Marquez, described the process of giving workers a voice as key to incorporating them into the larger society[41].

In another project with UCLA-LOSH, two student interns with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) collaborated with the Carwash Health and Safety committee investigating the occupational health and safety concerns in the carwash industry of L.A. The project consisted of two components. The first component focused on developing and carrying out an awareness campaign around heat illness. Using popular education, workers and students designed a plan of action around heat illness. Together they designed a water bottle label informing carwash workers about the dangers of heat illness (Fehrenbacher and Rangel 2010). So far workers in the committee have distributed 600 labels to carwash workers throughout the L.A. area[42]. In addition to creating a label, two training sessions were conducted in order to educate workers about the signs and symptoms of heat illness (Fehrenbacher and Rangel 2010:1). One of these trainings used a worker-led skit that was developed through the worker/student intern collaboration. Later on, workers who received the training conducted 64 educational outreach events on heat stress which generated over 700 carwash worker contacts[43]. The second component of this project, centered on managing a database of currently used chemical hazard products in the carwash industry. Through this component interns were able to input information of 40 new products identified through Cal/OSHA investigations and site visits and categorize them by hazard ratings (Fehrenbacher and Rangel 2010).

            The Carwash Worker Health and Safety committee is composed of four women and three men. While focusing on safety issues in the workplace, female carwash workers identified sexual harassment and sexism as areas which needed to be addressed. Following the committee’s suggestion, organizers turned their attention to the issue. Based on their experiences working with day laborers, organizers relied on the use of popular education as a method to educate workers about appropriate cultural values and the law regarding sexual harassment in the U.S. Suddenly, this committee became a safe space for women workers. Two trainings on sexual harassment were developed where both female and male workers participated. Carmen, a carwash worker, reflected on her past, telling me, “before I did not know how to defend myself. I thought I did not have rights. That, because of my undocumented status, I did not have labor rights or human rights… Because I’m a woman, many times the supervisor would sexually harass me. Now I would not let any man treat me that way. Being part of the carwash workers rights’ campaign has taught me a lot about my rights. Now I know that, as a worker, I deserve respect”[44]. Discussions of sexual harassment in the workplace gave way to discussing issues of gender discrimination in the larger society.

            Another area of concern is that of workers’ general health. With limited access, health care was identified as another need of carwash workers. In response, the Health and Safety committee organized two health fairs. The first took place November 19^th, 2009 and the second February 13^th, 2010. For the first health fair, IDEPSCA, as a community partner, offered to work closely with the Carwash Campaign to come up with a health program for carwash workers. With the help of various health care providers, IDEPSCA was able to do so, developing its own health program tailored to day laborers. In addition, two promotoras (community health liaisons) from IDEPSCA are now working closely with the Carwash Campaign. The fairs took place at the UCLA Downtown Labor Center and were open to both day laborers and carwash workers. The fairs provided workers with basic medical testing to examine blood sugar and arterial pressure, as well as information about STDs. OB/GYN services were provided through a partnership with UCLA Medical School. In addition, workers had access to a representative from Cal/OSHA to answer questions. 

 

Union Involvement in the Campaign

            The successful experience of worker centers in Los Angeles motivated CLIWA to think about the possibility of forming a Carwash Worker Center. In fact, members of the CLIWA coalition already included worker centers such as KIWA and IDESPCA. The worker center organizing model was seen as a community-based immigrant labor movement that expanded its focus on labor rights to include immigrants’ social and political concerns. At the same time, financial constraints worked against the formation of a worker center. Organizing a fairly new (and mostly unregulated) industry would require considerable resources[45].

To overcome these obstacles, carwash worker advocates approached the AFL-CIO to ask if, together with a union affiliate, the Federation would partner with them in this effort (Narro 2009:102). The carwash workers were attracted to the AFL-CIO because of numerous examples of increasing levels of collaboration and trust between worker centers and unions such as partnerships between the AFL-CIO and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), between NDLON and Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), and between IDEPSCA and the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. As the communications coordinator of the carwash campaign points out, the partnership between IDEPSCA and the Carwash Campaign would not have been possible if it were not for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and AFL-CIO Agreement[46].

Victor Narro took on the challenge of finding a union interested in sponsoring the worker organizing effort of the Carwash Campaign. In his quest, Narro approached many unions such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Teamsters, and the Machinists[47]. None of them were interested in becoming involved in this campaign. Meanwhile, NDLON was in the process of signing an agreement with the AFL-CIO. As Project Director of UCLA Downtown Labor Center, Narro was part of the NDLON and AFL-CIO conversations. One day, Narro informally shared the carwash worker story to AFL-CIO representatives and they found it extremely interesting[48].

In November 2006, AFL-CIO’s Organizing Director invited Narro and AFL-CIO union representatives to Washington, D.C. to discuss carwash workers’ situation. There, Narro presented his innovative worker center/union proposal for organizing the carwash industry in Los Angeles[49] (Garea and Stern 2006). Present at the meeting, top officials of USW showed interest in organizing carwash workers (Garea and Stern 2010). Starting as an industrial union, USW was looking to diversify its membership to keep up with the pace of workplace transformation[50]. At the same time, with the May 2006 massive immigrant rights marches all over the country still in mind, USW was very much impressed. Before USW’s official commitment to the campaign, CLIWA held a “carne asada” for carwash workers (138). With the financial support of USW, including the hiring of four full time Spanish speaking organizers, the “carne asada” turned out to be a success bringing together more than two hundred workers (Garea and Stern 2010). In addition to this, “the union also funded a worker hotline to receive complaints about violations, which was staffed by CLIWA attorneys” (Garea and Stern 2010:138).

