Suit Filed Over Violent End to Janitors’ Protest

Participants in a 1990 “Justice for Janitors” march, a Century City labor demonstration that turned into one of Los Angeles’ most violent police confrontations in recent years, filed suit on Friday against Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and the City of Los Angeles.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of 150 people who said they participated in the march, seeks unspecified damages for injuries, false arrest and mental anguish.

A $75-million claim against the city, filed by the marchers last year, has yet to be resolved, the city attorney’s office said.

About 40 people were arrested and dozens injured a year ago today when police cut short a march coordinated by Local 399 of the Service Employees International Union, which was on strike against a major janitorial contractor who had turned down the strikers’ demand for union recognition. The effort was part of the union’s national “Justice for Janitors” campaign, which has been organizing non-union janitors in Los Angeles office buildings for several years.

Police officials had publicly promised they would not interfere with the march into Century City. However, as the march approached Century Park East and Olympic Boulevard, police ordered the marchers to halt. They refused. An estimated 100 officers then used batons to force about 400 demonstrators--including strikers, scores of other SEIU members and supporters from other unions and local groups--to disperse.

The violence, shown frequently on television news programs, brought outrage from national leaders of organized labor and contributed to the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor’s call for Gates’ resignation in the wake of the police beating of Rodney G. King. The Century City confrontation has also been the subject of testimony at one of the public hearings held by the Christopher Commission, which is investigating the LAPD.

Last November, the Los Angeles Police Commission concluded that the janitors’ protest turned violent because police were overzealous in chasing protesters who refused to disperse and because union organizers were too secretive.

“We take no satisfaction in filing this lawsuit,” said Jim Zellers, president of Local 399, at a union rally Friday. “But there are medical bills, including emergency room and ambulance fees, which must be paid. . . . We know of no action by the LAPD to review what went wrong and to determine what should be done about it. Maybe a lawsuit of this proportion will prompt such action.”

Ironically, the graphic violence in Century City gave the janitors’ organizing campaign unprecedented public visibility and organizing leverage. Within two weeks, the janitorial contractor who was the target of the march agreed to sign a union contract. Earlier this year, the union pressured another major non-union janitorial contractor in downtown Los Angeles into signing a contract.

Friday’s union rally was held at a mid-Wilshire office building that is the current organizing target of the union.