Los Angeles Times, August 8, 1995:
The Service Employees International Union took desperately poor, Latino
immigrant janitors and turned them into a militant army of in-your-face
protesters powerful enough to force Los Angeles' biggest cleaning companies
to unionize.
Now, the janitors and other rank-and-file members of the organization are
using their tactics within the union itself, staging a hunger strike to
protest leadership they say is unresponsive, undemocratic, even racist.
The disaffected members appear to be operating from a position of strength:
They ran a 21-person dissident slate called the Multiracial Alliance in
Local 399's June elections and won, taking control of the union's executive
board.
But longtime Local 399 President Jim Zellers has blocked the new board's
directives to set up a grievance committee, fire some union officials and
tear down a locked door in the union's anteroom that separates members from
union representatives.
So Thursday, a dozen dissidents launched a hunger strike in front of the
union building, vowing to forsake food until the union leadership gives
them the power they say their faction won at the ballot box.
Zellers and union members who support him say the dissidents won by using a
timeworn but unscrupulous technique: patronage, essentially promising
supporters union jobs. Zellers decries the dissidents' tactics: threatening
to storm the building, picketing outside with signs complaining about white
leadership. He said the lead dissident, Cesar A. Oliva Sanchez, cannot
speak English to conduct negotiations with cleaning company executives and
lacks the experience to do the job. The rift caused by the dissidents,
Zellers said, threatens to undo dizzying gains by the local -- one of
California's largest -- that made 399's "Justice for Janitors" campaign a
national model.
(clip)
===
Los Angeles Times, May 15, 1999, Saturday, Home Edition
Leaders of a local janitors union will sign a formal partnership with
Mexican union leaders Tuesday, a move that reflects the growing level of
international cooperation in the labor movement. "With the advancement of
globalization, and the wealth shifting into fewer hands, it's good to have
those alliances," said Mike Garcia, president of the Service Employees
International Union, Local 1877, which represents 22,000 California
janitors and other service workers. The majority are Spanish-speaking
immigrants, Garcia said. He will sign the partnership in Los Angeles with
Francisco Hernandez Juarez, a top official of Mexico's fast-growing
Telephone Workers Union, which also represents a large number of janitors.
The two unions cooperated three years ago in a campaign to organize
janitors at Hewlett-Packard Co.
(clip)
Louis Proyect
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