Mayor Eric Garcetti announced last night that the City would cut the Los Angeles Police Department budget by $100-$150 million, responding to the demands of tens of thousands of Los Angeles residents who have protested and advocated this past week. By showing up together for Black lives, we have made this possible.
According to LABWC, the unemployment rate for Black workers in Los Angeles is 16 percent – three times the national average. In California, African Americans comprise only six percent of the population, yet nearly 70 percent of the state’s workforce discrimination claims are based on race and disability. This disparity and disproportionate unemployment is what triggered the #LocalEnforcementNow movement to begin.
According to the report, “An Ongoing Demand for Los Angeles: A Bright Future Requires Organizing More Black Public Sector Union Workers,” public sector jobs and unions that represent such employees contribute to the economic and social stability of the Black middle class in Los Angeles.
For millions of Black families in the U.S., working in the public sector has long provided a dependable pathway to the middle class. Approximately one in five Black adults work in such fields as the government, teaching school, delivering mail, driving buses and working at hospitals. Blacks are about 30 percent more likely to have a public sector job than non-Hispanic Whites, and twice as likely as Hispanics.
The Los Angeles Black Worker Center partners with Painters and Allied Trades District Council 36 to create a program that helps build the next generation of Union Tradesmen and an Equitable Construction Workforce in Los Angeles
It’s a challenging time in the fight for racial equity and justice for anyone paying attention to the status of Black workers in America right now. It’s tiring and depressing.