Thousands of municipal workers in Los Angeles plan to down tools on Tuesday, joining a summer of labor actions that has involved Hollywood writers, Hollywood actors, and hotel employees across the city.
The Los Angeles Times reported:
SEIU Local 721, a union representing county and city employees across Southern California, said that more than 11,000 Los Angeles city workers will participate, including sanitation workers, heavy duty mechanics, traffic officers and engineers.
The city work stoppage comes amid a frenzy of organized labor activity in Los Angeles and across the country, including the first simultaneous strike of Hollywood writers and actors since 1960. Los Angeles and Orange County hotel workers have also engaged in intermittent work stoppages since contracts expired for more than 15,000 hotel workers at some 60 properties.
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The strike will likely create some degree of disruption at Los Angeles International Airport, the Port of Los Angeles, Los Angeles City Hall and other locations, with picketing expected at dozens of other sites, including the Griffith Observatory, according to the union.
The issues behind the strike are vague, but the union is taking an opportunity to flex its muscle in the midst of negotiations with the city over a new contract.
The SEIU hopes to “shut down” the city, according to a labor leader quoted by the Washington Post.
Mayor Karen Bass insists that the city is negotiating in good faith, contrary to what union leaders say.
Hollywood’s strike has no end in sight, as creative workers seek protection from new technologies like artificial intelligence. The hotel workers’ strike has rotated among hotels, rather than hitting all of the city’s hotels at once during the tourist season.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