In September 2007, Narro was invited again to make a presentation to AFL-CIO and USW leaders, during that meeting USW decided to commit to a longer-term campaign (138). As told by Narro (in Garea and Stern 2010) “apart from the law itself, CLIWA’s work inspired the union to get involved. The AFL-CIO had been impressed by what CLIWA was doing without any resources” (138). From the presentation and past experience, it was evident that CLIWA was genuinely committed to a multipronged approach to developing worker power (2010). As Yoffee explained to Garea and Stern (2010), one of the main factors that influenced USW to become involved was “the support system that would be available in the L.A. area to help achieve those improvements” (139). He specifically cited to Garea and Stern (2010), “the vibrant labor movement, community support, and legal support” (139). In March 2008, the campaign was made public. In the words of UCLA Downtown Labor Center’s Director, “the Steelworkers stepped up and together with the AFL-CIO and approximately twenty-five Los Angeles worker centers and other community organizations, an extremely encouraging three-way partnership emerged” (Narro 2009:103).

            Since its inception, the carwash worker movement had grown up from the grassroots and therefore required a unique union campaign[51]. At the same time, poor or non-existent labor standards required a strong and longstanding commitment towards labor organization. The campaign’s visionaries imagined the carwash campaign running like a worker center organizing campaign[52]. In order to prepare for a community-labor campaign, Narro gave the USW Organizing Director, Mike Yoffee, a copy of labor scholar, Janie Fine’s article on worker centers[53]. The AFL-CIO and USW were willing and committed to working side-by-side with community organization in Los Angeles and demonstrated this by listening to suggestions coming from Los Angeles community leaders and by recruiting organizers from the community[54].

Significantly, this is a new organizing model for USW. This is the first time they have taken part in an intensive, community-based organizing campaign with immigrant workers. It is also the first time the USW are part of a labor movement started not by a union but instead by the many networks and collaborations between local social movements[55]. However, it is not the first time USW has accepted the challenge of transformation and the engagement of solidarity. Studying the USW women union movement from 1974 to 2003, Fonow (2003) noted USW’s willingness to “restructure its own administration, expand its international networks, and allocate more funds for organizing a broader constituency of workers, including sectors of the economy that traditionally employed women” (Fonow 2003:7). Another example is that of the Ravenswood Aluminum Corporation campaign where USW developed a multifaceted strategy based on extensive research that slowly unraveled a complex global ownership of bankers, investors and financiers (Juravich and Brofenbrenner 2003:257).

Numerous examples demonstrate how USW’s solidarity towards workers goes beyond cultural and political boundaries. Viewing free trade as a global system, USW has stepped into the transnational space by promoting worker-to-worker exchanges across borders, pursuing legal remedies under the NAFTA sidebar agreements, participating in various ILO conferences, people’s summits, and campaigns positioning workers’ rights as human rights (Fonow 2003:15). As a strong supporter of the Solidarity Center[56], a non-profit organization that assists workers around the world, USW supported Firestone rubber workers in Liberia[57] by offering skills training and solidarity. USW’s work in Liberia with the partnership of the Solidarity Center was one component of the “the largest and most comprehensive global campaign to date” (Juravich and Brofenbrenner 2003:249). This campaign resulted in the first free and fair union elections in the company’s history. In the words of Amy Masciola from the AFL-CIO’s Center for Strategic Research, “even after they resolved their contract with Firestone in 2007, USW continues to support them. There aren’t that many unions that do this. They helped build power in Liberia and by doing this they build power in the U.S.”[58].

Closer to home, another illustration of USW’s vision of change and solidarity is the story of carwash workers’ organizer Luis Cardona. Luis’s story epitomizes the convergence of USW’s transnational labor solidarity with a national organizational perspective that is always adjusting to changing social and economic conditions. Simultaneously it is a story of institutional continuity. Back in 1996, Luis was a union leader working for Carepa Coca-Cola bottling plant in Colombia where he had been an employee for twelve and a half years[59]. Entering into a difficult round of collective bargaining, the union gave the company until December of 1996 to respond to their proposal. On December 5^th 1996, Luis recounts how the answer was delivered in the form of six deadly bullet wounds on the body of the Union’s Secretary General[60]. Witnessing this assassination, Luis knew he was next[61]. It was not the first time a union activist was murdered for his/her activism; three union leaders had been killed in the past by paramilitary groups. From then on, his life took a dramatic turn. Luis and his family had to move from one place to another as they fled for their lives. It got to the point where Luis was no longer safe in Colombia. In 2001, USW filed a law suit in the United States against Coca-Cola Corporation for trade union killings. Immediately after, Luis was able to enroll in a program launched by the AFL-CIO and the Solidarity Center to protect threatened trade unionists by giving them asylum in the U.S. Luis arrived in Washington D.C. in 2002. In the U.S., he became involved with USW and was eventually hired as an organizer. Luis refers to USW as “the most progressive union he has ever known”[62]. For the past five years, Luis has received numerous union organizing trainings and participated in different worker campaigns ranging from the traditional card-check in Kansas to the innovative community-based carwash campaign in L.A. Luis is now helping other immigrant workers like him achieve justice and respect in their workplace. In the end, this is a story of a U.S. American union, USW, who in the face of difficulties, chose to reinvent itself by relying on transnational labor solidarity and bringing union revitalization home.

Conclusion

            The L.A. CLEAN Carwash Campaign presents an important role model for a new way of organizing because it combines two different strategies for organizing workers which typically weren’t previously combined: union organizing and worker center organizing. As a result, it has been both politically successful and has also helped better integrate campaign members into their local and civic communities. In the words of one of its key founders, “it is offering one of the most exciting examples of a genuine community-labor coalition that could provide a model for similar efforts in other industries and other cities around the country” (Narro 2009:103).

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