UCLA IRLE Webinar Series
By Robert Gumpert and Peter Olney
How should the labor movement respond to the federal government’s attacks on immigrant communities, threats of election interference and the erosion of collective bargaining rights? Join the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) as multiple generations of organizers break down labor’s struggle–past and present–to advance multi-racial democracy when those in power resist.
Part 1: Proposition 187: Labor’s Fight for Immigrant Rights
Date and Time: October 9, 2026, 10-11:30 PDT
Location: Virtual
Against the backdrop of unemployment and civil unrest in the early 1990s, California Republicans offered voters a simple, brutal solution: criminalize undocumented immigrants. Proposition 187, a statewide voter initiative, threatened to exclude immigrants from all public services and to enlist teachers, neighbors and faith leaders into the machinery of deportation. Labor unions were initially unsure how to respond, but when unions joined the fight against Proposition 187, they changed the direction of California politics.
In this virtual panel event, three veterans of the campaign to stop Proposition 187 will discuss how the moment forged coalitions between immigrant rights and labor organizers that set the stage for a historic shift in organized labor’s policy on undocumented workers. Cristina Ramirez-Vazquez, Former Regional Manager and International Vice President of Workers United, Dave Sickler, former Western Regional Director of AFL-CIO, and Joel Ochoa, labor and community organizer, will share their expertise.
Part 2: Labor Strategies to Defend Immigrant Worker Rights Today
Date and Time: October 16, 2026, 10-11:30 PDT
Location: Virtual
Part 2 of the “Meeting the Moment” series brings together three leaders at the forefront of labor and community responses to the current militarized federal immigration in cities across the U.S. Facing the largest deportation campaign since the 1950s, labor unions and their members, alongside allies in the immigrant rights movement, are taking creative, nonviolent action to defend communities.
The virtual panel will welcome David Huerta, President of SEIU California and SEIU-United Service Workers West (USWW), Bernie Burnham, President of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, and Kurt Petersen, Vice President of UNITE HERE Local 11, to share their insights as leaders of the movement.
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