A Labor Day of pride and precariousness

Numerous contracts must be renegotiated for 228,000 existing members while efforts are underway to organize port truck drivers, security officers and hotel and airport workers. Political campaigns, including the race for the White House, will demand attention. And some labor insiders expect unions to seek a ballot measure for a so-called living wage law. It was passed twice within the last year by the Los Angeles City Council but thrown out by a judge in May.

Not all of the unionizing is directed at low-wage workers. Some also affects Hollywood's labor community, and those contract talks have already turned ugly.

Tensions have mounted, for example, between the Writers Guild of America and studio and network executives over pay formulas and revenue sharing for about 12,000 unionized film and television writers. Fearing the two sides may not reach agreement by an Oct. 31 deadline, studios are making contingency plans -- fast-tracking scripts and planning for more reality TV shows -- for what could be the first writers' walkout in nearly two decades.

Producers also are preparing for a possible strike by members of the Screen Actors Guild, whose contract expires next June.

"It's a very uncertain time, which is why these contracts are so important," Durazo said. "We have got to stand up to the plate as a single labor movement and back each other up. We're talking about fighting for the most essential things that families need."

Durazo will deliver that message today when she appears with Villaraigosa at a Labor Day breakfast and Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels downtown and later during a rally at Banning Park in Wilmington. They will be joined by Democratic politicians and some of California's leading labor figures.

Villaraigosa, a former union organizer, has supported much of labor's agenda during his first two years in office, including the living-wage law that would have increased pay for workers at hotels near Los Angeles International Airport. His administration has established training and apprenticeship programs for workers and negotiated agreements to ensure that developers hire from the local labor force.

Labor leaders say the success of their movement will depend on their ability not only to recruit new members but also to broaden their message beyond the rank and file. Coupling wages with issues of crime and the environment will be key to that effort, they said.

"If labor can reflect the concerns of the community, it will become an ever-more important part of Los Angeles," said Bob Cherry, a former California Teachers Assn. official who now is a consultant to unions. The question, he said, is whether unions can "move forward on issues that are broader than a pure labor agenda."

duke.helfand@latimes.com

molly.selvin@latimes.com