In May, the Planning Commission unanimously voted in favor of a conditional use permit to build the research hub near the western side of the existing Keck Hospital at 1500 San Pablo Street. A month later, local organizers including labor union SEIU 721, USC Forward and Eastside LEADS, filed to appeal the vote.
Graduate student workers reached a deal two days before they were set to strike and shuttle drivers and dispatchers reached a deal the evening before they were set to hold an unfair labor practices strike to coincide with individual school’s commencement ceremonies May 10.
This is the third strike that the university has narrowly avoided in the last year, after USC shuttle drivers threatened to strike in May and graduate students picketed six months earlier.
The coalition of supporters includes more than 80 organizations such as the L.A. County Federation of Labor, California Community Foundation, United Way of Greater Los Angeles, Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council, SEIU 721, among others.
Occidental College student workers have voted to join SEIU Local 721, allowing approximately 1,000 undergraduate workers — baristas, resident advisers, tutors, translators, lifeguards, and researchers among them — to collectively bargain with the private liberal arts college in northeast Los Angeles.
Nontenure-track faculty at the University of San Diego have voted overwhelmingly to join SEIU Local 721, following national unionization trends in academia.
The tentative agreement marks the first deal for the workers represented by SEIU Local 721 since they voted to unionize in March 2023.
The coalition — including more than 80 organizations such as the L.A. County Federation of Labor, California Community Foundation, United Way of Greater Los Angeles, Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council, SEIU 721, among others — worked together to draft, qualify, and aim to pass a “bold and new” approach to housing affordability and homelessness, organizers said.
If certified, the student-led union would be affiliated with Service Employees International Union Local 721. (SEIU Local 721 already represents non-tenure-track professors and clerical staff on campus.)
The spirited action at the end of March followed months of quiet behind-the-scenes union organizing by student workers that included collecting hundreds of their signatures on union cards.