LOS ANGELES (CN) — More than 11,000 city of Los Angeles employees, including lifeguards, mechanics, sanitation workers and traffic officers are on strike over what they say are unfair labor practices.
The one-day work stoppage, the first by city workers in more than 40 years, is organized by the Service Employees International Union local 721. The labor union and the city are in ongoing negotiations over their next labor contract. According to the union, the city has not been "bargaining in good faith."
"It’s about dignity and respect for all of our workers," SEIU local 721 President David Green told a crowd of hundreds of members at a rally held outside City Hall. "We’re here today to send a message."
Some city services have been disrupted, including trash collection, which will be delayed by one day. Mayor Karen Bass took to Twitter to assure Angelenos that police and fire services, as well as city-run homeless shelters and day care centers would not be affected, though she cautioned that parking enforcement, traffic operations and the airport would.
"Residents may experience traffic delays at major events held within the city of Los Angeles," she warned. "Passengers are encouraged to allow for extra time to travel to and from LAX." Libraries will remain open, but animal shelters are closed to the public.
As to the contract dispute, Bass said in a statement, "City workers are vital to the function of services for millions of Angelenos every day and to our local economy. They deserve fair contracts and we have been bargaining in good faith with SEIU 721 since January. The city will always be available to make progress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."
Green said at the rally the strike isn't against Bass "because she’s always been there for working people. That being said, there are some knuckleheads in that building right there," he said, pointing at City Hall, to significant applause.
"This is what happens when you disrespect public sector employees," Green said. "This is what happens when you bargain in bad faith. Fuck around and find out, right? Sorry for the kids in the audience."
SEIU local 721's current one-year contract ends in December. When it was signed, it gave workers a 3% raise and a one-time 5% bonus. That contract left a number of issues to be sorted out, that both sides agreed to discuss in future negotiations. Four months later, the city's negotiators said they would roll those talks in with bargaining sessions for the next contract. The union cried foul and filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the city's Employee Relations Board.
That was the first of what the union says were six complaints it's filed. In one, the union said a representative was denied access to a Department of Transportation work site; in another, a representative was denied access to an LAPD property warehouse. It was for perceived slights like this that Green, at the rally, referred to certain "administrators" in City Hall as "a-holes." Green also said that negotiators were trying to "kick the can down the road."
Tobias Higbie, director of the UCLA institute for Research on Labor and Employment, compared a one-day strike like this to a test run.
"A lot of times it's about flexing muscle, but also about prepping members and seeing if you have the strength to go out on a longer strike, if necessary," Higbie said. "That’s kind of what you’re seeing all over the city."
The strike comes in the midst of what many are calling the city's "hot labor summer." Movie and TV writers have been on strike since mid-April. Screen actors joined them in July, bringing what many consider to be among the city's most important industries to a halt with no end in sight.
Hotel workers have been staging "rolling strikes" — intermittent work stoppages — since July. Their union, Unite Here local 11, and more than a dozen elected officials, asked Taylor Swift to postpone her upcoming concerts at SoFi Stadium on Tuesday and Wednesday, a request that appears to have fallen on deaf ears.
Higbie said the confluence of labor activity is due to a variety of factors, including a tight labor market, inflation and the rise of protest culture and pro-union sentiment during the Donald Trump administration.
"It’s those kinds of trends that are converging right now," Higbie said. "And the moment has arrived just as all these contracts are expiring."
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