Fed-up workers across a sprawling range of industries are aligned like never before over fears of being displaced by artificial intelligence and the belief that corporations left them with a minuscule slice of the profits they made during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in Los Angeles, where thousands have taken to the streets in recent weeks, shutting down sectors of the local economy, blowing up supply chains, and thrusting America’s second largest city into the white-hot center of a national strike wave.
The convergence of these walkouts has sparked a new level of coordination among unions and breathed fire into the rank and file, attracting workers who had never before been involved in organized labor and laying a blueprint for unions nationwide, according to interviews with more than two dozen workers, labor leaders, business owners, and policy makers across Los Angeles County.
The city has almost accidentally become a microcosm for worker unrest. It remains to be seen whether these strikes can meaningfully alter the balance of power, but workers say they can feel a shift—both in energy and cooperation among a once-fragmented population of unions. -Reporter Ian Kullgren