This document provides an introduction and background for an ethnographic study of the rise of female organizers of color as leaders within the Los Angeles labor movement. It discusses how women of color have historically faced marginalization within male-dominated unions. However, it notes that women now make up half the unionized workforce. The study will explore through participatory observation how female organizers of color have implemented strategies to gain leadership positions during a time of restructuring in the labor movement. It will examine their strategies and whether they have achieved real authority within systems that have historically devalued them.

1. Lumir Lapray
SOC 185
Final Paper
“Us mujeres gotta stick together”. An ethnography of the rise of
female organizers of color as leaders within the Los Angeles labor
movement.
Abstract : In a context of restructuring and redefinition of unionism, a fundamental question
arises : what room is there for women of color to voice their specific needs within labor movements,
and have them heard, knowing that they are speaking as women, workers, women of color, and
oftentimes immigrants ? How do they gain agency and power in a context which has historically
devalued women's work, both paid and unpaid (Misra, 1998), and what strategies do they choose to
change both discursive patterns and power structures to their advantage ? It is this issue that this
research aims to explore, arguing that Angelenas of color have become the core of this new
dynamic profoundly transforming labor movements, both as members and leaders
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2. 1. Introduction
This Saturday, on June 14th
2015, the Mayor of Los Angeles will sign into law the bill
guaranteeing a $15/h minimum wage, for all full time workers of Los Angeles, by 2020. The cover
of the New York Times of Wednesday, May 20th
– the day following the vote from the City Council
– one could see, under the title celebrating this event, a picture of a group of female organizers of
color, celebrating, surrounded by ecstatic workers. This victory, in a context where many talk about
the loss of both power and relevance of unions, leads us to wonder about the mutations and
restructuring of the American labor movement, and the conditions of this historical win.
Women, and especially women of color, have long been kept away – both as members and
as authority figures – from unions, spaces that have historically been dominated by white workers
of European origin. If many argued that the Knights of Labor were still very welcoming to women
workers, their participation into labor agitation was mostly justified, for the union, by the fact that
their “wage work was seen as temporary”, while male leaders still “revered their domestic roles”
(Davault 2004, 55). Because of this presumed primordial belonging of the woman worker to her
home and household, the widely shared assumption was that they did not belong in the workplace,
and thus could not speak out for themselves during strikes, (Davault 2004, 61), and were thus soon
put back in their place after they tried to organize their own events. This shared belief also stemmed
from the certitude that women, contrary to men, possessed no real skills, which rendered female
membership within craft unions irrelevant. Under the reign of American Federation of Labor, the
already precarious relations between female workers and male-dominated union grew even more
intricate, largely because of the massive sex segregation of labor produced distinct workplaces. This
marginalization of women, and especially women of color, touched even the most progressive
organizations (Mink 1986). They have thus shown strong motivation to create their own spaces
within labor movements, although alliances between labor and feminism have been tortuous.
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3. Paternalist behaviors of many educated upper class women reformers towards young women
workers have been pervasive throughout the twentieth century, creating deep resentment and
frustration over the large power imbalances at play (Boris; Orleck 2011, 36). The already very
complex identities of female workers was complicated by the intersections between class and race
intertwined in power relations both in the workplace and in organizations. These struggles for
influence led to the exclusion, yet again, of many women of color from most union circles.
However, women now make up half of the unionized labor force, largely working in the service
industry and public employment (Boris; Orleck 2011, 33). Although, and because female workers,
and especially those of color, still account for the “most marginalized of the margins” (Chun 2009,
3), they have been increasingly eager to join unions, and take up high end positions there.
These profound mutations take place in a broader context, that of the dramatic restructuring
of unionism and labor movements at large. As Chun explains in her fundamental book, Organizing
at the Margins, we observe a shift from self-interested unions to coalitions with, and appeals to a
broader public (by embracing new organizational strategies and not only focusing on strikes, the
historical means of labor agitation). Doing so, by circulating petitions and organizing marches, flyer
distributions or sit-ins in front of stores, members reach a population less prone to labor organizing.
Because they face so many obstacles, including the hardships inherent to a job in the service
industry, women of color have laid ground for fresh and creative unionism, allowing them to tackle
both the “social and cultural as well as economic conditions for worker exploitation” (Chun 2009,
8).
