Will Domestic Workers Rights Bill bring change?

June 18, 2014 By 2 Comments


Rocio washes dishes as part of her job. | Andrea Martinez

Rocio washes dishes as part of her job. | Andrea Martinez

California passed a Domestic Workers Rights Bill back in January that extends overtime hours for domestic workers and assures minimum wage protections. However, some workers still experience injustice such as wage theft in such an unregulated industry. We spent a day with Rocio, who cares for kids at a house in Santa Monica, to learn about the daily life of a domestic worker.

Click play to hear from Rocio in a story for Annenberg Radio News: [Read more…]

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Inglewood poised to revamp its streets and its image

May 20, 2014 By 2 Comments


The freshly renovated Fabulous Forum | Olivia Niland/Neon Tommy

The freshly renovated Fabulous Forum | Olivia Niland/Neon Tommy

Inglewood-based architect Chris Mercier sometimes likes to play a word-association game with people when he talks about the place he’s called home for the past decade:

“If I say to you, ‘let’s go to Inglewood,’ you probably don’t picture a city, do you?”

As an artist and partner at (fer) Studio, an architecture firm in Inglewood, Mercier is an outspoken advocate for revitalizing Inglewood—starting with a city-wide rebranding.

“You probably imagined four things,” said Mercier. “The Forum, Hollywood Park, rap music and crime.”

For some, Inglewood is a place better known for its past—as the former home of the Los Angeles Lakers for 32 seasons, site of the iconic Randy’s Donuts, and a ubiquitous name-check in ‘90s West Coast rap—than its current endeavors or future plans.

“The city has created income from these things,” said Mercier. “It’s created a brand that isn’t good branding.” [Read more…]

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New development breaks ground in Watts

May 19, 2014 By Leave a Comment


Congresswoman Janice Hahn, Rodney Shepard, and others break ground on Lanzit Industrial Park (Matthew Tinoco/Neon Tommy)
Dozens gathered to celebrate the groundbreaking of a new industrial building in Watts last week, the first such project for the South L.A. community in more than 40 years. The building, a project of Lanzit Industrial Park LLC, will be about 46,000-square feet and house space for both offices and light manufacturing.

The industrial park promises to bring some much needed employment opportunities to the neighborhood.

“Today we can rejoice with the knowledge that new jobs are coming to Watts,” said Rodney Shepard, the South Los Angeles land developer leading the Lanzit project. “This development will bring economic security and good, stable, manufacturing jobs back here where they belong.”  [Read more…]

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$15 minimum wage could help South LA hotel workers

May 7, 2014 By 2 Comments


Embassy Suites hotel workers on strike | LA County Federation of Labor

Three Los Angeles City Council members have launched a bid to increase the wages of the city’s hotel workers to $15.37 an hour, a major pay jump for more than 40 percent of the industry’s workers who live below the poverty line.

The raise would affect hotels with more than 100 rooms — 87 of them in L.A. — and an estimated 10,000 employees. Union workers said the increase could lift housekeepers, busboys and maintenance workers out of poverty.

That could be especially significant in South L.A.’s 9th District, an area with the city’s highest poverty rate.

“Income inequality is a persistent issue plaguing our country, our city and especially our under-served South Los Angeles community,” said District 9 councilman Curren Price, who is pushing for the wage increase along with councilmembers Mike Bonin and Nury Martinez representing West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, respectively. [Read more…]

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South LA corner stores turn full-service

May 5, 2014 By 4 Comments


Nelson Garcia welcomes visitors into his "converted" corner store. | Sinduja Rangarajan

Nelson Garcia welcomes visitors into his “converted” corner store. | Sinduja Rangarajan

When more than 100 children, teenagers and adults gathered on the corner of Vermont and 60th streets last March to enjoy a four-hour block party complete with face painting, booths offering food coupons and a live disc jockey encouraging people of all ages to dance by blasting R&B, rap and Latino music, onlookers may have assumed the occasion was a national holiday or neighborhood fundraiser. Instead, the festivities were meant to mark the re-opening of Alba Snacks & Services, one of South L.A.’s few grocery stores.

The approximately 51 square mile area of South Los Angeles is largely considered a “food desert” — a space where finding food that is both affordable and high-quality is difficult.

See also on Intersections: South LA creates healthy food options

The Alba re-opening was part of the Healthy Neighborhood Market Network and the Community Market Conversion Program, an initiative run by Los Angeles’s Food Policy Council, an independent multi-stakeholder entity of the Mayor’s Office. These dual programs, said Director of Policy and Innovation Clare Fox, aim to transform convenience stores in neighborhoods with limited food access to full-service grocery stores. [Read more…]

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Activists call for May Day worker reforms

April 30, 2014 By Leave a Comment


Maria Elena Durazo announces the 2014 May Day March in Downtown L.A. | Daina Beth Solomon

Maria Elena Durazo announces the 2014 May Day March in Downtown L.A. | Daina Beth Solomon

Cries of “¡Sí se puede!” and “Yes, we can!” filled the air at Cesar Chavez Avenue and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles earlier this month as a crowd of a couple of dozen activists and workers demanded minimum wage increases and the passage of immigration reform.

“We’re uniting the issues of workers and their right to living wages and the right of immigrants to be in this country in a way that they are treated with respect,” said Maria Elena Durazo from the L.A. County Federation of Labor.

She also announced the new route for the annual Workers’ Day march on May 1. It will begin at Cesar Chavez and Broadway, concluding at the Metropolitan Detention Center about one half-mile away.  [Read more…]

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South LA residents shop for employment at Juanita Tate Marketplace

April 23, 2014 By 2 Comments


Signs advertise the businesses at the new Juanita Tate Marketplace | Wan Xu

Signs advertise the businesses at the new Juanita Tate Marketplace | Wan Xu

At the back door of Northgate Gonzales Market, security guard Ulises Hernandez asked a maintenance worker for identification before waving him through. The two men are among the 100 South L.A. residents who have found employment at the new grocery store, which opened its doors last week at the new Juanita Tate Marketplace at Slauson and Central avenues.

The security work is a step up for Hernandez, “about $4 more per hour” than he had been earning, he said. “I’ve been working in El Monte and La Puente. They’re really far compared to this one. I definitely prefer this job.”

Emerging Markets Inc., a consulting firm that helps supermarket chains pursue business opportunities in low-income neighborhoods, helped to recruit new South L.A. employees.

“It helps us coordinate with a couple of work resource centers here in the local area so that we were able to organize interviews,” said store director Alberto Ayala, adding that 1,200 applicants were interested in positions. [Read more…]

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New era for business in Leimert Park

April 16, 2014 By Leave a Comment


Within a month, a quiet closure and a successful opening on Degnan Boulevard

Michelle Papillion | Kevin Tsukii

Michelle Papillion at her gallery. | Kevin Tsukii

March 15 marked the first month of business for Papillion, a contemporary gallery created and run by Michelle Papillion. The art space opened amid construction on the neighborhood’s anticipated Metro stop and the Leimert Park Village Committee’s plans to restore the historic Vision Theater. The gallery is the first new business to emerge from the “renaissance” of Leimert Park. Despite the closure of a neighboring business and anticipated rent increases due to the neighborhood’s proximity to the light rail, Papillion said the cutting-edge gallery has been a success.

She called the first month “amazing,” explaining, “We had our grand opening on Feb. 15 and 500 people showed up…what happened at our opening was exactly how I envisioned it.”

Papillion added that the initial days of any business are especially tough because the period of time usually requires a higher overhead cost to establish the business and deal with unforeseen issues.

But as Papillion began to look forward to more successful months, Zambezi Bazaar, a family-owned shop and Papillion’s next-door neighbor, quietly closed its doors.

“I didn’t know they were actually leaving,” Papillion said with a surprised look. [Read more…]

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Northgate Market opens in South LA

April 15, 2014 By Leave a Comment


By Tiffany Taylor and Emily Mae Czachor, Annenberg TV News 

A full service supermarket held its grand opening Monday in South Los Angeles, pledging to provide healthier, fresher food options and more jobs for the community.

The California FreshWorks Fund awarded Northgate Gonzalez a $50,000 grant and $5.5 million loan to provide healthier options and jobs for the communities that need it most. The new market will bring more than 100 new living wage jobs with benefits to South L.A.

Northgate Gonzalez has partnered with Los Angeles and California FreshWorks to pursue a commitment to a local and diverse hiring plan, including working with Homeboy Industries, which helps employ former gang members.

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MyFigueroa could bring bike lanes to Figueroa near South LA

April 11, 2014 By Leave a Comment


MyFigueroa-ARN

L.A. cyclists, drivers and pedestrians are reacting to the L.A. City Council’s MyFigueroa project, an initiative to create more bike lanes, cycle tracks and pedestrian walkways on Figueroa Street from Exposition Park through Downtown L.A.

“If you’re adding more bike lanes … You’re just going to increase the congestion,” said Christina Ramsey, an L.A. native who drives on Figueroa every day.

“I can potentially get somewhere faster for less money and breathe in fresh air while doing so,” said Asha Anderson, a college student who bikes near Adams Boulevard and in downtown L.A.

One in ten households in L.A. does not have a car, according to the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition. The group is pushing for city planners and politicians to change the way they look at transportation in the city as a whole.

Learn more in an audio story from Annenberg Radio News:

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