The SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike shows Los Angeles is leading the US labour movement. But how did it get there, when for most of the last century the City of Angels was the ‘open shop capital of America’?
SOUTHERN California unions and the working people they represent have become the vanguard of the American labour movement. About half of the big strikes in the United States this year have taken place in California, with the most consequential centered in Los Angeles – now including the actors’ strike announced by The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) on July 13.