Of course scholars have documented these mutations, for change in such heavy
bureaucracies is indeed a theoretical puzzle, and deserves to be answered. Clawson & Clawon, for
instance, have discussed the need to broaden the scope and audience of labor movements and
unions, by creating innovative strategies, writing that “More generally, many kinds of boycotts and
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4. pressure campaigns achieve their impact not because of the strictly labor dimension, but through
association with some other cause (the environment, women's rights); even labor issues are often
understood outside of a union framework (as in anti-sweatshop campaigns [Rothstein 1996b] ).
Thus, both legal requirements and the need to reach a broader public are pushing unions to build
broad coalitions with other groups and movements”. (Clawson&Clawson 114). They have studied
the incorporation of student constituencies in the traditional struggles (Bronfenbrenner and
Juravich, 1998; Cornfield & McCammon, 2003). Milkman and Voss (2004), have also collected a
series of extremely relevant texts to explain the conditions leading to these mutations : these mostly
go back 1995, when John Sweeney was nominated President of the AFL-CIO, dedicating his term
to organizing the unorganized, and to rejuvenate unions by orchestrating a return to their activist
roots. The active efforts of historical unions to draft more organizers of color, like the Union
Summer Program launched by the AFL-CIO in 1995, has been largely documented by L. Bunnage
(2014). Others, such as Milkman and Terriquez, have looked more closely into the role of female
organizers of color, through a collection of in depth interviews.
However, and although many have duly noted the increasingly important role played by
female organizers of color, none, to my knowledge, has attempted to truly understand how these
transformations affected this population. No ethnographic fieldwork has been conducted within
these transformative spaces, to account for how these dynamics were profoundly shaped by women
of color themselves, within the labor movements, and unions more precisely. To explain how they,
in the midst of these shifts, have come up with innovative strategies to gain and maintain power
positions unheard of until so recently, and this in consequent numbers. This is what I am attempting
to do here, in a effort to comprehend how, in the racialized and gendered environment that we
know, female organizers of color have managed to find power, but also to assess the nature and
extent of this new authority. Very few studies put them at the center of their research, and looks at
how they have actively managed to advance. I also do believe that this period is crucial and is not
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5. one of “normal science” (Clawson & Clawson 106), as demonstrated by the incredible victories of
recent initiatives, amongst which, the Raise the Wage Campaign of Los Angeles.
This coalition officially started on September, 1st 2014 and gathers about 200 organizations
around the “Fight for 15”, meaning the fight to get the Los Angeles City Council to vote on a
$15,25 per hour for all full-time workers in the city. It also advocates for paid sick days – which
number has evolved throughout the campaign, due to political arrangements, and strong
enforcement of all these policies. The organizations having pledged their support to the cause are
very diverse and range from traditional unions (ex : the AFL-CIO), workers' centers (ex : Korean
Immigrant Workers Alliance – KIWA), faith groups (Clergy and Laity United for Economic
Justice), other coalitions (Wage Theft Coalition) or other campaigns (CLEAN Carwash Campaign).
There are around twenty organizations that are very involved with the campaign, which have
delegated some of their organizers to work with the Raise the Wage coalition, either as liaisons for
their organization to the campaign (as did Making Change at Walmart), or as organizers at Raise the
Wage Campaign per se. The former's roles are to guarantee a constant link between their
organization and the campaign – to turn up workers and speakers at Raise the Wage events, for
instance, and the latter have specific jobs within the campaign – in the digital team, or as leading
organizers. Every organizer in the campaign is also an organizer in another labor movement
structure, and the consultant (media or digital team) are hired by the Raise the Wage coalition at
contractors. The coalition is headed by two co-conveners, Rusty Hicks, the Secretary-Treasurer of
the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CI – a white man and Laphonza Butler, the
President of SEIU – ULTCW (the Union Long Term Care Workers union) – a black woman, and the
team is made of around twenty employees. These all gather every Friday morning at the Los
Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO locals, downtown, for the steering committee –
everyone on the steering committee is a paid organizer by and for the Raise the Wage campaign
coalition. During those, people debrief about the week's event, decide of following steps and
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6. strategies, and distribute the work to achieve this tasks. After those, the group usually breaks into
smaller groups, where more informal discussions take place. An ethnography within this coalition
has the advantage of presenting various organizations, and thus, necessarily, various internal power
struggles, different ways to relate to their base, or ways of functioning at large.
