Friends,

As we wrap up 2023 – LAANE’s 30th year, and the continuation of a #HotLaborSummer into a #SeasonofSolidarity – I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a year quite like this one. 2023 was a year of crisis, of daring, and of workers building unprecedented power, from UTLA and SEIU 99 to the WGA, SAG-AFTRA, the Teamsters, the UAW, and UNITE HERE Local 11. Together, by organizing and building leadership, we pushed back on corporate greed and pushed forward with community demands for pro-worker climate policy, for community schools, and for affordable housing.

And together, we didn’t just flex power. We created it. As you’ll read below, we supported Local 11’s historic contract fight with a policy push to raise wages for hospitality workers. We won a utility shut-off moratorium for low-income Angelenos and for anyone in LA during extreme weather events, because access to water and power is a human right. We organized alongside retail workers, who didn’t stop being essential workers when COVID protections expired, to win more paid sick days and schedule protections. The list goes on. 

Because it turns out what we’ve been saying for three decades is true. When we fight – for clean air, clean water, good jobs, good schools – we win. At the end of the year, let’s pause and celebrate these victories as a foundation for even greater things to come. 

In Solidarity,

Roxana Tynan
LAANE Executive Director

This April, LAANE launched the Tourism Workers Rising campaign in partnership with SEIU-USWW, UNITE HERE Local 11, and a growing coalition of 117 endorsing organizations! The Tourism Workers Rising policy would update our existing living wage laws to increase the wage for Los Angeles' airport and hospitality workers to $25/hour immediately, $30/hour by 2028, and ensure that tourism workers have access to quality health care.

The coalition has been busy this year, joining workers and community members at City Hall, rallying with airport workers at LAX, and picketing with hospitality workers in the largest industry-wide strike in modern history. Ahead of the overwhelming strike authorization vote this summer, we participated in a nonviolent civil disobedience demonstration with nearly 200 workers, community members and elected officials.

We’ve also sent over 400 letters to LA City Council urging them to pass the Tourism Workers Rising policy as soon as possible. Can you join us in taking action by sending a quick letter?

2023 was a year of rebirth for LAANE’s Long Beach campaign. The team expanded to 3 full-time organizers and rebranded with a new logo and name: Long Beach for a Just Economy (LBJE for short!). This new direction for the campaign represents our ground work and commitment to making an equitable and sustainable Long Beach.

In May, LBJE launched Tourism Workers Rising Long Beach. Thanks to our organizing, advocacy, and collective action, we moved Long Beach City Council to place a measure on the March of 2024 ballot that would raise the wage for hotel workers to $23/hour in 2024 with an escalator to $29.50 by 2028.  

We’ve spent this year talking to Long Beach voters and residents and engaging them into our campaigns. LBJE organizers mobilized 304 Long Beach residents to send letters in support of tourism workers to their city council members, and secured Tourism Workers Rising endorsements from 70 community organizations and 160 small businesses! 

This year we’ve had several victories within our climate space, starting with successfully unifying our Water Justice and RePower coalitions! This combination of forces will be able to garner bigger and more victories across the board in Los Angeles. We’ll only keep building on top of our utility campaign that has been going strong for three years and which, this summer, led us to our largest victory yet with an end to shutoffs for ALL customers during extreme weather!

We’ve also had several labor wins in LA County and LAUSD, extending and approving Project Stabilization Agreements (PSAs) to enhance pursuit for a union-built clean energy and water resilient future that expands access to green infrastructure and good union jobs for frontline communities.

In November, the LA100 Equity Strategy report was released, highlighting the efforts of community based organizations, frontline communities, and the city to come together to build a green future by 2030. 

This year we took some huge steps toward making our public schools in Los Angeles safer, greener, and better resourced for 565,479 LAUSD students and their communities. The Reclaim Our Schools LA coalition—anchored by LAANE, UTLA, ACCE, and Students Deserve—played a big role in contributing to and supporting UTLA’s Beyond Recovery Platform, which was ratified by members with a 94% yes vote on May 5, 2023. Building on wins from 2019, the new contract includes big investments in Community Schools and the Black Student Achievement Plan. 

It was also a year of progress through accountability, as we worked hard organizing and educating for the passage of the "Creating a Charter Schools Co-Location Policy to Mitigate Impacts Caused by Proposition 39" resolution, which has been a crucial first step in addressing the negative impact that a lot of charter colocations have on public schools, especially those serving Black and Latinx/e/a/o students. We are now pressuring the District to do even more to address and repair the harms of colocation. 

This year we saw one of the major fruits of our labor come into season with the implementation of The Fair Workweek Ordinance, which officially entered into law on April 1, 2023. Supporters may remember this ordinance was unanimously approved by the L.A. City Council at the end of 2022, and impacts more than 70,000 workers in the city of Los Angeles.

Since then, LAANE’s Retail & Grocery worker organizers have been in the field educating workers on their rights, including all the ins and outs of this new ordinance. What’s more, after Fair Workweek L.A. became law, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors introduced their own version of the Fair Workweek ordinance, which would cover workers in unincorporated areas of the county. 

Our team has also been hard at work to stop the disastrous Albertsons-Kroger mega-merger, and joined union and nonprofit partners for rallies and letter-writing to the FTC. We are also proud to have been part of the coalition that helped pass SB616, which guarantees workers in California five paid sick days, an increase from three (special shout out to CA Federation of Labor and CA Work & Family Coalition)! 

At the City of Justice Awards earlier this month, we honored incredible changemakers: Billie Jean King, Stella T. Maloyan, the National Women’s Soccer League Players Association, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Senator Vincent Hughes, and the legacy of Gary Stewart. All of these honorees highlighted the myriad ways—through the arts, policy, athletics, and community-building—that we can fight for more livable futures for all. In May, at the Women for a New Los Angeles Luncheon, we also honored Rebecca Rhine and Jyoti Sarda—two inspiring leaders who have transformed the entertainment industry. Moreover, we hosted six amazing interns through the Beth and Julia Meltzer Internship program and facilitated a housing policy salon with local experts Cynthia Strathmann and Greg Good.

Thanks to the generosity of our inimitable community of supporters, we raised a total of $1.25 million in private funds throughout 2023 to directly fund our work! 

If you would like to make a year-end tax-deductible donation to LAANE, you can support us here: