MARTIN LUDLOW
The former councilman on taking over the County Fed, doing battle at the national AFL-CIO convention
Next week, Martin Ludlow - until recently an elected member of the City Council - will step in as executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. He has a long union pedigree: first as an organizer with the hotel workers union in L.A., and later working closely with AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. He went on to be the County Fed political director under the man he will replace, the late Miguel Contreras, who died suddenly in May.
Just days after assuming the post, Ludlow heads off to the national AFL-CIO convention in Chicago for what's looming as a critically important meeting of the venerable national labor organization. It faces a challenge mounted by a coalition of six unions that have joined forces as Change To Win. They will demand that the AFL-CIO nearly triple its organizing budget and consolidate 65 unions into eight in order to revitalize the dwindling ranks of unionized workers in the United States. Their leverage? That some or all of the unions will bolt that national organization - defections that could involve up to 40 percent of the nation's organized workers. Ludlow is expected to play a key role at the convention and will return to Los Angeles to face local repercussions head-on.
-Bobbi Murray
CityBeat: What does it mean for Los Angeles to have a former labor organizer as mayor?
Martin Ludlow: It sets the stage for advancement for working families. Los Angeles can be a model for the rest of the nation as to how you build a family-friendly city. This is a city that has great potential to provide living wages, decent housing, good schools, open space, health care - and that's what I think the American dream can begin to look like for Americans nationwide.
How does that work? Is it that he shares the vision with labor for a working families agenda?
Yes, it's a combination of his vision, his energy, and ambition. The three of those combined are what makes the election of Mayor Villaraigosa such a hopeful sign.
Andrew Stern, president of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) - who is leading a coalition that could split off from the AFL-CIO - says unions should abandon the strategy of sinking funds into Democratic races and triple the amount of funds spent on organizing new workers. What do you think of that idea?
Andy Stern is one of the brightest individuals in the country. He's always been a visionary, a creative thinker. [Change is] usually triggered in by creative thinkers and visionaries who may be a few years ahead of their time. It's kind of like a tugboat sometimes pulling the barge through the channel.
He has put himself out there in a very bold and risky way. But he's doing it clearly because he believes, and has a dream for a new America, and he's not seeing progress happen for the poorest amongst us fast enough. He has clearly sparked a debate, and there are already concessions that have been made towards his and the other members of the coalition's demands. I do believe ultimately in the power of a united labor movement. And I believe L.A., no matter what happens at the national level, will see a united labor movement.
But are you hopeful that an AFL-CIO split can be averted?
I'm more hopeful that the future is bright for labor. Some of the unions that have been very aggressively organizing the unorganized have been saying: Look, we need to be more vigilant, we need to be more strategic, we need to be more aggressive. Now you're seeing examples of that from all kinds of unions in L.A. So I don't think L.A. is the source of that concern, in fact, it's held up more as the example of where community, religious, political coalitions are being formed. [Nationally] I would not be surprised if a split occurs, but I hope it's a small group that ultimately can come back together.
About a third of the unions within the County Fed are SEIU-affliated. So if SEIU splits off, that seems like it would be pretty serious here.
It's not quite a third, but it's a big, sizable chunk. And the leadership of SEIU here in Los Angeles has reassured me and their colleagues that they are looking for partnerships and allies in organizing the unorganized and raising the standard of living in L.A. They have been a very creative force in working with community grassroots organizations, religious organizations. They've partnered in, quite frankly, in the business community to team up on political initiatives like Measure B, to help keep trauma centers open. That's creative stuff. And so, while they may be disaffiliated, in L.A., they won't be disavowed.
On a more personal note - you chose to leave the City Council to head up the County Fed at a fractious moment. What made you do it?
I grew up in a household where activism and engaging in the debate about what kind of society we want to have was a daily dinnertime discussion. My father, who was an activist Methodist minister, was even more engaged in that respect. And I believe that this business of helping to organize workers in Los Angeles, where the gap between wealth and poverty is so great - it is a fight of survival for the future of this city. Eventually, if the middle-class is evaporated, the public school system evaporates, the public health system evaporates, the tax base for our infrastructure evaporates. For political leaders, they can continue to move deck chairs around on the Titanic. But guess what: There will be nothing left for them to utilize in the way of a tax base to fix the streets, fix the lights, hire the police, hire the paramedics, hire the teachers.
So this is where I think the center of an essential fight is. When my dear friend, Miguel Contreras, passed on, I was trying to figure out how to just be supportive of the Federation. Then nearly two-thirds of the vice-presidents came to me and asked would I do this. It was not an easy decision, but the more I struggled with it, the more I realized that it's time to have faith and jump.
Right now it seems like we're looking at a national split, and locally there might be residual bad feeling in the wake of the mayor's election. Do you see that?
I think there are some definite hard feelings in places. There's been a little bit of a distancing, but Mayor Villaraigosa and the labor movement have an identical agenda, and that is improving the quality of life in Los Angeles.
The key thing in this situation is that this was a win-win for the leadership for many of the employee representative groups. I don't think it was a letdown in the sense of when George Bush beat John Kerry. I mean, that was disappointment. Our guy didn't win. But you know, guess what: We've got a new guy here who's going to be absolutely great.Published: 07/14/2005
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