By: Vincent Medina and Nicholas Broadhead
Ron Herrera, president of the LA County Federation of Labor, resigned Monday after the LA Times released audio of him and LA City Council members in a discussion involving racist remarks.
After the audio was leaked, the California Faculty Association at Long Beach released a statement on Tuesday, denouncing Herrera and demanding that LA councilmembers Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo resign from the council as well.
“The conversation represents a betrayal of the trust and interests of the workers our elected leaders were selected to represent and defend. It also indicates a time of reckoning: a moment of illuminated truth that many labor unions have a history of racism, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, and colorism that is often hidden and rarely discussed,” the CFA wrote.
Herrera spoke at the Anna W. Ngai Alumni Center a few days before the audio was released, where he advocated for a labor union center at Long Beach State and encouraged the next generation of labor union leaders.
Gary Hytrek, the co-president of the CFA chapter at Long Beach who also attended the event, said Herrera’s and the council’s remarks “demonstrate a failure of leadership.”
However, Hytrek was not worried that Herrera’s remarks would weaken the union.
“The labor is more than one person. There are leaders in the labor movement, but the labor movement really is the workers,” Hytrek said. “The idea that [Herrera’s remarks] will somehow undermine the labor movement, is not going to happen.”
The CFA co-president said the plans for a labor union center on campus were still underway, and hoped a labor center would create a bridge between communities of different ethnicities and sexualities.
“Labor has a history that is not particularly kind to immigrants or to African Americans in particular, and I think the potential for a labor center is really going to be in a place that can bring those elements together,” Hytrek said. “It can build relationships across racial, sexuality, generation and class lines and really build a community that’s inclusionary.”
In the audio, council members also spoke of redistricting strategies that would favor the council members’ districts and favor Latino council members in general.
Urban geography professor Christine Jocoy said that redistricting is a political move, and believes her students need to learn how to behave ethically in all challenges while advancing their values and principles.
“I am deeply concerned about the way that the LA City Council members discussed members of their constituent communities in dismissive and racist terms,” Jocoy said. “Being a public servant should be about more than serving only the communities that vote for you.”
Jocoy also said that students need to learn about different communities and develop empathy for others publicly and privately.
“In response to this leaked audio, I plan to refocus my teaching on ethical behavior so my students who go to work for cities and elected officials have tools to intervene,” Jocoy said.