Dear John,

Today, lifelong labor rights activist, feminist, community organizer, and co-founder of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union, Vivian Rothstein shares how LAANE taught her to think big when it comes to tackling income inequality. To celebrate LAANE’s 30th Anniversary, we will continue to feature our founding partners and luminaries as they reflect on what the last 30 years have meant for Los Angeles and our movement to build good jobs, thriving communities, and a healthy environment.

Join us in celebrating this milestone while planning for the next 30 years by supporting 30/30 VISION. Make a contribution today:

Pictured above is Vivian Rothstein (left) at LAANE's Women for a New Los Angeles Luncheon and Vivian with her grandson (right) taking part in the Freedom Ride for Voting Rights.

In the late 1990s, I was running the Ocean Park Community Center (OPCC), a network of shelters and

services for homeless women and men, runaway youth, and battered women in Santa Monica.

Besides providing housing, food, and counseling, we worked hard to prepare people for

employment and independent living. However, the jobs available to people trying to restart their

lives paid minimum wage, with no health insurance or sick leave. Our clients

couldn’t accumulate the security deposit, let alone first and last month’s rent, to get into stable

housing. And if they got sick, they often lost their jobs and cycled back into homelessness.

One day, LAANE organizer Stephanie Monroe gave me a call. Stephanie was heading up a

campaign to raise wages in Santa Monica’s growing hotel industry and wanted me to get

involved. I learned that the local hotels were among the most profitable in L.A. County, yet they

were then paying among the lowest wages in the region. It seemed like raising industry wages was something we could realistically do, especially since LAANE had recently passed a new Living Wage in Los Angeles that included health benefits, plus sick days, for employees of city contractors.

Was I interested? You bet I was! While I loved my work with the Community Center, my goal

was to do the most good for the most people. The federal government was expecting small

community-based nonprofits like OPCC to solve the problem of homelessness on their own.

And I knew that was NOT possible. As it had become dramatically clear from my work in helping

people rebuild their lives, “it was the economy, stupid.”

"LAANE’s work was ambitious, audacious and visionary.  It helped put the “movement” back into the labor movement by partnering with faith leaders, grassroots community activists, and local elected officials and connecting them to workers organizing for living wages and respect on the job."

- Vivian Rothstein

By 1997, I had left the Community Center and was working with LAANE on systemic economic

change at the local level. Using my community organizing and civil rights backgrounds, we focused on involving community and faith leaders in strategic campaigns to raise standards for the lowest wage workers in the region. 

LAANE’s work was ambitious, audacious and visionary.  It helped put the “movement” back into the labor movement by partnering with faith leaders, grassroots community activists, and local elected officials and connecting them to workers organizing for living wages and respect on the job.  There were lots of hard campaigns, but many we won, thereby transforming the lives of thousands of working people in Los Angeles.

This work couldn’t be more important than it is right now, with unknown numbers of displaced workers, key industries gutted, and others crying for skilled employees. Once called “the capital of working poverty,” Los Angeles is now poised to be a model for the nation in offering family-supporting employment for all. But it won’t happen without the smart organizing, research, coalition building and vision that LAANE has always brought to the table.

The Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) is an organizing and advocacy institution committed to economic, environmental, and racial justice. We bridge community and labor power to win policies that improve the lives of working families in Los Angeles and in Long Beach. Our vision is to help build a new economy rooted in good jobs, thriving communities, and a healthy environment for all. We fight for change through community organizing, building community and labor coalitions, research, communications, and policy work.

Join us in building a city and an economy that work for everyone by supporting 30/30 VISION: celebrating LAANE’s first 30 years while planning for the next.

Make a contribution today:

LAANE
464 Lucas Ave Suite 202
Los Angeles, CA 90017
United States

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