EXCLUSIVE: David Huerta, union leader beaten & arrested at ICE raid, speaks out

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

David Huerta:

Sure. David Huta, president of S-E-I-U-U-S-W-W represent 50,000 workers across the state, janitor, security officers, airport workers, public event workers, and state council president for SEIU in California, which is 750,000 workers across the state, public sector, private sector, healthcare, long-term care, and everything else.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, brother Huerta, thank you so much for sitting down with me here at the Net Roots Conference in New Orleans. I really, really appreciate it and I know that you’ve been going through a lot. Our country’s going through a lot right now, and everyone in the labor movement and so many beyond organized labor felt a collective chill run through our blood. When we watch those videos of ice agents brutalizing you, arresting you, you a prominent labor leader, and then they go a step further and they charge you with conspiracy to impede an officer. And I know you can’t talk too much about that because you’re embroiled in this legal battle now. And I also know that you’re the first person to say that this fight is not about you as an individual. And I want to dig into everything and everyone it is about. But since I have the chance to sit with you here and now, I wanted to just ask if you could remind our viewers and listeners, take us back to that day, remind us of the context of what you were doing, what happened to you, and what you can tell us about where things stand now.

David Huerta:

Sure. Well limited on what I can talk about that day. As you’ve mentioned, I’m still in a process and so on the advisement of my legal team, I can’t really go into the details of the incident itself, but I will say that I was there. I have a first amendment to be there

That day. I remember waking up, the first thing I see is looking at TikTok and stuff and that there was sightings of ice in and around Los Angeles. And up until that point, there had been a lot of false flags, so to speak, with the exception of what we saw in Central Valley. But I know at one point, I remember I walked several weeks before that, walked through downtown Los Angeles because our members told us that there was ice agents around and we didn’t find any. But this day seemed different. It seemed really, really different in that it didn’t longer felt like there was a false flag going on. And by the time I made it to my office that morning, I remember we were having a training with our members and our staff because we’re gearing up for different contract campaigns. And there was a lot of activity that we were in front of a highway patrol office, our offices, and saw a lot of street activity. And we were embroiled in a fight that morning or that day as part of the referendum against for the $30 minimum wage that we passed for the tourism workers in Los Angeles. And they were fighting, I guess. So technically I wasn’t supposed to be there.

I was supposed to be somewhere else, but I was asked if I could be there because they needed support. And there was a raid that if I could confirm one was it happening and two, if I could help. And so I said yes. I didn’t think twice. I figured I’ll be there and then I’ll go to my second destination, the destination I was supposed to be at. And when I arrived, I think you can see it in the video, it was a full on operation. And I will say, I think for me, what really triggered my emotion that day was just seeing this young girl just crying because she knew her father was inside. And I just really felt how hopeless she probably felt in that moment in time. And I think that just that sense kind of transferred to me a little bit in that sense of, and something just told me that this was going to be, again, I can’t talk into the details of that day and hopefully someday I will be able to talk about it more freely and hopefully I’ll have my day in court to talk about it freely.

But I just felt like this was a moment of taking a stand and I didn’t really think it out. It wasn’t like something that I went with any intention, but I felt as if somehow this was starting something much bigger. And so when I said, this is not about me, it’s about what’s happening, it was really because I don’t think the focus should be on me. The focus should be on what is actually happening, what is really being with the intention of what’s happening, and let’s focus on that.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, let’s talk about that, and I want to get real here and talk to you about this not just as David Huta labor leader, but as two Chicanos from Southern California, two brown kids from the same place. You grew up in la I grew up in Orange County, and we’ve watched so much of our home change so quickly. I wanted to ask if you could just communicate for folks who don’t live there, what is actually happening back home and is this the America that you grew up in? What is happening right now?

David Huerta:

Well, I’ll say this, LA is my America. LA is, LA for me is probably one of the best cities. It is a point of people can say anything they want about la,

But we’ve seen it all. Man, I grew up in the unincorporated territory, valley County called West Whittier, born in East la, very typical Chicano family story. But what Los Angeles for me represents is really it’s home. It represents a place that a point of origin and a point of departure, so to speak, both. It’s where culture is vibrant, language is vibrant, everything is really, it’s a place that, and it’s a very working class city. A lot of people probably see the glamor of la. I always see the grid of la and when I always say when I was growing up, my father was a teamster. His jobs were right around Washington Boulevard and City of Commerce where all the trucking outfits used to be at. And it always has been a very worker oriented place. And so when I see, when we saw what happened or is happening in Los Angeles, I don’t think they’re done with this yet. I don’t think they’re done with this country yet in the sense of what they’re trying to do. But what I saw is what happened on June 6th at that garment facility is people taking a stand and people defending their community, defending their families, defending their casinos, and defending who they are. For me, that’s the most important thing, right? Because too often we’re kind of like, we’re not considered American, we’re hyphenated.

So for me, it’s sort of like this is our response back to those who want to erase us, who want to deny us, and you can’t deny us anymore and we’re going to defend him. We’re going to fight,

Maximillian Alvarez:

And we’ve got a real fight on our hands. I was just back home filming for The Real News in Pasadena Santa Ana, like 10 minutes from where my folks live. I’m interviewing the son of Narciso Barranco, a man who’s worked here for 30 years and was working as a landscaper in front of an ihop. And he just gets sworn by these mast unidentified armed thugs who beat the shit out of him in the middle of an intersection and disappear ’em in a van.

