Union Voice/Readers Write: Right campaign, wrong strike

“The 1990 strike (Today's Labor Quote: LA Janitor) started on May 22, 1990 (not April 7),” writes SEIU’s Bill Ragen, who was the lead organizer for the Justice for Janitors campaign. “The police riot the quote refers to was on June 15 and the strike ended around June 25. “The 2000 strike started in April. The Wikipedia Justice for Janitors entry conflates the two - it talks about a 1990 strike, but says it started in April and mentions Mayor Riordan, who was mayor from 1993-2001. Both were big deals - 1990 was when we started re-organizing and came back from the dead; 2000 was when all that organizing was the basis for a strike that won major improvements and also brought in new members.”