Friends,

In a meeting earlier this year, LAANE board member Manuel Pastor said something that has stuck with me: “In some ways,” he said, “we’ve been training for this our whole lives. If now is not the time, then when?”

In June, the raids began en masse. Even after months of warning, we were ill-prepared to confront the level of aggression that this administration displayed. With immigrant workers under attack and every known resource spoken for, we shifted eight staff members from their campaigns, established field offices from South L.A. to San Bernardino, and launched our Know Your Rights Campaign. We didn’t have the time to pause to identify a legislative strategy or a leverage point. We simply decided to visit every immigrant worker we could find, and by the end of the summer we had sent more than 70 organizers to 9,000 worksites and reached about 87,000 workers.

Know Your Rights wasn’t our only campaign this summer. This was also the year our movement finally won the Olympic Wage. Hotel companies and airlines paid $3 million to put signature gatherers in front of grocery stores with clipboards and lies. It turns out, when you lie to people on behalf of hotel and airline corporations, they get angry! So many people revoked their signatures that the industry couldn’t even get their referendum on the ballot. Now they want to repeal the gross receipts tax, but organized people will always beat organized money. 

As I reflect on 2025—the tremendous loss of Kent Wong, a founding member of LAANE and the Chair of our Board of Directors; the unconscionable mass kidnappings of our family members, friends, and neighbors; the insatiable greed of corporate interests who seek to extract capital at each of our expense—I am once again reminded of Manuel Pastor’s words: “We’ve been training for this our whole lives.” Now is the time to be bold and unwavering in our commitment to build power for working people. Because when we fight, we win. 

Saludos y Adelante,

Víctor G. Sánchez

LAANE Executive Director

After years of hard work, the Tourism Workers Rising L.A. coalition—anchored by UNITE HERE Local 11, SEIU-United Service Workers West, and LAANE—declared victory this summer when the L.A. City Council approved the Olympic Wage Ordinance, which ensures crucial health protections and the highest minimum wage in the country for L.A.’s tourism workers. But not long after it was signed into law, a group of airline and hotel corporations and industry lobby groups launched a signature-gathering campaign to overturn it. Our coalition quickly responded with the Defend the Wage campaign to get our communities into the street to stop them. Over 120,000 Angelenos submitted forms to revoke their petition signatures, disqualifying the referendum campaign. 

This fall, in anticipation of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games and other mega-events happening across our city, we launched the Fair Games: A New Deal for Our Future campaign. The Fair Games coalition has grown to over 80 organizations demanding that LA28 and its billionaire sponsors ensure union jobs and living wages, build housing for working families, protect our homes, and offer safety for immigrants. And if the IOC, LA28, city leaders, and corporate CEOs fail to meet workers’ needs, workers are prepared to take to the streets!

This summer, Long Beach City Council raised the wage for concession workers at the airport and convention center to $29.50/hour by the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2028. The policy will also extend protections to future workers at the Long Beach Bowl, a highly anticipated waterfront venue adjacent to the Queen Mary that will be the second-largest outdoor amphitheater in L.A. County. Thanks to this victory, concession workers are now brought up to the same wage standard that hotel workers won when Long Beach voters approved Measure RW. Through these victories, we achieved, at the time, the highest minimum wage for hotel and concession workers in the nation.

Alongside our partners ORALE and LBRE, LAANE’s Long Beach for a Just Economy (LBJE) team launched the “Our Budget, Our Future” campaign with a powerful vision: that Long Beach’s city budget should invest in what really makes us safe: people, housing, and justice! The Long Beach community made our voices heard, and the next budget for Long Beach includes $2 million for Right to Council, which will make sure tenants facing eviction can get legal help to stay in their homes and $1.9 million for the Justice Fund, which provides legal support to immigrant families dealing with deportation and other challenges.

This summer, as threats mounted against our immigrant communities in Los Angeles and throughout the region, LAANE’s Education team set out to bring Know Your Rights information to LAUSD parents and caregivers and help them put together family preparedness plans. 

As part of the Reclaim Our Schools L.A. coalition, we supported two cohorts in paid fellowships designed to train LAUSD parents, caregivers, and recent alumni to become active leaders in the fight to defend public education. We also supported coalition work—driven by Students Deserve and coalition staff—that led to major victories on the LAUSD budget, including $50 million for the Black Student Achievement Plan (BSAP), $5 million for Dream Centers to support immigrant students and their families, and $2 million for LGBTQ+ students for resources and supports.

This year we stood with public school teachers in Los Angeles by helping gather over 60 community organization endorsements for UTLA's Win Our Future Platform, which includes common good demands. In May, we joined thousands of UTLA members at Space X for the Fight for Schools: Stop Trump and Musk action. In September, we joined teachers as they picketed to demand better working conditions and to win on community demands on immigration and housing. And in November, we joined thousands of UTLA educators at rallies throughout the region, demanding LAUSD fully fund our schools. We will continue to stand in solidarity with educators and education workers until they win a fair contract!

Together with the leadership of UFCW 770 we built solidarity for tens of thousands of UFCW union members as they bargained for new contracts with Gelson’s, Vons, Stater Bros, Ralphs, Albertsons, Super A, and Pavilions. Working families won substantial wage increases, supplemental pension plans, increased health care benefits, and improved workplace conditions. Under the leadership of UFCW Local 324 in Long Beach, we bolstered community support for the “Safe Stores are Staffed Stores” ordinance. This new self-check out policy—the first of its kind in the country—requires large stores to have adequate staffing ratios and puts a limit on the number of items and types of goods that can be rung up at self-checkout. 

As we look towards 2026, grocery workers with El Super will continue to fight for a fair and just contract. We’re calling on ownership to stop stalling, provide crucial immigration protections, and offer a fair contract. You can sign up to show your solidarity here! 

Over the past year, we've worked to advance climate progress, build public and worker power, and create real change for working-class communities of color. Parent and school leaders are building power through providing public comment at board meetings, reaching out to other parents, and organizing to make sure their schools get more greenspace and shade. In collaboration with the Board of Education, community and labor allies, we have won new policies for change District-wide.

Working with parents, community, and union allies, we hosted a press conference at Farmdale Elementary at the beginning of the school year. A parent leader, Lisa Lomax, and SMART105 union representative, Donny Sappington, made impactful statements calling for upgrades to outdated school conditions that make it too hot for students, educators, and workers to thrive.

With our school board allies, coalition, and base, we successfully helped pass policies for school greenspace and responding to extreme weather with comprehensive solutions. Next year, we’ll be continuing our work together to build collective power and make sure these policies and projects come to fruition so LAUSD students, workers and communities have healthier, greener public schools.

In May, the Annual Women for a New Los Angeles Luncheon surpassed our internship program and organizational fundraising goals, honoring Lourdes Garcia, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters 572 and Linda Lopez, Founder of Impact Strategies. This month, the City of Justice Awards Dinner returned to the Beverly Hilton and honored Jennifer A. Abruzzo, Former NLRB General Counsel, now Of Counsel at Bush Gottlieb ALC and Special Advisor to the President at CWA; Roxana Tynan, Executive Director Emerita and Senior Advisor at LAANE; California Teachers Association; and the Legacy of Steve Schapiro, the Late American Photojournalist. We are so grateful to our honorees, board members, co-chairs, and supporters for making both events so successful! On the grants side, in 2025 we raised over $700,000 in new money and embarked on new partnerships with ten funders. We are grateful for the dedication and vision of our new and longstanding foundation partners.

There is still time to make a year-end, tax-deductible donation to support LAANE’s work to build an economy that works for everyone. You can support us here: