City workers plan to ‘shut down’ Los Angeles for 24 hours

Los Angeles government employees plan to “shut down” the city for 24 hours, joining the neighboring strikes of hotel workers, Hollywood actors and screenwriters across the region.

“#HotLaborSummer lives on,” SEIU Local 721 posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “We’re proud to join writers, actors, and our countless other Union siblings striking for respect in Los Angeles.”

More than 11,000 city employees — including sanitation workers, traffic officers and heavy duty mechanics — will participate in the 24-hour strike, according to SEIU Local 721. The union represents more than 95,000 city and county workers across Southern California, which it says makes it the largest public sector union in the area.

This is the first strike of its kind by the union in more than 40 years. Local 721 said its members are going on strike over “bad faith bargaining” by Los Angeles management.

“Despite repeated attempts by city workers to engage management in a fair bargaining process, the city has flat-out refused to honor previous agreements at the bargaining table, prompting workers to file Unfair Labor Practice charges with the City of Los Angeles Employee Relations Board,” the union wrote in a Facebook post.

The union said the charges include “the failure to bargain in good faith over hundreds of proposals at the table, sending negotiators to the table without authority to bargain, the restriction of union access to worksites, and retaliation against union leaders organizing at their worksites.”

“We’re striking for respect, plain and simple — and if we don’t get it we’ll shut it down,” the union wrote.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) reassured residents that the city will not shut down due to the strike in a statement issued Monday. She also said that the city government is “available” to bargain.

“The City of Los Angeles is not going to shut down,” Bass said. “My office is implementing a plan ensuring no public safety or housing and homelessness emergency operations are impacted by this action. Like I said over the weekend, the City will always be available to make progress with SEIU 721 and we will continue bargaining in good faith.”

In a separate statement issued Saturday, Bass said that Los Angeles was “available to make progress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

“City workers are vital to the function of services for millions of Angelenos every day and to our local economy. They deserve fair contracts and we have been bargaining in good faith with SEIU 721 since January,” she said in a statement at the time.

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