And this is happening all over the place. I went to food drives that are for immigrant families that can’t leave their homes and haven’t left in weeks. The parks are empty, the food trucks are gone. There’s a real terror gripping the neighborhoods I grew up in. But like you said, also seeing a lot of grassroots resistance from folks who are done waiting on the Democratic party, they’re done waiting on local governments, even official unions. They’re saying, we’re going to band together and do this ourselves. And I wanted to ask where the labor movement and where unions need to be in that fight and what the labor movement can do to really help empower people in this fight against authoritarianism.

David Huerta:

Well, look, I think as a labor person, as somebody who spent his last 29 years organizing in community organizing, basically immigrant workers and black workers, right? Because the beauty of my organization is that it was, I think about 15 years ago, we engaged in one of the largest organizing efforts to organize black workers and security officers in a really long time. And so our organization, I think is what’s possible, right? Especially in Los Angeles where we can’t deny there’s been tension between black and brown communities in the past. But I think it’s also how do we build those bridges between our communities, but allowing our communities to show up as who they are is very important. And we’ve played as a labor union, we played a role in creating that environment for our members. I think this moment in time though also calls for labor to really weigh in.

They have to lean in, man. It’s like we have to be part of, we have something that’s unique. We have resources, we have facilities, we have rank and file members, we have standing organization. All of those things make us a catalyst right now in creating something. And I think the one thing that we can do, because I think how we’re going to fix this or not fix this, there’s no fixing this. We got to organize this. It is we’re going to have to create disruption, non-cooperation, figure out how we are really destabilizing, so to speak. What is this authoritarianism, right? But labor, I think plays a central role in significantly different role in that labor disruption. How can we build the rank and file power? How can we build within work organization to really build towards mass disruption? And how do we lean into that disruption? And I firmly believe, I think if there is going to be a disruption, it’s going to start with service workers. Those service workers are the ones who are on the crossroads of this organization because those are the places where the predominantly black and brown workers are

Speaker 3:

At.

David Huerta:

And so that’s, in my opinion, it’s the workforces that represent those workers. They’re going to be a catalyst and change. And so when I look at S-E-I-U-S-E-I-U is all predominantly, we’re the long-term care workers, we’re the healthcare workers, we’re the janitors, we’re the security officers. We are that service workforce that if we lock arms with other service workers like hotel workers, farm workers, if we’re able to really galvanize and move, it’s going to be that workforce that’s really, in my opinion, can really create the disruption big enough or the crisis big enough to make the change that we need.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And I know you got to head out of here in a sec and catch a plane, and I really appreciate this time with you, man. I wanted to kind of build on that last point and ask that, sorry, I mean in the administration and the people who support it, they understand the threat that unions and organized labor pose to their agenda. I mean, Donald Trump is now rescinding collective bargaining rights for federal unions and agencies across the board. They went after you, they’re going after labor leaders. And so I guess the blunt question is why do fascists hate unions so much? And what role must organize labor play in the fight against fascism and the fight for something better for working people?

David Huerta:

Yeah. Look, I think we’re the one part of our economy and our society where we have the collective power to make change. And a fascist authoritarian government like we’ve seen right now is going to try to dismantle that so they have the power to be imposed. Look, I think right now we’re going from a billionaire class to the trillionaire class. We’re not very far from that. The sad thing is that’ll probably be celebrated. It’s like we’re going to celebrate somebody’s wealth that comes at the cost of working people. I think the fear is that if labor does their job right as we should, we can grow a class consciousness. We can make people understand that the wealth that’s being accumulated, the wealth that’s being generated, the wealth that’s being centralized into the hands of a few at the cost of many have the power to change something.

And I think that, and that’s why I keep telling when I said it today, I tell my members all the time, you have the power. You have power in your hands because your hands are the labor that makes this economy function. And the same way how you give that power, you can withhold that power as well. And so I think it should not be lost on these guys why they’ve been over the last 40 years have been pounding on labor. That’s why we were at such small numbers that we are now, back in the day of my father’s generation, labor was, they were power. They had the ability to be able to, my father was able to raise two children on one income. Tell me where that happens. Nowadays, it doesn’t happen. And not loading and loading the truck, it surely does not happen.

I think what is possible is what scares them. I think what is possible is what should motivate us. I think that’s what we have to remind ourselves, that when we build that power across our differences, white, black, brown language, gender, all these different differences we have, it doesn’t mean I have to change who I am. It means I get to show up as who I am and respect each other’s difference and get into a space where through that difference, we can build power and really show up as a Chicano show up as black people show up as white people show up as who you are. And let’s build that power. Because I firmly believe, and I still believe in this democracy, I haven’t given up on it yet, and my father fought for it. I have uncles who fought for it, my brother, and so I haven’t given up on it yet.

None of us should give up on it. And like I said, the flaw in MAGA is that they think somehow the greatness of this country is in its past. And I really think the greatness of this country is still in its future. And so these are the things that, for me, I hope that as working people should motivate us, should inspire us, and should really put us in a space where we can make a better quality of life for working people and not allow the trillionaires to determine our destiny. But we should determine that for ourselves.