Hollywood March to the Docks Educated, Empowered and United Workers of all Classes
By Adolfo Flores
The middle-class is what the United States is known for, a concept that draws in people from all over the world to this country. Amid this diminish of the middle-class, foreclosures and a recession some 350, 000 workers, which are a part of 30 local Los Angeles unions, will renegotiate their contracts this year.
The Hollywood to the dock march in support of these and all workers ended after three days on April 17 at a rally at the San Pedro.
Tracy Plummer’s husband is a longshoreworker who participated in the three-day march said that the unions are breaking up little by little and it is important for all the unions to show solidarity.
He was referring to the maritime workers who in May of 1934 went on strike, shutting down the entire West Coast. In the struggle maritime workers in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and San Pedro were killed or wounded after being shot at by authorities and vigilantes. Although they were victorious in the end, establishing a union they could be proud of, many sacrificed their lives in the process.
“This was where working families took a stand against injustice almost three-quarters of a century ago, this is where thousands of waterfront workers built a union to help workers escape poverty,” Radisich said. “But look around today and you’ll see that many working families are still struggling and some of those struggles are out here in our own back yard.
“No more stamps in a country that is the most developed on this planet we call earth,” said Spanish-language radio personality El Cucuy.
He ordered the hundreds of workers present to raise their fists in the air.
El Cucuy has used his radio show to support and advocate on behalf on many issues that affect the Latino community.
“Not with weapons, but with your heart,” he added at the end of his short but passionate speech.
Towards the end of the night when you felt like you couldn’t hear another speaker the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, walked onto the stage barely making it back on time from his trip to the nation’s capitol and recharging the audience.
“We ought to acknowledge that when people work hard they ought to have respect and dignity in the work place,” Villaraigosa said.
East Los Angeles Community College librarian, Evelyn Escatolia, 54, was one of the 150 people who started the Hollywood march to the docks from the La Brea Tar Pits.
“(The walk) highlights the need to cross over lines in terms of different unions because we’re all in it together,” Escatolia said. “The whole impetus for this march is to show that people can work together and we can win.”
Maria Elena Durazo, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, said that the walk also opened the eyes of all class of workers and advocates in regards to other workers who are also battling for good jobs.
“Lots of people came up to me and told me ‘I started out here thinking about iron workers, I started talking about teachers but by the end of this walk I’m thinking about all workers and everybody has the same right to a good job with dignity behind it’,” she said.
When describing the three-day walk she said, “It was worth every inch of the way.”