One finally needs to make a distinction between the terms "union"and "labor movement"
which, although covering different spaces, complete each other. Clawson and Clawson write that
they “capture a contradiction. The "union" is an institution, a legally constituted collective
bargaining agent that represents workers in complex economic and juridical relations with
employers and government. The "labor movement"is a more fluid formation whose very existence
depends on high-risk activism, mass solidarity, and collective experiences with transformational
possibilities. But, as the last two decades have demonstrated, the sustained opposition of employers
means that the presumed legitimacy of the union, its taken-for-granted character, ultimately depends
on the existence of a labor movement, an ability by unions to constitute and reconstitute themselves
as social movements.” (Clawson & Clawson p.108). The Raise the Wage campaign, a collection of
unions (and other structures) united for a set period of time, can be counted as one of those fluid
processes, also called social movements.
In light of the profound changes undergone by the labor movements of Los Angeles, and
through my participatory observation within the Raise the Wage campaign coalition, I try try to
answer the following research question :
1. How do female organizers of color implement strategies to go from most marginalized to
powerful, to obtain leadership positions within a restructuring labor movement ?
2. Have they managed to assert real authority within systems that have historically demeaned
them ?
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7. 2. Methods
As stated previously, this paper is the product of four months (February to May 2015) of
ethnographic fieldwork, and the findings should thus be considered as the products of a limited,
relatively short research. This method has not, to my knowledge, been used to inform the space
occupied by women of color in the mutations of American labor movement. I spent around four
months at the “Raise the Wage Campaign Coalition” in Los Angeles, where, through participatory
observation, I became more familiar with the issues related to my research question. During the
course of this research, I have been presented and considered as an unpaid intern for Rosemarie
Molina, one of the two lead organizers – who originally works for the CLEAN Car Wash
Campaign. I have assisted her as we were setting up the stands at the locations of the events (May
Day, UCLA Labor Center Banquet, press conferences, n=4), represent the coalition during hearings
(n=7), informal meetings (n=6), marches (=3), and have been allowed to sit at the steering
committees (n=12). The initial contract was for me to spend between 10 and 12 hours a week there,
but because the events are so numerous and time-consuming, I actually spent between 20 and 22
hours there some weeks – either at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor or at the events.
My spending many hours working with the organizers seemed to give me more of an insider
position, and by virtue of being there for long hours, I became “part of the landscape”, and was
allowed to assist to meetings with elected official, or strategic discussions.
This ethnography thus looks into various spaces : both traditional and institutionalized
unions (through the steering committees at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, for
instance) and more fluid structures, such as workers centers or campaigns (such as KIWA or the
CLEAN Car Wash Campaign). I believe that this plurality is key, because it will make it possible to
understand how the history of the structures weigh on their integration of women of color. As
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8. Stinchcombe put it so eloquently : "the historical context in which an organization initially forms
has enduring significance. The cultural assumptions of the era in which an organization was
founded continue to exert influence" (Stinchcombe 1967). Because of path dependency, and in
terms of gendered participation, it seems that the later the organizations are created, the more open
to female leadership are. It is then important to comprehend the different gender subjectivities of
given historical contexts, so that we know what meaning was (and is) attached to “being a man” and
“being a woman”, and how these identities relate to power attribution within labor movements. The
diversity of tasks I was assigned to allowed me to meet many people with different statuses, but also
to see power dynamics at various levels (the street, the organizing team, the coalition, the leaders of
all labor organizations).
The ethnography is based on a multi-pronged analysis of my data : first of the discourse and
announced strategies of the female organizers of color (within the organizations, to each other, to
male members), through participant observation and then of the practices (through observation of
the interactions, the decision making process, …)., trying to identify continuities and discrepancies
between them. Although focused on the Raise the Wage Campaign of the city of Los Angeles, I
hope that it can speak to broader restructuring processes of the labor movements, both in the city
and nation-wide. Given the historical pioneering and innovative part Los Angeles has payed in the
redefinition of labor movements (Milkman 2000, 10), I am confident that the phenomena observed
here can be generalized, to some extent, to shed a light onto these larger mutations. To ensure the
validity of this claim, and following the extended case method (Burawoy 1991), I insert and anchor
my findings within the theories produced by the larger literature on the American labor movement. I
believe that we can make sense of the dynamics observed here while thinking of the larger forces of
patriarchy and white supremacy within the bureaucratic and institutionalized spaces constituted by
unions. I also believe in the necessity to think about the increasing inclusion of women of color
within the labor movements concomitantly with reflecting on the restructuring of these movements :
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9. these particular changes cannot be understood without being inserted within the larger process of
redefinition undergone by American unionism.
3. Findings
A. Female organizers of color : complex subjectivities, complex strategies to gain and maintain
power
It should first be stated that there are different levels at which women of color have attained
positions of relative power : the grassroots level and the organizing level. The former comprises
both unionized workers, who come to the events organized by their union or, in this case, by the
Raise the Wage coalition, and individuals who have some relative power – they relay some
information about the events and the schedule, are in charge of contacting the leaders, can speak for
the workers at events – without, however being official organizers. This means that they are not
paid for this work, and that they participate as workers of the industry concerned. The latter
comprise people whose only job is to organize workers and lead the labor movement organizations.
The women present at these two levels naturally have to establish two different forms of
legitimacy : those on the grassroots level need to gain the trust of their basis – both within
unionized workers and within their community at large, and those on the organizing level need to
build legitimacy both at the base level and within the union hierarchies. I have found that these
discrepancies in power tend to match generational differences : older women tend to have gained
power and legitimacy on the base level, and younger ones, on the organizing level.
a.Older women as mothers, a strategy to avoid antagonism ?
Because of the limited extent of their authority, the strategies to gain and maintain power in
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10. a racialized and gendered environment of older women of color are mainly directed towards their
own communities. Their mobilization and activism of these women, most of whom have a
migration trajectory, is both surprising and interesting. It first tells us that the labor movement is
indeed succeeding in incorporating groups of both very marginalized workers, and groups that are
not traditionally on the fore front of social mobilizations, such as older women of color : for
instance, during the hearing held by the County on April 27th
in Lennox, I counted 58 workers
present, amongst whom 46 were women of color, most of them older than 50 years old.
Then, I have noticed this tendency of repeatedly casting oneself as a “mother” or “ wife” for
older women workers of color (both organizers and union members), when justifying their
mobilization and activism. I have named this strategy of legitimization the motherhood trope. It
seems to have enabled older female organizers of color to become involved in the first place. I make
the hypothesis that these statuses of “mothers” and “wives” were the only ones enabling them to
first step out of the home and become grassroots activists, justifying their new roles as an extension
of their traditional functions (Milkman, Terriquez 2012, 723). This was a way of retaining a non-
threatening role for their communities, as they remained essentially tied to their men counterparts,
and their wives or the mothers of their children. Chun has written that “Challenging economic
marginalization often entails overcoming “institutionalized patterns of cultural value that constitute
some actors as inferior, excluded, wholly other or simply invisible”” (Chun 2009, 12), thus
intertwining what Fraser calls “struggles for recognition” and “struggles for distribution” (Fraser
1995; 70-71). As female activists of color fight for both, immigrant women often choose to join the
struggle as mothers, using the motherhood trope to justify their new social involvement to their
relatives. Indeed, while they are attempting to change the discourse and symbolics of society
regarding their worth as workers, they do not concomitantly attempt to change other cultural
representations of their status within their communities (the central role of motherhood), as it would
require too much of a “drastic and costly cultural retooling” (Swilder 1986, 279).
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11. This discourse seems to bring about a new form of relationship between feminism and labor,
doing away with white middle class and upper class rhetoric about liberation from the home, a
space deemed fundamentally oppressive. The place of women in the household, as the only one
“able to hold it together”, as one organizer told me, is once more reiterated, often with pride, always
with a sense of fatality. Although these assertions could at first, be labeled “anti-modern” or
“backward thinking”, I argue that this is part of a larger symbolic struggle to both reshape the range
of issues touched upon by unions, and the role and impact of women in it. Those classification
struggles aim, I believe, at developing symbolic leverage, because of the power conveyed by the
concept of motherhood. Women seem indeed to have tailored a new moral repertoire, and a
different discourse than the one traditionally put across by unionized men (minimum wage as
recognition for the work done, in order to make a decent living). From what I have witnessed, a
large emphasis is put on the multiple ramifications economic justice and advancement will have on
communities of color, and particularly on their children. This perspective and focus on the
household allows them to mention many issues, even though they are not related to the workplace.
On Thursday, 12th
, for instance, I attended a meeting between women workers and the deputy chief
of staff of one of Los Angeles Council Member. As they were discussing the important of raising
the minimum wage for women, one of the workers said :
“If I made $15 an hour, my son would not have had to join the military in this poverty draft.
He would not have PTSD now, and so maybe he would not hit his wife and she would not have had
to live in my apartment with their kids.”
If they do not necessarily seem to want to challenge their role as women or wives, they also
fight to see their situation recognized and deemed worthy, then fighting for empowerment from
within. Many are, for instance inflexible on the necessity to give a better wage to home care
workers : for instance, and even if the wages of home care workers (members of the SEIU-
ULTCW) were not going to be affected by the raise of minimum wage, female unionized workers of
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12. this industry were present at 12 of the 13 public events (hearings and marches) I went to.
If this motherhood trope tells us that women have strategies to bypass cultural assumptions
and actively work to gain access to new spheres, it also presents various obstacles for older women
of color who would want to gain more responsibilities and evolve to the organizing level. For
instance, it keeps them in spaces within the close community – as this is the main justification for
their activism. Then, it also becomes a barrier for women are younger and who do not have children
yet, and need to come up with new strategies to justify that they are needed both by the basis and
the union hierarchy. These thus have to come up with new strategies to gain legitimation, which
they do, I argue, by playing on their complex identities.
b. Young female organizers of color : the display of serial identities, a strategy to make
themselves legitimate and indispensable.
Faced with the need to recast themselves as something different than a wife or a mother (as
a justification of their activism in labor movements), but without being able to claim a universalistic
representativity of all workers (as men are able to do), and while newer generations of female
activists of color have increasingly based their participation, as “women”, they have concomitantly
created a body of serial identities (Davault 2004, 7) that they deploy in various ways. Their
incredibly complex identities, which at first appears to be a hindrance (as it keeps them from being
“the universal”) becomes an asset to touch a broader public, and adopt various roles when facing
various power relations.
The multi-layered identities of female workers of color have studied by scholars who, as
Ileen DeVault or Ruth Milkman, have contributed many key concepts to the understanding of this
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13. category. The former uses the concept of series, as explained by Sartre. She argues that women, in
labor movements as in other instances of their lives, apprehend and manifest their identities both
simultaneously and serially (Davault 2004, 7). For her, the awareness of one's identity, and the
active choice to display it changes according to situations, which allows us not to attempt to assert
which aspect of one's identity is dominant. Any individual, at any moment in time, “holds within
herself a simultaneous range of possible identities” (Davault 2004, 7), but we should also grasp the
historical narrative, which helps us see why one identity is displayed over another, in a given
circumstance. This helps us understand the different ways in which female organizers of color, often
with a migration trajectory, decide (or sometimes are forced to) focus on one side of their identity,
at a given point in time, in voicing their demands, and planning their actions within labor
movements. These political conditions participate in the symbolic and material environments
leading women to strategize on these different identity aspects, both consciously and unconsciously,
in their organizing efforts. By using this concept and applying it to a new situation, that of an
environment where women of color have increasing power within these spaces, it has proven very
efficient.
All of the female organizers of color in the coalition (around 10), who are on the steering
committee, and thus have substantial power, have graduated from elite institutions (UCLA, UCB,
USC). They also deep knowledge of both their culture of origin and the American one, and their
bilingualism. These are often mobilized as elements granting them unique skills to navigate
American institutions while still relating to their basis (Milkman, Terriquez 2012, 732). They use
this versatility to strengthen the idea, within union hierarchies, that they are deeply needed by
structures which, as we have seen, are trying to target groups traditionally left out from the social
mobilizations. Historical unions are, today, and especially in Los Angeles, increasingly conscious of
the need for spanish-speaking organizers : for instance, in the Union Summer Program, put together
each by the AFL-CIO, students can only apply to the L.A. field site if they are bilingual in both
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14. English and Spanish (Bunnage 2014). Women are also they are constantly – either in front of
authority figures or basis members – reaffirming this serial identity, through various behaviors, as
this table illustrates :
I argue that this is part of a broader strategy form the part of these female organizers to gain
legitimacy – by making themselves indispensable to the movement, through the display of unique
skills.
