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Her Campaign Shows She Knows Value of Hard
Work
 Lupe Rodriguez soon will take the reins of the laborers
union, the first Latina to head the group. 'I'm a woman, but I'll act like
a man if I have to,' she says.
By JEAN O. PASCO, Times Staff Writer
Knocking on doors for
votes is standard fare for any hard-fought political campaign.
Lupe Rodriguez took that one step
further in her successful bid to head the second-largest laborers union in
Southern California: She knocked on the doors of union members' families
in Mexico.
That kind of commitment paid
off a week ago when Rodriguez, 42, bested four other candidates to become
business manager of Laborers International Local 652 in Santa Ana. The
union represents 3,100 workers, many of whom are Mexican immigrants, and
about 1,000 retirees.
Her win was
significant on several fronts. She is the first woman to head a large
Orange County union and the first Latina to head the male-dominated
laborers. She will fill the remaining two years of the three-year term of
her predecessor, Ruben L. Gomez, ousted by the international leadership in
April for using union funds for personal travel.
Sitting in a booth at Azteca Restaurant
in Santa Ana last week, Rodriguez said she's sensitive to the
ground-breaking nature of her new job. She will be sworn in June 28 at the
union's general membership meeting.
"I
heard a lot of criticism, mostly from the old-timers and the retirees
about thinking twice about me [because of gender]," she said. "Sometimes
you have to get tough, sometimes things are really smooth. I'm a woman,
but I'll act like a man if I have to."
State union officials said Rodriguez's
election is a reflection of the maturity of the membership. Laborers
provide manual labor for other trade unions.
"The election of Lupe Rodriguez
demonstrates that the construction industry has opportunities for women
that extend beyond the job site," said Bob Balgenorth, president of State
Building and Construction Trades Council of California, based in
Sacramento.
As a union organizer and
most recently president of the union, the No. 2 job, Rodriguez lobbied in
the past for other candidates and ran for a seat on the international
union's district council. When Gomez left, several members asked her to
become a candidate, she said.
"Most
members know I started as a laborer," said Rodriguez, who met most of them
working as a dispatcher assigning construction jobs. "I was confident that
God would help me, and so would the members."
* * * It was a tense
election, with Gomez serving as campaign manager for the second-highest
vote-getter, Rudy Rios. Rodriguez said she figured she was in a strong
position when members' spouses showed up to help distribute campaign
literature and make phone calls.
During
a three-week vacation to the Mexican state of Jalisco, where she was born
and raised, Rodriguez visited families of union members. She also traveled
to the neighboring state of Michoacan, where her daughter-in-law was born
and raised, and introduced herself to union families there.
The election was held this past Sunday,
with organizers hoping that voting on a family day would end a repeat of
the fistfights that broke out during past elections.
"I was very calm the whole day,"
Rodriguez said. "I had so many good people helping me. I don't know what I
would have done without them."
Rodriguez
said her focus for the next two years will be on expanding the union,
fostering good relations with contractors and construction companies, and
launching training programs for members and high school graduates
interested in the trade.
The union also
will step up political involvement through its political action committee,
she said. The union was active in the campaigns of Democrats Rep. Loretta
Sanchez, state Sen. Joe Dunn and Assemblyman Lou Correa, as well as Gov.
Gray Davis and backed a successful Santa Ana school bond measure.
Rodriguez said she'd rather work
cooperatively to achieve the union's goals. But "sometimes you have to
defend yourself," she said, such as when the union fought Disneyland
several years ago in its attempt to get freeway offramps built into the
theme park.
The union wanted working
conditions improved at the park, and becoming politically active over the
interchange issue "was the only way to get their attention," Rodriguez
said. Ultimately, the ramps were built into city streets, not into the
park itself.
* * * This past week,
Rodriguez and other union members were on hand to support a rally in Santa
Ana by domestic home-care workers for better pay and benefits.
A widow and mother of two sons,
Rodriguez joined the laborers union in 1990, working first in
construction, then becoming a landscaper at Disneyland. She worked the 2
to 10 a.m. shift, planting flowers and arranging hanging baskets
throughout the park, sleeping during the day while her sons were in
school.
Seven years ago, she moved the
family from Santa Ana to Mission Viejo, attracted by the school system.
Her eldest son, Mario, 24, now lives in Costa Mesa with his wife and their
two children, where he works for a construction company. Christopher, 14,
lives with his mother and grandmother, and attends Trabuco Hills High
School.
 Search the archives of the Los Angeles Times for similar stories
about: Women,
Hispanics
- Orange County, Laborers
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