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UNITE HERE records
LSC.2325
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Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: UNITE HERE records
Creator:
UNITE HERE (Organization).
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.2325
Physical Description:
33.8 Linear Feet
(25 boxes, 15 cartons, 11 flat boxes, 3 oversize flat boxes, 1 flat file)
Physical Description:
3 Born-digital Carriers
(3 unprocessed hard drives)
Date (inclusive): 1920-2013
Date (bulk): 1980-1990
Abstract: UNITE-HERE Local 11 traces its origins to the Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International union founded in
1891 and has been active in Southern California since the 1930s. Local 11 partnered with other labor and community organizations
to play a key role in reviving the Los Angeles labor movement during the 1990s and 2000s. Local 11 grew through mergers with
HERE locals in Santa Monica (Local 814) in 2002 and Orange County/Long Beach (Local 681) in 2008. HERE International merged
with UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees) to form UNITE-HERE in July, 2004. This collection consists
of materials documenting UNITE-HERE Locals 11, 814 and 681 and includes files of union leaders Maria Elena Durazo, Kurt Petersen
and Tom Walsh, Executive Board meeting minutes, newspaper coverage in English and Spanish of union campaigns, union serial
publications, booklets and videos, television coverage of organizing campaigns, transcribed oral histories, photographs and
ephemera.
Physical Location: Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Language of Material: Materials are primarily in English, some materials in Spanish.
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Box 52 containing quilt top banner requires special handling for access. Please contact Special Collections reference (spec-coll@library.ucla.edu)
for more information.
Conditions Governing Reproduction and Use
Property rights to the objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained
by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue
the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
CONTAINS DIGITAL AND AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS: This collection contains both processed and unprocessed digital and audiovisual
materials. Digital and audiovisual materials are not currently available for access, unless otherwise noted in a Physical
Characteristics and Technical Requirements note at the series and file levels. All requests to access processed digital and
audiovisual materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
[Identification of item], UNITE HERE records (Collection 2325). Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library,
University of California, Los Angeles.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
UNITE HERE Local 11; Gift; 2015.
Pre-processing by Gina Risetter in the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, 2016. Additional processing completed
by Margaret Rank supervised by Julie Graham, 2017. Finding aid scope and content note and organizational history note authored
by Vivian Rothstein and Danielle Wilson.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user
interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides
a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive
processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating
existing description of our materials that contains language
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UCLA Catalog Record ID:
9982131163606533
UNITE-HERE Local 11 traces its origins to the Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union founded in
1891 and has been active in Southern California since the 1930s. Along with Justice for janitors, LAANE and the County Federation
of Labor, it played a key role in reviving the Los Angeles labor movement during the 1990s and 2000s. HERE International
merged with UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees Union) to form UNITE-HERE in July, 2004.
Local 11 has been involved with high profile organizing activities throughout Los Angeles. In the 1990s they led a multi-year
campaign to unionize the New Otani Hotel in Little Tokyo through a card check process as well as campaigns to unionize workers
at the Ambassador Hotel and luxury hotels on Santa Monica's beach front. In 2004 they participated in a national campaign
with major hotels across the United States and won important concessions from local hotels. The local has been a strong proponent
of Living Wage and Minimum Wage Ordinances in L.A., Santa Monica and Long Beach and helped create the Los Angeles Alliance
for a New Economy (LAANE).
Historically waiters, bartenders, waitresses, kitchen and cleaning staff organized into separate locals or chapters. By the
1970s, most locals were geographically based, and included both front of the house staff (e.g., waiters and bartenders) and
back of the house staff (e.g. kitchen, cleaning, etc.). During the 1980s and 1990s, the Los Angeles and Santa Monica HERE
locals experienced leadership strains, with long serving leaders failing to respond to an increasingly immigrant workforce
and anti-union climate;
Maria Elena Durazo, emerged as a reform leader of Local 11 in the late 1980s, leading several successful organizing drives
for HERE, and championing the cause of back of the house staff, mainly Latin American immigrant women. In 1989, Durazo was
elected Local 11 president, becoming one of the first Latina leaders of a major American union local. She would eventually
serve as Secretary Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor (2005 to 2014). In 1995, Local 814 in Santa Monica
was placed in trusteeship and in an election the following year, organizer Tom Walsh became president. Kurt Petersen, who
joined the United Farm Workers of Washington State as an organizer, started his association with HERE in 1995 and has served
the Local and national organization in various capacities.
The geographic scope of Local 11 grew through mergers with local unions in Santa Monica (Local 814) in 2002, and Orange County/Long
Beach (Local 681) in 2008. Tom Walsh became the president of Local 11 after the mergers. The organization, with a membership
of over 20,000 in 2018, embraces workers throughout Southern California, with a diverse membership from many immigrant communities
as well as African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans. Industries represented include hotels, casinos, foodservice and
retail airport concessions, stadiums and restaurants. Through grassroots mobilization of workers and community allies, Local
11 has improved working conditions, wages, and benefits for their members, transforming traditionally low-wage jobs to middle
class jobs, and successfully participates in labor-management partnerships with employers to resolve issues in the workplace.
The collection consists of materials related to the UNITE HERE Local 11 labor union. Included are files documenting UNITE
HERE Local 11, Local 814, and Local 681. The Local 11 records represent files of union leaders Maria Elena Durazo, Kurt Petersen,
and Tom Walsh; Executive Board meeting minutes, and newspaper and television coverage of union events and working conditions.
Local 814 records include files from Kurt Petersen, Tom Walsh, Bill Granfield, and Victor Valenzuela. The Local 681 records
are largely union serial publications going back to the 1940s, The Mixer and Server and Catering Industry Employee, union
booklets documenting wage scale and working condition agreements, union Bylaws and photographs. Union leader files document
organizing efforts on behalf of the employees of Southern California hotels and restaurants including Miramar Sheraton and
Loews in Santa Monica, among others; legal matters, many involving the NLRB; newspaper clippings, union flyers, videos and
publications, and anti-union employer documents, shop steward training materials, photographs, oral history interviews, and
ephemera. Events represented include the Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride (IWFR), the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy
(LAANE) Santa Monica Living Wage campaign, LAX airport organizing campaigns, and Century Boulevard hotel organizing, among
others.
Arranged into the following series:
- Series 1: Local 11 records (1952-2013, bulk 1980s-2012)
- Subseries 1.1 Meeting Minutes (1952-1954, 1961-1963, 1972-1982, 1994, undated)
- Subseries 1.2 Kurt Petersen files (circa 1980s-2012)
- Subseries 1.3 Tom Walsh files (circa 1970s-circa 2004)
- Subseries 1.4 Maria Elena Durazo files (1989-2008)
- Subseries 1.5 News clippings (1994-2013)
- Subseries 1.6 Photographs and ephemera (1970s, 1991-2004, 1999, circa 2008)
- Series 2: Local 814 records (1950-2003)
- Subseries 2.1 Kurt Petersen files (circa 1980s-2004)
- Subseries 2.2 Tom Walsh files (circa 1980s-circa 1990s, 2001)
- Subseries 2.3 Bill Granfield files (1988-1997, 1999)
- Subseries 2.4 Victor Valenzuela files (circa 1950s-1993)
- Subseries 2.5 Gary Guthman files (1988-1990)
- Subseries 2.6 Photographs and ephemera (1996-2002)
- Series 3: Local 681 records (1920-1994, 1999-2004)
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Labor unions -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archives.
UNITE HERE (Organization) -- Archives