"We Have the Power in Our Hands to Change the Future"
“Sometimes we don’t know that we’re worth more, sometimes we’re just stuck in the cycle of life, making sure we pay our bills, pay our rent and move forward. We don’t know what’s out there, sometimes we’re scared. But I just let people know—we have the power in our hands to change our future.”
--Omar Perez,
LA County DPSS
“A lot of people don’t have hope, because they lose that hope. They’re scared, and they’re just worrying about day by day,” says SEIU 721 member Omar Perez, explaining why he spent most of his free time for the past two years helping workers at a Lancaster Rite Aid distribution center join together into the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 26.
“We all deserve the best. We all deserve to have job security, not only for ourselves but for our future, our kids and family.”
Perez, an Intermediate Clerk for the County of Los Angeles Department of Social Services, has experienced the difference between non-union work and the benefits of being in a union. “I’m a person that came up from the streets. I don’t really have too much education. But I know what’s good from bad. So that’s been my guidance.”
Omar, a Lancaster resident, had wanted to join SEIU members from all over the country helping public employees form a union last year in Colorado, but felt he needed more experience. So when his friend Carlos Cordon, an ILWU Organizer, asked him to help Lancaster Rite Aid workers, Omar seized the chance to gain that experience close to home. Cordon had formerly worked for SEIU’s “Justice for Janitors” campaign in Colorado.
The Rite Aid workers began organizing in March 2006. They wanted an end to mandatory overtime piled on ten-hour shifts and to punishing production quotas. They worked “at will” with no job security, sweating through desert summers with no air conditioning in their work areas.
The workers won their election to join ILWU in March 2008 after a two-year battle. . Perez played an “instrumental role,” according to ILWU officials.
“He went door to door talking to Rite Aid workers about the many benefits of working union,” wrote Rodolfo Gutierrez and Carlos Cordon, both of the ILWU International Organizing Department, in a March 14, 2008 letter to Annelle Grajeda.
“Brother Perez spoke with clarity, confidence and the importance of his own personal experience as a proud member of SEIU Local 721,” the letter said.
“It’s mostly talking to people,” echoed Perez, “actually sitting down and listening to them. What do they want to change in their jobs? Just listening and showing the people with action that we could do something about it.”
The letter extended “our deepest gratitude” to all 85,000 members of SEIU Local 721.
“Rite Aid workers have achieved the impossible and can now look to the future with their own heads held high.”
“This is a great example of different unions working together toward the same goal of helping all workers improve their lives,” Perez said.