Finding the synergy between law and organizing: experiences from the streets of Los Angeles.

• Author: Narro, Victor

1. INTRODUCTION

   The topic of law and organizing has generated much scholarly debate over the past twenty years. (1) There exists a wide array of articles written by legal scholars and other academics on the relationship between public interest lawyers and organizers during the process of legal representation and litigation. From critical reflections to theoretical propositions, these articles discuss the role of public interest lawyers involved in community and labor campaigns. Unique to law and organizing is the theory that lawyers can promote social justice and empower low-income communities through legal advocacy, which is intimately connected and ultimately subordinate to a grass roots organizing campaign strategy. (2) Law and organizing legal scholars present sophisticated theoretical analyses and concrete practical examples of how legal advocacy and community organizing can be integrated as credible social change strategy. (3) They propose case models of law and organizing that suggest that public interest lawyers should transition from a conventional legal practice to one where their efforts focus on facilitating community organizing campaign efforts. (4)

   In recent years, the law and organizing model has been most prominently applied as a strategy for improving the conditions of low-wage workers. Public interest and legal services lawyers in the field of workers' rights have combined litigation and workplace organizing techniques to pressure employers to enforce wage and hour requirements, workers' compensation laws, occupational health and safety regulations, child labor protections, and anti-discrimination laws? This new approach of law and organizing in the workplace draws upon the traditional theories of labor organizing. (6)

   Like their union counterparts, law and organizing proponents seek to build collective bargaining power as to create more equitable working conditions. Despite the strong connections to the union movement, workplace law and organizing advocates have been forced to venture outside the scope of conventional labor law practice for a variety of reasons. (7) Most importantly, the declining power of unions, particularly in the low-wage employment sector, has heightened the need for alternative workplace organizing tactics. (8) Much of the current law and organizing activity in the workplace context has therefore sought to bring the protections and advantages of unionization to the non-unionized workforce. This effort has been important in industries where labor has a weak presence, such as the garment industry or in areas in which unionization would be impractical, such as domestic work or day labor. These industries are also comprised of large numbers of undocumented immigrant workers who are employed on a part-time or contingency basis and who are particularly vulnerable to employer exploitation. (9)

   The worker center movement has opened up opportunities for progressive lawyers to engage in this model of new "empowerment lawyering." Throughout the last decade, Los Angeles and other major cities have witnessed the emergence of non-traditional organizing efforts by community-based worker centers. Due to major economic and migration trends that have led to demographic and structural changes in the manufacturing and service industries, the exploitation of low-wage, predominately immigrant workers has become prevalent throughout the low-wage workforce. (10) During this period of demographic changes and restructuring within these industries, there have been very few, if any, avenues for immigrant workers to participate at the workplace and integrate into the economic and social fabric of American society. (11) Many of the institutions and labor organizations that helped these immigrant workers in the past have either disappeared or seen their presence decline dramatically. (12) Low-wage immigrant workers increasingly labor in these industries in which there are few or no unions or outlets through which workers can fight for their rights. (13)

   Within this context, worker centers have struggled to emerge over the past several decades as a new type of organization that can assist immigrant workers. (14) Worker centers are community-based membership organizations that organize workers to fight widespread labor exploitation. (15) Worker centers organize at a grassroots level, across trades and industries, in working-class communities. (16) In addition to confronting systematic exploitation in the workplace, the centers also focus their attention on the economic, social, and political concerns of their members. (17) These centers are part of a comprehensive effort to build a new labor movement to fight against exploitation of immigrants and other working-class people. (18)

   A growing number of worker centers across the country provide service and advocacy support for immigrant workers; many have also become community centers that promote civic participation. (19) These innovative campaigns have provided public interest lawyers the opportunity to look at new models of empowerment or people lawyering that are integral to organizing. The Workplace Project in Hempstead, New York is a well- known example of this model. (20) The Workplace Project was the first group to use legal representation and legal services to support a broader worker center effort to build a new movement of non-traditional and non-unionized workers. (21)

   Worker centers in California, most notably in Los Angeles, have played a significant role in creating community organizing strategies that have led to local victories for low-wage immigrant workers. (22) Very few worker centers, however, have succeeded at large-scale economic intervention in labor markets. Even with relatively low membership numbers compared to labor unions or hometown associations, (23) these worker centers have sustained their membership levels. Systematic implementation of leadership and campaign development programs, as well as the integration of membership development with case management and other direct services have helped to maintain membership. (24)

   The campaigns of worker centers in Los Angeles exemplify the collective work between lawyers and organizers. Each campaign contains different and unique facets of the lawyer-organizer relationship depending on the organizing effort and its goals. (25) This Article explores two case studies that demonstrate effective ways to foster positive synergy between lawyers and organizers.

   Part II of this Article examines the first case study and focuses on how the positive working relationship between organizers and lawyers led to a successful organizing campaign effort. The first case study is a recent boycott organizing campaign by a group of garment workers in Los Angeles--the Garment Worker Center Forever 21 Boycott Campaign of 2001-2004. This case study demonstrates the most common model of law and organizing where public interest lawyers become involved with an existing organizing campaign. Part II also discusses the challenges to maintaining this level of synergy between lawyers and organizers and how they can work together to overcome common obstacles.

   Part III focuses on the second case study where lawyers initiated the process that led to an organizing strategy. This case study deviates from the common perception that the development of an organizing strategy should precede the integration of progressive lawyers into an organizing campaign. Through analysis of a newly emerging organizing campaign involving car wash workers, this case study presents the hypothesis that lawyers can formulate the long term vision of an organizing campaign and initiate the process that leads to an effective organizing strategy well before the involvement of labor organizers. Part III discusses the role of attorneys in laying the foundation for an innovative organizing campaign. In the Car Wash Worker Justice Campaign case model, a group of progressive lawyers shared a vision that The Car Wash Worker Law would become a vehicle from which labor organizers could carry out an effective campaign to organize car wash workers. Part III also discusses how and to what extent a group of progressive legal advocates laid the foundation for a low-wage immigrant worker organizing campaign. This Part analyzes the following three outcomes to answer this question: (1) the passage and reauthorization of The Car Wash Worker Law; (2) union involvement in the campaign; and (3) fostering worker participation in the campaign. This case model defies much of the literature on law and organizing that argue for ways that lawyers should integrate into already pre-existing organizing campaigns. The lawyers viewed the law as a means, and not an end, to bringing about long-term changes in the car wash industry.

2. FOREVER 21 BOYCOTT CAMPAIGN

   1. Background of the Garment Industry in Los Angeles

      "Apparel is a $24.3 billion industry in California, with Los Angeles serving as the capital of garment production in the United States." (26) As of April 2005, there were 63,500 garment workers in Los Angeles County, with likely thousands more employed by unregistered garment shops. (27) It is the largest garment production center in the country and consists of approximately 5000 shops that employ an immigrant, primarily female, workforce. (28) "Apparel manufacturing constitutes 14% of all manufacturing employment in Los Angeles, making apparel the single largest manufacturing sector. Nearly 80% of California's garment employment is located in L.A. County." (29) The numbers reported to the government, however, fail to take into account "the many workers involved in the informal economy." (30) State law requires garment contractors to register with the California Department of Industrial Relations ("DIR"), yet many garment contractors fail to register and continue to operate unlicensed shops, often failing to pay payroll taxes or workers' compensation...