Why is 2008 being called the Fight For Good Jobs?

The Fight For Good Jobs hits at the heart of what is wrong with Los Angeles – a diminishing middle class, a place where 3.7 million live in poverty, home to the low wage Capital of the country and a place where the dream of owning a home is often unattainable. Today, one third of the county’s 3 million full-time workers earn less than $25,000 a year, an income not even near the $133,506 needed to purchase a median (549,000) priced home.

In 2008 we have the opportunity to do something about this as L.A.’s workers face unprecedented challenges and opportunities - a year in which more than 350,000 workers, belonging to 30 local unions, will re-negotiate their union contracts; this is the largest number of workers in the history of the L.A. Labor Movement. These workers hail from key sectors reflecting the core of L.A.’s economy: actors, longshoremen, homecare workers, teachers and janitors.

At the same time over 30,000 port drivers, security officers, car wash workers, hotel workers, construction workers and LAX passenger service workers will continue their fight to move out of poverty by joining a union.

While 2008 will be a year filled with electoral races including the Presidency of the United States, L.A.’s workers will play the greatest role and make the largest impact in the race to elect a new Los Angeles County Board of Supervisor. Who we elect to the County Board of Supervisors is crucial to working men and women because politicians make decisions on our pensions, on whether construction workers doing work on public funded projects are making good or poverty wages. They make decisions about healthcare and all the other cares that working men and women have. They can either stand in our way or help ensure that we create good jobs, not just more poverty jobs.

So when it comes to contract fights, organizing and politics in 2008, we are combining them all in The Fight for Good Jobs. Because whether it’s workers fighting to ensure that their jobs remain good middle class jobs, or it’s about fighting to move out of poverty by joining a union or voters ensuring that elected leaders fight for workers and children - all of these struggles overlap for one common goal – the need for good, not poverty jobs. So in 2008, workers will work together like never before. We will combine all of our resources and tap every ally to ensure that we win The Fight for Good Jobs.

Click here to download the pdf Tool Kit.

To read more:

Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.Poverty, Jobs and the Los Angeles Economy. An Analysis of U.S. Census Data and the Challenges Facing the region. Pg. 2 (August 2007).
Downloaded from
http://www.laane.org/research/los_angeles_economy_2007.html

California Budget Project. Making Ends Meet: How Much Does it Cost to Raise a Family in California?
Pg. 8 (October 2007). Downloaded from
http://www.cbp.org/pdfs/2007/0710_mem_003.pdf