The Reality Check: photos from the edge 47 - YOUNG WORKERS IN LOS ANGELES

photos from the edge 47 - YOUNG WORKERS IN LOS ANGELES
Photos by David Bacon

Marjorie Henandez is a longtime janitor at the UCLA Downtown Labor Center

This spring I had the chance to take photographs of young workers in Los Angeles, in cooperation with the Young Workers Education Project (YWEP) of the UCLA Labor Center. In this project UCLA students help high school students lean about labor rights, how unions work, and how young workers can win better conditions. According to the center's publication California's Future is Clocked In, about 12% of California's workers are young, and of all young people between 16 and 24, almost half are workers. Almost three-quarters are people of color, two thirds earn low wages, and half are also going to school.

The wonderful people on the communications team at the labor center, together with other staff, recorded and posted the experiences of four student/worker activists. I've excerpted their comments below, and included the photographs of others. Thanks to Dr. Janna Shadduck-Hernández and Project Director Nicolle Fefferman. The website for the narratives is: https://labor.ucla.edu/project/young-worker-initiative/young-workers-teaching-young-workers/

Skye O'Toole, labor studies student and student worker

I see my younger self in the students YWEP teaches. Like many of them, I worked in high school. The exhilaration they felt participating in YWEP's simulations was the same I felt when I first joined my union, CWA-TNG Local 37074, in my senior year ... Many new union members get stuck seeing their union as little more than a monthly newsletter and a paycheck deduction. While the patient guidance of my union siblings helped me avoid such a mindset, that is not a universal experience. Luckily. the students who participated in YWEP's labor simulations ... will enter their workplaces understanding the necessity of winning a strong contract. They will stay informed about negotiations and participate in workplace actions demanding a fair deal.

Skye O'Toole shows the emblem of the NewsGuild she tattooed on her forearm, a sign of her labor activism

Isabel Casem, sociology and education student

While I did not start working until community college, the vast array of jobs I have held left me in situations wondering: what are my rights? ... During YWEP workshops, I watched many students gradually transform from being disengaged to fully invested by the end of each day. Their enthusiasm for learning about their workplace rights and how to apply them in current and future jobs was incredibly inspiring.

Isabel Casem talks with Daniel Safrians, a Target worker

Sarai Esparza, economics and labor studies student

Every time I walked into a new classroom, I would leave amazed by how much students already knew from their own and their families' work experiences and how applicable this information was to them ... I consistently saw how engaged students were, regardless of their previous understanding of labor rights.

Sarai Esparza points out a reference in a Mike Davis book to Skye O'Toole

Elena, political science and labor studies student

My first job started when I was 16. I lived in Texas, a "right-to-work" state, making $7.25 an hour scooping ice cream day-in and day-out. Like many young workers, I experienced wage theft before I even knew what wage theft was. Now, every time I guide students through one of YWEP's modules or simulations, I ask myself: what would have happened if I had learned about my workers' rights at their age?