The female organizers of color of the Raise the Wage campaign have also implemented
various strategies to collectively gain power and become essential to the movement : they take up
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15. more work and tasks than men. I have calculated that every steering committee, an average of 6
new tasks needed to be attributed, and that on average, 4 were attributed to women, and 2 to men
(when the numbers of men and women sitting on the committee are almost identical). Furthermore,
3 of these tasks when taken up by a group of 2+ women. In charge of more aspects of the campaign,
they thus have access to more information, and have in turn more bargaining power (both within the
union and in front of the unions allies – political or business). These behaviors have led me to create
the following graph of women's strategies to gain more power and legitimacy :
Having reflected on the question of whether these efforts were collective or individual, I
have come to the conclusion that they were the efforts of a group of women of color, who
considered themselves as such. First, there is a very acute awareness of their new position, and they
also behave as a group. They have many more interactions together as a group, or in smaller groups,
than men do : for instance, after steering committees, men tended to go home, go back to their
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16. organization of origin, or eat in their office. Women broke in smaller groups (from 3 to 6) and had
lunch together (n=6), had discussions on their weekends, families, etc..., painted posters together
(n=2). Many of these women also groom other women to become efficient organizers : Rosemarie
had five interns or mentees, with whom she met regularly and whom she tried to place when they
were looking for jobs or internships (n=2), to whom she gave workshops on organizing strategies
(n=3). Both these practices, but also their discourse leads me to state that they do exist as a group of
organizers of color : I have overheard several discussions punctuated by “us mujeres gotta stick
together” (clearly linking identifying here, “Latina” as the shared identity). Women who do not
adopt the same habits of opening the way for others are often criticized behind back doors, such as
the co-convener, Laphonza Butler. Even though she is a black woman, and a very powerful
organizer, I have overheard conversations – and have been straightforward told – that “it was her
way or no other way” (at a hearing), and that “she ran her base with an iron fist and did not mean
for anyone else to profit off her success” (May Day march), remarks always made by fellow female
organizers of color. Finally, on four different occasions, I have heard Flor, from CLEAN Car Wash
Campaign say (either to me, to another female organizer, or on the phone), that her “biggest dream”
was to create a coalition of workers' centers where women would “really be at the center of the
discussion” (May Day march), and “would be in charge” (City Hall hearing).
It is however important to dimentionalize (Strauss & Corbin 1998) these strategies : they
tend to be more noticeable, because more intensely implemented in spaces where women are more
numerous. The more numerous they are, (in steering committees, for instance) the more these
strategies are deployed. They also tend to be more systematically used when the object of the
discussion is concrete, concerns a grassroots issue, and can be easily and quickly tackled. This, I
argue, is the proof of a remaining gendered separation of labor (Blewett 2000), where women
focused or are made to focus on concrete issues, when men deal with theoretical ones.
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17. B. Still a subordinate elite ? The stalls on their advancement
However strategic women are, and whatever the extent of the efforts put into their
legitimization, “organizers of color, particularly women, still confront substantial barriers when
attempting to ‘move up’ within the leadership structures of the union movement”. (Bunnage 2014,
65).
a. the maintaining of white supremacy and patriarchy : the strength of a system.
First, it is worth reiterating that unions are institutions that have been around for decades –
even centuries, and were formed in environments that were extremely hostile to the participation of
women, even more so when of color (Davault 2004, Blewett 2000). Until recently, the US labor
movement embodied "oligargic inertia" and bureaucratic conservatism, generally and when
compared to other multi-generational social movements. (Martin 2007, Voss & Sherman, 2000).
