Hoping to provide harried business owners a way to influence decision making, several Los Angeles business groups have formed a coalition to copy and counteract unions' organizational clout.
The Los Angeles County Business Federation, which will be formally unveiled today, so far includes 44 organizations that represent more than 70,000 businesses employing more than 1.2 million people, said Tracy Rafter, chief executive of the group and a former publisher of the Daily News.
Although many of the local chambers of commerce and other groups in the federation already lobby for business, federation members said they weren't speaking quickly or often enough to influence elected officials on important matters. The new organization's leaders say it is important to emulate the fast footwork of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor in bringing together large groups of people to address issues.
The labor movement nationally is struggling to maintain membership, but experts say Los Angeles has been a bulwark, with strong union ties to elected officials including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles).
"It's not like they're running things, but it's one of those regions in the country where labor has been very effective," said Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at UC Santa Barbara.
David Fleming, chairman of the new group, said labor has "done a fantastic job. Businesses are not organized, and because of that, we do not get our message across. We tend politically to be an afterthought."
The federation formed "to organize businesses, the collective chambers, trade groups and business organizations so that we can put together the numbers and get the attention of the political leaders" as a way to boost economic vitality, said Fleming, who is also the outgoing chairman of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce.
The business federation said it would release the results of a poll today of its members finding that most believe the biggest need is to reduce worsening commute times, curb urban crime and gang violence and reform education.
Businesses, Fleming said, are tired of their employees spending too much time and energy on the freeways, are concerned about the threat of gangs and are fed up with having to spend money to educate new hires in basic skills they failed to learn in school.
If such poll results are going to set the group's agenda, there could be common ground with labor.
