L.A. Black Worker Center Pushes for Inclusion

In early February of this year, approximately 300 workers waited to to learn about pre-apprenticeship training, union building, construction trades apprenticeship programs, and career opportunities. Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Black Worker Center (LABWC).

LeDaya Epps grew up in foster care until adolescence. When she finished high school, bouncing from job to job with no real career path, she struggled to land steady employment. By 2010, she had three children to care for as well and prospects looked tough. Then in 2013, when the Los Angeles Black Workers Center successfully negotiated an employment agreement with the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) her life changed.

For years, the city had been expanding its subway and light rail systems; the Crenshaw/LAX Light Rail Train that runs through several traditionally black neighborhoods in South L.A. to the Los Angeles International Airport was next in line and the LABWC sought to ensure that the city's African American workforce benefitted from its construction. Their agreement with Metro mandated that 40 percent of the work hours go to disadvantaged workers. On average, pay for individuals completing apprenticeship programs starts around 50,000; 87 percent of apprentices get hired on full time.[1]

With the help of the LABWC, Epps found employment building the new line. Nineteen more black workers would join Epps laboring on the Crenshaw/LAX LRT line and the agreement stands as one of the organization's signature accomplishments. After completing an apprenticeship, she was soon hired by Walsh/Shea Corridor Constructors and secured a place in the Laborers Local 300 union.

LeDaya Epps, member of the LABWC, worked on the Crenshaw/LAX Transit project. Photo courtesy of LABWC.

When President Obama invited her as a guest at the 2015 State of the Union address, Epp's attendance symbolized her own triumphs and that of the LABWC. Though the agreement with Metro expires next year, the LABWC believes through negotiations it will be able to expand and renew it over the next five years. With the promise of a new football stadium in Inglewood and other large infrastructure projects in the near future, the LABWC hopes to establish similar arrangements in the private sector.[2]

Nearly 20 years after the same community had been caught up in the unrest of the tragic 1992 Rodney King Riots in 2011, the LABWC opened its doors in the heart of South Central L.A. As the LABWC director, Lola Smallwood Cuevas told researchers in 2014, the center started with only a dozen people but they were 12 of the most dedicated workers one could find: [W]e held workshops, a worker's rights hearing, began to build partnerships with community based organizations and we touched over three hundred people in some way. [3]

Within three years, the center had expanded ten fold with a list of 3,000 supporters while engaging over 600 people annually through training, organizing, and advocacy efforts. Today non-profit groups like the LABWC are trying to gain African American workers footholds in industries long closed to them.

Historically, unemployment rates in the African American community have been double that of whites. During the Great Recession, black unemployment peaked at 16.6 percent in April 2010. A recent report from the University of Illinois-Chicago's Great Cities Institute found that during 2014 in L.A. and New York, roughly 30 percent of black men between the ages of 20 and 24 were without work.[4] In addition, UC Berkley's Labor Center reported in 2015 that of those black men and women fully employed in Los Angeles County, 14.3 of the former and 16.7 of the latter worked in low-income positions.[5]

In many ways, Epps epitomizes the work of the LABWC as the efforts of the organization have resulted in an increase in the number of black laborers on the construction of the light rail line by 20 percent.[6] Prior to the LABWC's intervention, the project included no black workers. It's a question of the social networks around the work, Smallwood Cuevas told the Los Angeles Times.[7] How do you crack what has historically been a difficult industry for women, and for black workers in particular. Construction in particular serves as a prime example; despite making up nine percent of L.A. county's population, African Americans account for less than two percent of the industry.[8] LeDaya Epps stands as a living example of the work that women and mothers can do in all industries, and in particular that black women can do in industries traditionally closed to them, Smallwood Cuevas added recently.[9]

Historically the inability to build connections and social networks into various industries in and around Los Angeles, largely due to the effects of discrimination and structural economic change, have defined black labor in L.A. County.

Historically the inability to build connections and social networks into various industries in and around Los Angeles, largely due to the effects of discrimination and structural economic change, have defined black labor in L.A. County. Brief moments of promise such as WWII when government intervention, the work of civil rights organizations and the needs of a mobilizing nation created new employment opportunities previously denied them or during the late 1960s and 70s when unionization finally grew more open to African American workers, would soon be followed by disappointment. While black men and women experienced the ebb and flow of employment differently, each witnessed the door opening slightly only to be closed soon after.

Since the founding of the city of Los Angeles, there's been a deep engagement of African Americans, black people in L.A. to deliver a city free segregation while also providing economic and educational opportunities equally, Smallwood Cueva

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