Moving Image / Taking on the New Otani (1996)

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Title: Taking on the New Otani (1996)
Date Created and/or Issued: 1996
Contributing Institution: UCLA, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment Library
Collection: Organizing Los Angeles Workers, 1980-Present
Rights Information: Copyrighted
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UC Regents. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Rights Holder and Contact: spec-coll@library.ucla.edu
Description: Scope/Content: After a majority of workers at the New Otani Hotel in downtown Los Angeles supported unionization, hotel management refused to negotiate. Members of HERE Local 11 from other Los Angeles hotels pledged to support the New Otani workers with weekly demonstrations that escalated into long-lasting boycott. This 1996 video produced by HERE Local 11 documents the union's strategy of targeting the Kajima Corporation, a large Japanese construction firm that was the major stakeholders in the New Otani, which led to alliances with Japanese trade unionists and the Japanese-American community in Los Angeles. An example of "corporate campaigns" that many unions mounted in the 1980s, the boycott campaign focused on Kajima's role in mid-century Japanese military expansion, the privatization of public services in Japan during the 1980s, and the public development subsidies Los Angeles had provided to Kajima and its partners. The film ends with scenes of a large act of nonviolent civil disobedience in the streets outside the hotel.
Type: moving image
Format: MP4 video
Identifier: irle_1940_046
Language: English
eng
Spanish
spa
Subject: Labor unions--California--Los Angeles
Labor union locals--California--Los Angeles
Place: Los Angeles (Calif.)
Provenance: UNITE HERE, Local 11
Location: University of California, Los Angeles. Library Special Collections

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