Clawson and Clawson (1999) argue that unions' poor track record in relation to white women and
people of color manifests not only in the flawed and low levels of organizing of these populations,
but by unions' lack of willingness or capacity to engage with concerns highlighted by feminist and
anti-racist movements. If we mobilize the notion of path dependency for bureaucracies, it then
becomes easy to understand some of the main obstacles stalling female organizers of color's
advancement. They are still women, and tend to behave as they were socialized to. For instance,
they talk less in places of power – such as the steering committees. In the twelve steering
committees that I have attended, I have found that every time, there was a balance number of men
and women. However, I have found that an average of over 70% of the interventions were made by
men, and that, when women spoke up, they were more prone to ask questions than make statements
or contribute in assertive ways (average of 12 questions by women per steering committee, and of
only 4 by men). Although it may partly be explained by the fact that women do take up more tasks
than men (as explained previously), this trend seemed to important not to note. Also, and although I
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18. am only making assumptions, I have reason to believe that some men in the coalition still had issues
with women in power. For instance, when I was attending the May Day march, three of the male
organizers of Raise the Wage were discussing the entertainment team who had led the parade. They
were all laughing at the main speaker, a woman, criticizing her “strident woman voice”, and
concluded that they hoped a man would be put in charge of the microphone next year, for “the sake
of [their] ears”.
Furthermore, and because spaces of power are still dominated by white men, there is a risk
of placing them at the heads of unions and labor movements as well, to increase their bargaining
power. For example, in the case of the Raise the Wage campaign, the initiative was largely started
by the Wage Theft coalition – predominantly made up of female organizers of color, around five
years ago. However, this summer, when it was decided that the context was ripe, and that the
campaign might actually be successful, Rusty Hicks, a white male lawyer, was made co-convener. I
have not been able to access spaces where the co-conveners discussed privately, and am thus not
fully aware of the power dynamics between them, but Hicks seemed in charge of the organizers. For
instance, he attended 5 of the steering committees I attend, when his colleague, Laphonza Butler,
did not attend one during the time I spent there. He attended 2 of the hearings I attended, and she
did not come to any. These led me to assume that he had a closer relationship to the organizers, and
that he was in charge with them.
The difficulty of transforming the system from within also makes it hard for this generation
of women of color to gain and maintain collective power within union. Even when one of theirs
succeed, there is always the risk that she cannot / doesn't want to get rid of the status quo and
remains content with “only” a personal gain. This renouncement of the possibility of further
advancement for the group, which appears to be against the collective “contract”, is largely
denounced by the female organizers of the coalition. Again, I mobilize the example of Laphonza
Butler, one of the co-convener : although she is admired because she comes from the very basis –
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19. she was a picker – several (n=3) of the women have made comments about her reluctance to
contribute to the furthering of other female organizers.
Women also still complete tasks typically understood to be menial or logistical – that is,
traditionally female activities. And this whatever their rank within the coalition. For instance, before
a demonstration around the issue of wage theft, the team has agreed during the steering committee
that workers should be equipped with around 60 posters. After the meeting, male organizers left to
get food, and women started painting the posters. I spent three hours helping them, and a total of 8
women helped out, taking turns, while no men did – again, there were the same number of men and
women during steering committee.
Finally, the job is well understood as not being “mother-friendly”, and having children is
definitely seen as something that makes female organizer's lives really complicated, given the
unpredictable schedules and long, harassing hours (Bunnage 2014, 67). At one of the City Hall
hearing, for instance, three of the female organizers were discussing the fact that one of Rosemarie's
intern was graduating college and wanted to get into organizing professionally. All three of them
told her never to get kids before she was “thirty, at least, because then your life is over !”.
Rosemarie approved this statement, insisting on her own experience (she has a one year old infant).
She said “Last year I did May Day when I was 8 months pregnant. What are you gonna do ? They
were gonna give it to someone else, so I said whatever I can still do it”. Clearly, as in any job, but
maybe even more in organizing, because of the long hours in activism, women face challenges
when they are about to become mothers, which can counter their plans to gain more power within
the labor movements.
b. Internal conflicts and the challenges pertaining to collective advancement
Oftentimes, and as always in collective initiatives, internal conflicts arise. In the case of the
Raise the Wage coalition, I have witnessed two types of internal conflicts. First, when some of the
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20. women decide to “choose” one of the side of their serial identities, then fighting primarily as a
woman, or a Latina, as a lesbian, etc. The strength of the serial identity relies on the fact that
women avoid antagonizing parts of their basis because they pledge allegiance to the collective
project. Choosing one identity seems to occasion a rupture in the power forces, and is thus
understood as a threat to unity by the rest of the community. It is interesting, because it shows that
gender-specific claims, for instance, are not particularly well received if they are perceived as
personal strategies. During one of the steering committee, a few weeks before the City Council was
about to vote on the initiative, a parallel movement of female workers started, under the “Fast for
15” name. A group of a dozen women fasted for several days to demand a faster timeline in the
adoption of $15/h : the coalition's plan was $15 by 2020, and that of these women, by 2017. After
one of the leaders brought this up during the meeting, the following interaction happened :
“ -Fasting worker : we, women, demand a shorter timeline, because we cannot afford to wait. We
have bills, rents and mortgages to pay.
