Labor Placements-San Francisco

Labor Placements

The Intricate World of Labor Unions By: Susan Lieu, 2010 Coro Fellow
	Admittedly, the extent of my knowledge of labor unions was close to none. Throughout high school and even college, it was a blurry subject. Before my placement, my understanding of labor was marked by protests, railroads, and achieving labor laws like the eight-hour work day. Luckily, my placement at the California School Employees Association (CSEA) gave me a greater insight into the fascinating world of labor unions. CSEA represents classified school workers like janitors and your favorite lunch lady. From the very first day, I learned about the importance of storytelling, personal connection, and vision. Every employee I met was driven, passionate and caring. Every employee understood the story of struggle and his or her own responsibility to take action. During my placement, I interviewed field directors to understand key campaign school district election strategies, investigated suspicious school district consulting firms, and researched how school parcel taxes could help classified workers.
I had the opportunity to attend high-level meetings in Sacramento with state union heads, departmental meetings within CSEA, and even give my input on how we can harness the potential of youth to make change for classified employees. While the internal saying goes that CSEA stands for “Come Sit Eat Again” – demonstrating the importance of personal connection – to me, CSEA will always stand for “Consider Strategy Effort Agitation.” Indeed, without the illustrious and determined history of the labor unions, we citizens would not enjoy the many freedoms we have in the workplace today.

Young Workers United By Remigio Torres, 2009 Coro Fellow
	I worked with Young Workers United (YWU) for my labor placement. Their membership is comprised of mostly minimum-wage service workers; a diverse, multiracial group of individuals from different age groups from various walks of life. Through YWU’s initiative, San Francisco passed the country’s first paid sick leave for all workers in 2006. They have also organized workers to win a $4.5 million settlement with the Cheesecake Factory in California for violating break policy.
On the surface, it would be easy to describe YWU as a labor union. However, YWU is not an “official” union, rather a non-profit that does advocacy and organizing work for minimum-wage workers. The service sector has become notoriously difficult to organize because of the perception that it is comprised of temporary part-time jobs for students with high turn-over that prevents organizing. YWU avoids these problems by organizing individual workers regardless of where they work, and makes gains that all workers can enjoy. Thusly, YWU is on the cutting-edge of labor organizing. Included in YWU’s advocacy work is casework for labor violations; to be more efficient, they are looking to mobilize the government agencies responsible for workers’ rights. For my placement at YWU they put me to work on researching the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement and the California Department of Labor to evaluate how these agencies enforce labor law and to determine their capacity. Since many minimum-wage service workers are employed by the restaurant industry, I also researched the San Francisco restaurant industry for their next campaign to highlight socially responsible businesses. My favorite part about working with Young Workers United was not only feeling like I was playing an important role in the struggle for workers’ dignity and rights, but enjoying the company of the great staff and members. Attending the membership meetings allowed me to interact with the workers empowered to improve their own conditions and have a better understanding of their own issues. Furthermore, being bilingual, translating discussions between English-speaking members and Spanish-speaking members was a welcome challenge. The discussions I witnessed reaffirmed my belief that working-class people can work together despite any barriers.

Coro Fellow Yolanda De La Paz at her Labor Placement at the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Local 21

Ariana Proehl, 2008 Coro Fellow:

My labor placement was at a non-profit organization called POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights). While many of my colleagues were placed with traditional labor unions, I was one of a few Fellows to get a firsthand look at how community based organizations are organizing workers and influencing policy. POWER is a multi-racial organization of low-income workers and tenants that has been building economic and political power for working class people in San Francisco since 1997. They currently focus on two campaigns:

The Women Worker’s Project that organizes domestic workers in San Francisco, and the Bayview Organizing Project that organizes POWER’s Bayview-Hunters Point members against gentrification of their neighborhood and environmental health hazards due to redevelopment.

My project at POWER was to interview the organization’s members, write their winter fundraising letter using that material, and ultimately coordinate the letter mailing. It was a task I was familiar with having been a fundraiser in a prior job, but the subject matter of organizing campaigns and employment rights was new and eye-opening. I spoke with a domestic worker who had been ripped off by an employer because she couldn’t negotiate her wage properly due to language barriers and didn’t have the confidence to demand her worth for fear of losing her job. When she learned about POWER, it was workshops in the Women Worker’s Project that trained her in negotiation skills, gave her an understanding of her value in the local economy through political education, and fostered camaraderie with other women who were also fighting for their rights. I’d always seen organizing as a protest-driven method of social change that I didn’t really care for, but listening to these stories, and learning about all the political education, collaborations and strategizing that goes into a culminating march or campaign showed me how empowering and important this work is.

Overall, the experience raised many big picture questions for me with regards to capitalism, the economy, and the role and rights of the worker. POWER strives to break down injustice and inequality on all levels and organize disadvantaged community members. This placement experience left me with a glaring question: What does it mean to really give power to the people? As I continue my journey with Coro, I also continue my journey to answer that question for myself. Thank you POWER, for offering me another lens with which to view the world!

Nadir Vissanjy, 2008 Coro Fellow:

I had always been ambivalent about labor unions. On one hand, I wished that my mom had a labor union to support her rights as a recently divorced non-English speaking woman. She was once offered a cashier job at a dollar below minimum wage for 10 hours a day and no compensation for the first two weeks! At the same time, my experiences in student advocacy in the California State University (CSU) system left me to question how some labor unions operated. While the CSU system and its labor unions were finalizing their contract negotiations the tactics used by some of the unions were in my mind, questionable.

I was placed with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021's Strategic Communications Department. On my first day at SEIU, I realized how much I didn't know. My field faculty, Randy Lyman and I mapped out my tasks and goals for the placement. I was to do research on the city of Napa's contract negotiation, develop a strategic plan to help SEIU expand to the "eastern front of California" (Calaveras and Amador County), all while going to meetings and interviewing key labor officials in SEIU to further understand the labor movement. I also went to San Francisco General Hospital and shadowed Mo Kashmiri, the field organizer. In addition, we traveled to Calaveras and Amador County to do extensive research and establish a presence for the upcoming contract negotiations. Looking back on my time at SEIU, I am truly fortunate to have had that experience. With the help of Randy and the rest of the Strategic Communications Department, this placement allowed me to debunk my pre-conceived notions of labor unions and the tactics they use. I learned how much they care about the members and are in this larger political fight to represent the backbone of the California economy: the workers.

I am still unclear as to how this experience fits into my Coro journey as a whole. I do know that I have a new appreciation for labor unions that has sparked my interest in potentially pursuing a career in the labor movement. I hope to prevent people like my mother being exploited in the land of the free.