Labor Union Blog

WIN Week In Review May 30-June 1, 2008

By Doug Cunningham

Twenty thousand workers at ten University of California campuses and hospitals could strike as soon as June 4th. Many of the workers are in poverty and qualify for public assistance. The workers want better wages and benefits and they’ve been negotiating with UC for ten months. Lakesha Harrison is President of AFSCME Local 3299.

[Harrison]: “This whole fight is not about resources, it’s about priorities. UC has the money to do what’s right by the workers and they refuse to do it. If UC really values the workers and the workforce and the patient care folks they need to pay a wage that’ll help sustain that workforce and pay the wage that needs to be paid – which is at least 25 percent more than what they pay now.”

Amado Uno got an early start as a union movement activist—he was about five years old at the time. As he recalls it:

I was with my aunt on a picket line. I was helping out. She was a teacher in the Oakland Unified School District, and I learned that picket lines were not to be crossed.

Once on a picket line, Uno never turned back. Today, he’s the executive director of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), the AFL-CIO constituency group for Asian and Pacific Islander American workers. Uno was named executive director in March.

The union movement has been an integral part of his life. His mother, whose parents came from Guam, organized health care and home care workers for years and now works for Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums. Uno’s father was the first mainland-born Japanese American to be elected business manager of an Electrical Workers local. They met in the anti-Vietnam War movement and have been involved in progressive causes ever since—along with their son. Says Uno:

I remember going to rallies and picket lines with my parents before I could walk.