- Rosemarie : we do not want to undermine anyone, but you have to know that we have been
working on this collectively for years now. You cannot show up and threaten our unity, this will
weaken our message and people will be confused. Please consider that doing your own thing, in this
case, might hurt us all.”
Ironically, then, gender-specific claims appear to inevitably be subordinate to the larger
agenda – which, again, female organizers of color did not necessarily set up themselves, as the labor
movements initiative get taken over by white men when they become successful.
Then, there are also instances of internal conflicts of interests, even within the group of
female organizers of color. These can be, again, due to the various allegiances of these women –
made even more salient within coalition as everyone comes from a different organizations. I have
witnessed tensions between some communities of color. For example, the priority of the latin@
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21. population is to enforce legislation preventing wage theft, a phenomenon prevalent in industries that
tend to employ workers from Mexico or Central America (such as the restaurant or the carwash
industries.) However, the challenge faced by the black community of Los Angeles, amongst which
50% are either unemployed or under-employed (below minimum wage). As a result, the President
of the Black Workers Center, Lola (a black woman), was pushing for more anti discrimination
language in the text drafted by female organizers who are originally from the Wage Theft coalition.
I noticed tensed interactions and back door conversations addressing the timing of these pushes by
the BWC – deemed too late in the process. These interracial tensions, also coherent with the
growing conflicts between the African-American and the Latin@ communities of Los Angeles
(Johnson 2012), sometimes undermine the collective unity of female organizers of color.
4. Conclusion
There is a clear will from female organizers of color to gain power and authority within the
Los Angeles labor movements : whether at the grassroots or at the organizing levels, they create and
implement various strategies to secure legitimacy, and thus leadership. What the motherhood trope
and the serial identities have on common, is that they are attempts, for these women, to gain power
despite of their identities as historically marginalized individuals. They are attempts at using those
identities, by women who have full knowledge of the forces – whether they be patriarchy, white
supremacy or neoliberalism – that work against them. By making use of these identities, rather than
searching to escape them, female organizers of color transcend them, and succeed in these
legitimization efforts despite those assigned identities. These, however, remain partially efficient.
Because of the way path dependency still shape and decide of the functioning and decision making
process of institutionalized structures, female organizers of color, a long excluded population, face
systemic obstacles to their participation and moving up. Sometimes, and despite the common efforts
to achieve a collective advancement, personal or circumstantial dissensions still cripple the unity
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22. women seem to strive for. Other obstacles, not mentioned here, because not witnessed in the course
of this research, could be brought up. One could think of the practice of tokenism (Uttal, 1990 ;
Bunnage, 2014). What if the integration of new female leadership in this labor movement
revitalization effort was primarily meant to neutralize critiques against unions ? What if they did not
mean that these will engage in an authentic redefinition process ?
This ethnography is, obviously, not complete : it was conducted in a limited time period,
with very limited resources, by a first year exchange student with limited knowledge of the Los
Angeles labor movement. It does not aim at bringing a definite answer to the question of the
increased leadership of female organizers of color within unions, but more at providing the glimpse
of a response to the theoretical puzzle of the conditions needed for heavily bureaucratized structures
to undergo processes of redefinition, and to incorporate new protagonists. It helps us understand
how change happens, despite path dependency and sometimes despite power struggles. I am
confident that future research on the topic will be conducted, and will hopefully reaffirm these
findings, update, and complete them.
I am particularly curious about the immediate future. What will happen to this cohort of
young leaders, as they age and become mothers themselves, given the apparent difficulties of
combining motherhood and organizing ? Will they then adopt the motherhood trope ? Even though
they have had access to positions of power, being leading organizers, co-conveners or even
presidents of unions ? Will this be another instance of missed opportunities for inclusion, or will
these efforts will truly be consolidated, led by an even newer generation of Angelenas of color ?
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