ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the problem of organizing manufacturing workers in Los Angeles. We make no attempt to cover manufacturing throughout the United States, and some of our statements may not apply beyond southern California, though we suspect that they do. Los Angeles has several key characteristics as a center of manufacturing. First, it has the largest number of manufacturing workers—600,000–700,000—of any city in the country. Second, L.A.’s manufacturing workers are heavily immigrants, primarily from Mexico and Central America. Third, much heavy industry has left southern California, leaving behind mainly light, often nondurable manufacturing, which is spread out over thousands of small factories. The apparel industry is the largest manufacturing employer in the city and is, to some extent, emblematic of the character of L.A.’s manufacturing industries. Fourth, many of L.A.’s manufacturing workers are low paid; they constitute an important segment of the working poor. This appears to be a product of both the character of the industries that employ them and the ability of employers to take advantage of an immigrant, often undocumented, workforce.
