Date and Time: October 9, 2026, 10-11:30 PDT
Location: Virtual
Against the backdrop of unemployment and civil unrest in the early 1990s, California Republicans offered voters a simple, brutal solution: criminalize undocumented immigrants. Proposition 187, a statewide voter initiative, threatened to exclude immigrants from all public services and to enlist teachers, neighbors and faith leaders into the machinery of deportation. Labor unions were initially unsure how to respond, but when unions joined the fight against Proposition 187, they changed the direction of California politics.
In this virtual panel event, three veterans of the campaign to stop Proposition 187 will discuss how the moment forged coalitions between immigrant rights and labor organizers that set the stage for a historic shift in organized labor’s policy on undocumented workers. Cristina Ramirez-Vazquez, Former Regional Manager and International Vice President of Workers United, Dave Sickler, former Western Regional Director of AFL-CIO, and Joel Ochoa, labor and community organizer, will share their expertise.
Speakers
Cristina Ramirez-Vazquez: Cristina Ramirez-Vazquez began working as a union organizer with the ILGWU (International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union) in 1976. Largely recognized as the first union to embrace immigrant workers, the ILGWU merged with ACTWU in the 1980s to form UNITE! Ramirez-Vazquez became the first Latin American Immigrant to be International Vice President of UNITE! and Regional Manager of the Western States Regional Joint Board. Ramirez-Vazquez was instrumental in mobilizing her union to become one of the driving forces behind the fight against Prop 187. Recognizing the importance of broad commitment to the struggle, also coordinated the No On Proposition 187 outreach effort that organized a broad swath of communities and immigrant-advocacy organizations into a unified campaign. Ramirez-Vazquez has dedicated her life to organizing garment workers, warehouse workers and industrial laundry workers to secure better working conditions and dignity in the workplace. Now retired, Ramirez-Vazquez is still active with Workers United, working to improve medical benefits for the members of the union.
David Sickler: David Sickler, retired Western Regional Director of the AFL-CIO, spearheaded the effort to get local and national labor leaders to recognize the importance of defending immigrant workers. Following passage of the Immigration Reform Act in 1988, he established the Labor Immigrant Assistance Project and the AFL-CIO California Immigrant Workers’ Association. Sickler was a key figure in arguing for labor participation in the mass march against Proposition 187 on October 16, 1994. In his long career, Sickler also served as the senior labor advisor to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, as Commissioner of Public Works and as Executive Director of Employment Relations at the L.A. Department of Water and Power. Beginning in 2009, Sickler was Southern Regional Director of The California State Building and Construction Trades Council. Sickler also served as Chair of the UCLA Center for Labor and Research advisory committee.
Joel Ochoa: Joel Ochoa is a retired labor and community organizer. He came to the United States from Mexico in 1973, a political refugee forced from his country because of the campaign of massacres, violent assaults and arrests waged by the administration of then-president Luis Echeverría against participants in the student protest movement. On the community level in the U.S., Ochoa worked for the pioneering labor and community organization, CASA, organizing immigrant workers and their families to fight for unconditional amnesty for all undocumented immigrants. In the early 90’s he worked closely with the workers during the American Racing Equipment and the Drywall fights for union recognition in the LA Metro area. Those campaigns helped bring about change in the labor movement in Southern California, making it more inclusive and militant. Joining forces with the AFL-CIO’s California Immigrant Workers Association (CIWA), Ochoa worked tirelessly in 1994 to enlist labor unions and community organizations into the resistance against Prop 187. From 1997 to 2014 he was an International Representative for the International Association of Machinists.
Moderator
Gaspar Rivera-Salgado: Gaspar Rivera-Salgado is currently project director at UCLA Labor Center and labor studies lecturer at the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. He is also the Director of the UCLA Center for Mexican Studies. He teaches classes on work, labor and social justice in the US and immigration issues. Among his publications include the volume (with J. Fox) Indigenous Mexican Migration in the United States (UCSD 2005); and the recently published volume (with E. Telles, and M. Sawyer) Just Neighbors: Research on African American and Latino Relations in the United States (Russell Sage, 2011). He received his doctorate in sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
