"Public-sector unions are beggaring the state," said Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.
Not so, says Durazo, one of 11 children of Mexican immigrant farmworkers. Today's economic crisis, she argues, underscores the urgent need for more union jobs. Rebuilding the middle class is her often-repeated mantra. "We have to make sure that as many of our decent-paying jobs are protected as possible," she said.
Despite criticism as being intransigent, public-employee unions, she says, are ready to work "responsibly" with government to reduce budget deficits -- while resisting "unilateral, draconian cuts." In the private sector, she says, workers must be prepared to stand up to corporate "greed," a management failing she cites in recent labor disputes.
Though union membership in California grew last year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, union members represent just 18.4% of wage and salary workers -- fewer than 1 in 5 employees. Nationally, the figure is 12.4 %.
Organized labor's top national priority is congressional passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, a proposed law that would ease union organization drives. Labor and big business have spent fortunes on conflicting propaganda campaigns.
"As we look forward to rebuilding the economy, we have to ask: Are we going to rebuild it with poverty jobs?" said Durazo, arguing, for instance, that coming jobs in solar and wind power and weatherization should be union.
"If we do not have new rules about union organizing," she said, "I can guarantee you that these new 'green' jobs, these new technology jobs are going to be low-end, poverty-level jobs."
Like others in labor, Durazo sees the era of Obama, once a community organizer, as a singular opportunity. But she also bemoans the labor movement's deep divisions, including splits in her own union, Unite-Here, now in the midst of a fierce factional battle.
Durazo exudes pride over the Southern California labor movement's trajectory of growth: From "an ATM for politicians" into what she now calls a dynamic, truly rank-and-file movement, with substantial support of low-wage, new-immigrant workers, a group that organized labor once viewed with wariness, even hostility. The push for immigrant rights and expanded legal status is at the top of her agenda.
"We now do have the ability to make sure that our point of view is taken into consideration," Durazo said. "We've changed the political landscape."
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patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com
