On Aug. 15, the Los Angeles city council imposed a new labor contract on the Engineers and Architects Association, a public employees’ union with more than 7,500 members in LA. Union members are professional and technical workers in every city department: staffers at sewage processing plants; management analysts; civil engineers; transportation engineers; 911 emergency operators; and operations superintendents at Los Angeles, Van Nuys, and Ontario airports. It was the union’s first strike in its 112-year existence.
The contract was imposed on these workers at a city council meeting, which had been scheduled at the request of the
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The “last, best and final” offer, now the workers’ contract, is meant to cover the pay period from July 2004 to June 2007. The union has been working without a contract since July 2004. The wage increase imposed through the implementation of the new contract includes no raise at all for 2004 and retroactive raises of two percent for 2005 and 2006 combined, and a 2.25 percent raise in 2007. These small raises fail to keep up with the cost of living.
The EAA had demanded that the city grant them annual pay raises of 3.25 percent to 6 percent, a contract more in line with what the city just gave water and power workers and LA cops.
In response to the imposed contract, the EAA went on strike for two days—Tuesday, Aug. 22 and Wednesday, Aug. 23. These strikes caused disarray throughout the nation’s second largest city.
At the Los Angeles airport, work on a vital project to move a runway came to a halt for two days as Teamsters would not cross the EAA picket line in solidarity with the striking union. Only 50 out of 125 Teamsters showed up for work at all.
All 59 city swimming pools were shut down as well, and outside the gates of Hyperion, a sewage treatment plant, union members held a strong and militant two-day picket. Along with some 4,500 members of the EAA, the longshore workers at the port of LA, the Teamsters Joint Council 42, 100 parking attendants represented by SEIU Local 347, and the construction trades all showed solidarity by honoring the strike’s picket lines.
Unfortunately, LA’s main labor federation, the LA County Federation of Labor, did not officially support or take action in solidarity with the EAA workers during the strike. And the water and power workers who had received the higher pay rate sought by the EAA worked during the strike. The EAA noted this lack of support, saying it hoped these unions would support any further actions the EAA decides to take.
An estimated 2,000 EAA workers joined the picket lines in front of the Los Angeles city hall and outside other local government offices. And nearly 2,500 workers stayed home from work. Union members chanted and heckled anyone who crossed the picket line, calling them “scabs” including police officers and LA’s mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa.
Workers were especially mad at Villaraigosa, who showed his true political colors before and during the strike. The mayor, who was favored throughout Los Angeles by many workers due to his political roots in the labor movement and because of his claims to be “progressive” and “pro-labor,” proved to be nothing more than an anti-labor, capitalist politician.
On the first day of the strike, Villaraigosa shrugged off the strike and painted it as a non-event. “The vast majority [of city workers] have gone to work,” he said. “We do not have any indication that there has been a sympathy strike … on the part of the other unions. Most of the other civilian employees, who received the same offer and accepted it some two years ago, are at work and doing their job. We thank them for that.”
Villaraigosa’s thoroughly bourgeois position also showed how labor’s financial support and total reliance on capitalist politicians won’t prevent them from siding with the bosses when it really matters. The EAA supported and contributed to Villaraigosa’s mayoral campaign in 2005. Yet, almost two years later, he was their most visible enemy. The most popular chants on the EAA picket lines were “One-term mayor” and “Equal pay for equal work. LA mayor don’t be a jerk.”
Capitalist unity against city workers
Before the strike, the city council, in collusion with the mayor, mobilized to prevent the union from taking action. They told the union members that they could not strike because they are “safety sensitive employees,” a term that they did not even bother to define.
When the city management realized it would take more than verbal threats to hold back the workers’ action, Los
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The mayor and other city brass came down hard on the strike repeatedly. Villaraigosa held a much-touted press conference to show the city that the striking workers didn’t deserve a pay raise, because they were already “well paid.”
The members of the Engineers and Architects Association make $36,000 to $126,000 annually, averaging about $74,000. This is a common capitalist ploy—to try to erode support for a strike by telling the public how good the striking workers have it.
Villaraigosa also spearheaded the effort to keep track of how many employees were absent from work during the two-day strike. Villaraigosa vowed to go to court soon to pursue legal sanctions against the workers who were absent against the judge’s order, despite the fact that they never received written notice that they were barred from striking.
The anti-worker sentiment was strong within the city’s ruling class and the media. The LA Times, known for its history of anti-worker positions, ran a series of articles trying to downplay the strike’s effectiveness and supporting the mayor’s anti-labor position.
In addition, LA cops firmly protected the city brass against the striking workers. Cops intimidated workers on the picket line and shoved picketers as they marched outside Piper Tech, a transportation plant in downtown LA. But the strike continued.
Although the strike was limited in scope and demands, the EAA was able to mount a militant, energetic battle against the ruling elite of Los Angeles.
According to the union, “the specific goals for this two day event were to remove doubt that EAA members would strike if provoked. The other goal we pre-set was to inform the City management who we are and what we have been doing for them for the past 112 years.”
The union successfully achieved both of its goals. It also stated that the two-day strike was an “appetizer” leading to more substantial actions in the future. EAA executive director Robert Aquino said, “If the city still wants to take the attitude of, ‘We are not going to talk to EAA,’ we will put on a main course.”
