Mission Statement

The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO is the chartered Central Labor Council (CLC) of the AFL-CIO in Los Angeles County and is the second largest in the country, representing over 350 unions and over 800,000 workers. 

Our mission is to promote a voice for workers so they can remain in the middle class, move themselves out of poverty by joining a union, encourage active participation in the political process, by electing pro-union and pro-worker officials and to advance public policies that support workers and their families. As the coordinating center for labor’s political activity, the Federation believes that in educating and mobilizing workers to be politically active they can create and sustain healthy communities, and FIGHT FOR GOOD JOBS that REBUILD THE LOS ANGELES MIDDLE CLASS. Visit the Federation at www.launionaflcio.org

Our Victories

The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor has been honored with the AFL-CIO Union City award, recognizing the successes of our local unions in electing allies to political office and in organizing new workers.  Over the last few years, affiliates organized more than 100,000 new members in L.A. County, a statistic that put Los Angeles in the top spot in the country in organizing and has further credited labor as a powerful force in Los Angeles metropolitan and state politics.

The strength of labor’s solidarity was proven in the 1998 defeat of Proposition 226 – the initiative to silence the voice of working people by eliminating unions from participation in the political process.  Our consolidated efforts brought victory for the MTA bus drivers & mechanics in their strike to keep middle class jobs, and for the janitors of SEIU 1877 in their “Justice for Janitors” contract struggles, demanding living wages and dignity for working people.  Labor’s support for the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA in their contract strike in 2000 maintained entertainment industry jobs vital to Los Angeles, and our campaign for the passage of Measure B in 2002, saved Trauma Centers in L.A. County – keeping jobs for thousands of trauma center workers, and emergency services for tens of thousands of working families.

On November 8th 2005, the strength of the LA Labor Movement once again came through in our efforts to help defeat eight statewide initiatives. Among those were anti-worker propositions 74, 75, 76 and 77 which among other things would have attacked our  pensions and would have borrowed money from education and not repaid it back to our schools.

March 6th, 2007 was another significant time for the labor movement as working families helped elect several labor endorsed candidates including Richard Alarcon to the Los Angeles City Council,  Marguerite LaMotte and Yolie Flores-Aguilar to the Los Angeles Unified School District. A few weeks later working families accomplished what they set out to do by also helping elect, Richard Vladovic to the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Through a field operation plan that outreached to over 37,000 union voters, the Los Angeles Labor Movement helped deliver the vote for Laura Richardson during the June 26th special election race for the 37th Congressional seat.  Over the course of the campaign, workers talked with more than 17,000 union voters and distributed over 166,000 pieces of mail. An additional 45,000 phone calls to workers were made by volunteers. For three weeks, over 1140 Teamsters, homecare workers, public employees, security officers, construction workers, hotel workers and others representing various industries walked and phone banked to get out the vote for Richardson. Many took time off of work and volunteered on weekends to help do their part.  On Election Day alone, over 250 workers and family members volunteered their time.

We continue our commitment to all workers of Los Angeles County as we bring together Labor and Community leaders to support the struggle of new immigrant workers.  We continue to work with our political allies to change the face of California, to assure that hard fought rights for workers are not lost and that Los Angeles becomes a leader in social and economic justice.