|
Justice for Workers in Koreatown: What is
KIWA?
By Cheryl Samson
Growing up on the Eastside, I rarely drove west
towards the various communities of Los Angeles. If we did go to
LA, it was always the same places: Chinatown, "the Garment
District/Santee," and Echo Park or "P-Town." Anything
west of that was UCLA, when we visited my brother who completed
his undergraduate education there. Places like Olvera Street, Little
Tokyo, and Koreatown were simply places we passed on the freeway
or on our way to a specific destination. My parents were not very
adventurous, so it was only two and a half years ago that I was
introduced to a facility located on the corner of 8th
Street and Hobart, right in the heart of Koreatown. This is where
I discovered Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates (KIWA), an organization
that then shared office space with Thai Community Development Center
(Thai CDC), and Pilipino Workers Center (PWC). I arrived at the
facility in the afternoon to attend my interview for the Summer
Activist Training Program (SAT), one of the programs co-sponsored
and carried out annually by KIWA, Thai CDC, PWC, and Nikkei’s
for Civil Rights and Redress (NCRR, formerly the National Coalition
for Redress and Reparations). One of my interviewers was Julia Song,
the representative from KIWA. It was at this interview that I was
given a brief history and introduction to KIWA, its services, and
bits and pieces of the other three co-sponsoring organizations.
Summer Activist Training is one of the many
programs that developed through KIWA. Its original goal was to get
Korean American students involved in activism within the Los Angeles
community. Roy Hong and Danny Park are the original founders of
the organization. KIWA was formed after the 1992 awakenings, and
one of their first campaigns focused on assisting Latino and Korean
workers who were being exploited by a group of conservative Korean
businessmen, members of the Korean American Relief Fund. In this
campaign KIWA successfully aided 45 displaced Korean and Latino
workers in gaining $109,000 in relief funds. In its beginning stages,
KIWA effectively provided legal services for workers, assisting
in lowering wages for the poor, and unions in various campaigns.
KIWA has also done a lot of coalition building
work with other organizations on worker’s issues. They have
worked with Thai CDC, organizing Latino and Thai seamstresses in
a sweatshop located in El Monte. Workers were working under poor
conditions, facing health risks and dealing with low wages, working
beyond a full-time schedule. Together with Thai CDC, the campaign
was successful in exposing exploitation of sweatshops to the public,
rewarding workers with compensation, and empowering workers to mobilize
with other workers who are facing similar oppressive conditions,
through the formation of an organization, Sweatshop Watch.
KIWA has even created coalitions among workers
such as the Restaurant Workers Association of Koreatown (RWAK),
an independent worker association that is comprised of both Korean
and Latino workers. This organization stemmed from the Restaurant
Workers Justice Campaign. The Restaurant Workers Justice campaign
is another major campaign formed in response to the mistreatment
of workers in the Korean restaurants. Formed in 1996, it exists
to help workers seek workplace reforms and claims, as well as establish
a space for workers to organize, speak, and fight against their
unjust conditions.
One successful incident that has sprouted from
this campaign was an occurrence at Elephant Snack, a restaurant
located on Western and 8th Street. I was initially introduced
to this issue through the Summer Activist Training Program that
I had coordinated summer of 2000, when KIWA had brought in a Latino
worker to explain to us the unfair wages they were receiving for
the work and the hours they were putting in at this small restaurant.
After a year of daily organizing and protests, the fight ended up
successful, providing compensation to the workers and exposing the
issue to public attention through media coverage.
Currently, KIWA is actively involved in the
legalization of immigrant workers. KIWA has formed a legalization
campaign, and joined a network with other labor organizations, Multi-ethnic
Worker Organizing Network (MEWON). MEWON is a network of organizations
that includes PWC, Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles
(CHIRLA), and the Garment Worker Center. On May 5, 2001, they sponsored
a huge march and rally bringing attention and support to all immigrant
workers in the Los Angeles area. The march was a successful one
in which thousands of community organizers, students, and workers
attended and marched in unison to demonstrate their support for
the legalization of workers and worker’s rights.
Since many of the workers in Koreatown and Los
Angeles are immigrants, the focus of KIWA’s services has been
designed to serve this specific population. Their current services
include consultation for workers, helping workers to understand
their rights and providing paper work for wage claims and other
services. KIWA is an organization that stands strong in its ten
years of service and continues to assist the working class, immigrant
community of Koreatown.
|