More than 11,000 Los Angeles city workers go on 1-day strike

in Los Angeles today some 11 000 city workers have walked off the job after contract negotiations broke down they're joining thousands of striking writers actors and hotel workers who have already been picketing Mark schlossman is at the Los Angeles International Airport where Travelers could be disrupted and they could be delayed good morning Mark good morning to you good morning to you the strike is is basically going on for one day it's to give people a sense of what could happen if these negotiations don't move in a more fruitful Direction at least from the standpoint of these workers so it's think of it as a warning shot you know there's a couple of different strikes going on here in Hollywood right now in Los Angeles right now the Hollywood strike which of course the one we've all heard about and think about it this way it is the people who are behind the scenes mostly on strike the workers and the writers the recorders will bring the glamor to Hollywood well these people are also working behind the scenes for the most part they work here at the airport or at the port or at City Hall they they clean the bathrooms they're the ones that help bring the sparkle to the city of Los Angeles and they are now saying just like the Hollywood Strikers are saying we deserve more we deserve more money we deserve more respect and so that's what all of this really is about but there are a lot of people on strike in Los Angeles today and the question is how is this going to move forward how are we going to get to a point where the strike is going to end where both sides come to some sort of a settlement and a memory right now it's a question in search of an answer yeah you know Mark I've heard it been called The Summer of the strike because of that not just in California but other places as well even overseas but let's talk about the scope of this strike Who's involved I mean I read sanitation workers and that alone you know how disruptive that could be but you know who's out there on the picket line [Music] yeah well I think at the airport it's a lot of the sanitation folks the folks who keep the for instance Los Angeles airport if you remember Florida you know what I'm it's basically a city unto itself and think about what it takes to keep a city up and running and to keep the city clean and hygienic well okay if the bathrooms don't get cleaned it gets pretty nasty pretty quick right so these are the people who make all of that possible same sort of folks are working at the Port of Los Angeles right they're the ones that bring the ship the shipments of goods from around the world uh into this city into the West Coast for distribution around the country and then you have people at City Hall and before you know it you've got you know 11 000 workers who are basically saying what about us where's our piece of all this because we've all heard about inflation for the last year and a half and they're now saying our paychecks are not keeping up with the cost of of cost of living these days and we deserve more the city of courses has a different take on this they believe they have been negotiating in good faith but right now the two sides are at an impasse so as I understand it the Union had hammered out basically what they considered to be a temporary deal to last one year I assume all those negative those negotiations happened during the pandemic when you know we were all under under a lot of pressure let's put it that way their expectation according to the union was that they would sort of renegotiate some of the details of the one-year temporary deal which is not happening but now in terms of where the city's at we've got a World Cup coming up we've got you know the Olympic Games also in the coming years um as I understand it too the city is tremendously sort of under under what's the word I'm looking for there there's a 20 Gap in the number of workers they they sort of they're they're missing a lot of employees they have a lot of jobs to fill um how much pressure is the city under to wrap up these negotiations I think it's a fair point I mean I think they are under a certain amount of pressure to make it done uh to get it done on the one hand the World Cup is three years away the Olympics are four years away that's a long time but if you can nail down employees to a five-year contract say right and make sure that that is taken care of that's one headache you don't have to worry about there won't be some last minute work stoppage that would disrupt the city and embarrass the city just as the World shows up for this big sporting spectacle I mean so much the better and so the more you can get done on the front end the less you have to worry about on the back end as these big events come come to fruition and so yeah I think there is some pressure to get this done it's not short-term pressure but if you're a leader of the city looking The Long View you realize I really ought to try to get as many of these things buttoned down right now while I can before it becomes a much bigger headache down the road yeah this is just one day you don't want to see uh you know anything longer than that when you're talking about some of these crucial workers mark thank you very much

Channel: CBS News

Views: 32,538

Keywords: strike, union, los angeles, california, labor

Id: SSytvJ4pQno

Length: 4min 33sec (273 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 08 2023