Prior Organizing Campaigns
Holding Wal-Mart Accountable to Communities
APALA chapters have been involved in fights against Wal-Mart. In Los Angeles, the County Federation of Labor asked the chapter for assistance in providing bilingual phone bankers and precinct walkers to increase the APA vote in the March 2005 elections. The Los Angeles Chapter worked with community groups and as a result, Labor achieved a partial victory when 2 of the incumbent city council members supporting the building of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Rosemead were voted out of office.
The New York Chapter of APALA has worked in coalition with the New York City Central Labor Council to keep Wal-Mart out of New York City. A proposed Wal-Mart store in Queens was stopped by this joint effort of New York’s unions, elected officials, small businesses, faith-based and community groups. NY APALA members met with New York Asian groups to educate them about the bad business and labor practices of Wal-Mart, and urging them to refuse Wal-Mart’s money.
Speaking on behalf of unionized garment workers, May Y. Chen, a New York chapter member and a manager at Local 23-25 of UNITE HERE, participated in CLC workshops and meetings to tell about the terrible experiences Chinese immigrant workers of Local 23-25 UNITE HERE and their small factory had in producing clothing for Wal-Mart.
After squeezing prices down and exploiting Chinatown factories to the point of serious wage defaults suffered by the workers, Wal-Mart had its goods impounded by the government as hot cargo. Instead of correcting the problem, Wal-Mart simply moved all its apparel production work abroad where similar stories of worker and business exploitation are well documented.
Chapter Organizing
In the past, APALA chapters have helped with other campaigns such as the San Francisco Airport workers organizing campaign and the Chinese Daily News workers in Los Angeles. APALA’s San Francisco Chapter in 2000 reached out to the Filipino American community to create community support for the workers, 85% of whom were Filipino.
Community leaders marched with the workers and two weeks later the 71% of the workers of Argenbright voted for joining the union.
In Los Angeles, the workers at the Chinese Daily News, the most widely read Chinese language newspaper in the U.S., were completely unaware of the labor movement, but after covering the activities of APALA and APIA organizers, they began to see the need to be organized.
Former Chinese Daily News reporter Hsaio-tse Chao said that at the time, “We did not even have a basic understanding of minimum wage or labor laws. As we educated readers about organizing campaigns, we too became educated about unions.”
Campaign for Worker Justice
The 1997 launching of the “Campaign for Worker Justice” was a continuation of APALA’s commitment to organizing the unorganized. The Campaign for Worker Justice also allowed APALA to increase community outreach and education, creating strong community-labor bonds in several cities across the country.