Labor Rights
Ysabel unapologetically stands with workers today and always. She will forever support every action, every strike, and every boycott. As a former employee of City Hall, she is proud to have worked side by side with AFSCME members whose tireless dedication to their work is responsible for making Los Angeles run smoothly. At Bet Tzedek Legal Services, she was a proud and active AFSCME member, and believes that organized labor must play a central role in our City and in electoral politics. At a time when the economic schism has deepened in an unprecedented way, and AI threatens to completely collapse our workforce, unions are a lifeline for our workers. They are essential to uplifting the baseline of quality of life for working people living in an extremely expensive city like LA.
The fight for workers’ rights is personal for Ysabel. Not only does she know what it’s like to actively participate in her union to secure better working conditions, her father, who was undocumented at the time, was a victim of wage theft and racial discrimination on the job. That injustice is what fuels Ysabel’s passion for labor.
As a Councilmember, she will support the following policies:
- Project labor agreements
- Community benefit agreements
- Card check neutrality
- City contracts with the right to collectively bargain
- Expansion of worker center funds
- Fairer scheduling policies
- Enhancing the ability of workers to attend to their own healthcare needs without facing termination for calling in sick.
- No outsourcing: Every city service must be done through unionized public labor – that means no outsourcing to private companies. We must bring back any city service or public sector job that the city privatized and stop any further privatization of city services.
- Protect undocumented workers: Los Angeles is the wage theft capital of the nation: 80% of all low-wage workers in Los Angeles experience wage theft, and immigrant workers, women, and people of color are more likely to be among them. That’s why Ysabel wants to expand the enforcement of LA City labor protections that already exist, prohibit e-verify, and fight to protect and lift up our street vendors, many of whom are undocumented and face harassment from law enforcement. Businesses who retaliate against undocumented immigrants should have their licenses temporarily revoked as Labor Code Section 1019 allows. Additionally, she will fight to establish an unemployment fund for undocumented workers who cannot currently access UI until a state-wide safety net is established.
- Protect workers affected by the carceral system: For formerly incarcerated workers, we must have targeted job programs that reintegrate them into society, instead of jobs that exploit them and do not provide a path to a financially stable life. Individuals serving terms of community service should not replace work that could be performed by workers with full wages and employee protections.