Projects of Solidarity and Gender Relations at Work: Latina/o Immigrant Janitors in Los Angeles.

Drawing on an ethnography of Latina/o immigrants in the Los Angeles Justice for Janitors union movement, I argue that the move from servicing to organizing among many immigrant-dominated, American unions has the potential to challenge unequal gendered relations of power and meaning at work. In Los Angeles, Justice for Janitors is organizing the predominately Mexican, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan immigrant workers to enforce the union contract through displays of solidarity at work. However, achieving cross-gender solidarity is a labor intensive project. When this project fails, women and men often resist class relations by re-inscribing gender inequality. I illustrate the impact of solidarity projects on gender relations by comparing two workplaces. At Wilshire, workers themselves became the union and enforced the contract through a series of victorious projects of cross-gender solidarity. At South Bay women and men workers engaged in opposite strategies of resistance that re-inscribed unequal gendered relations of power and meaning. The division of labor had some influence on the mode of resistance but the degree to which the workers were active in the initial unionization was also a crucial factor. This study suggests that more just relations of gender are possible in work sites where there is an active struggle to create solidarity between women and men workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]