Union Roots, Modern Fights

Alex Aguilar Jr., LIUNA Local 724, Carries On a Legacy of Labor

Not since the Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan administrations has labor faced the kind of assault seen under Trump’s second term. Six years ago, the late, great labor photographer Slobodan Dimitrov described how Big Labor traded spirited Labor Day parades for quiet picnics. 

That shift came as both parties targeted working people. Under President Jimmy Carter, labor’s power began to unravel as his administration disrupted long-standing union ties built during the Richard Nixon years. Reagan followed with a more aggressive approach. 

In August 1981, when air traffic controllers went on strike, Reagan declared the strike illegal and gave workers 48 hours to return. He fired those who refused, reshaping labor relations and launching a decades-long war on union jobs.

Forty-five years later, #45/47, via executive orders, stripped union rights from 700,000 federal workers at national security agencies, from the State Department to the Department of Homeland Security; ordered agencies to reopen existing collective bargaining agreements under tight deadlines, defaulting to one-size-fits-all terms if agencies fail to agree; weakened grievance protections and discipline systems; instructed agencies to ignore union contracts when conducting layoffs or staffing adjustments, and more. 

It is times such as these that labor must remember that its superpower is its unity and its memory of its wins and losses, its allies and its enemies.  

Last week, Random Lengths News interviewed Alex Aguilar Jr., the secretary-treasurer of Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA).

Aguilar noted that unions have been addressing this issue internally for a long time. 

“[We] talked about the new up-and-coming members that don’t know the history and don’t know about those fights, and how many people have suffered and fought, and in some cases, even died for us to gain some of [those] wins and some of these protections that we currently have,” Aguilar said. 

The union has created a five-minute education video. Drawing a connection between the predominantly Latino laborers who make up LIUNA today to the Italian and Irish immigrants who started LIUNA, Aguilar said, “It’s crazy the times we’re living in, but a huge part of that video is about how LIUNA started and those founding fathers of LIUNA. They were all immigrants. They were Italian and Irish American immigrants, and no one wanted to organize them and help them. And so they formed their union, so they could represent themselves and those like them. It’s very important to talk about the past.” 

Labor is in the Blood

Aguilar knows a little something about remembering where he came from. He and his two younger sisters were born in Mexico City. His father worked at a car wash, and his mother worked as a housekeeper. 

“She used to clean houses for rich folks, and that’s how my dad ended up getting in the union,” Aguilar said. 

His mom used to take care of and help with the house of a senior figure at Universal Studios. He was like the number two guy worldwide, and his dad was detailing cars at the car wash. Aguilar’s family had no benefits. They couldn’t just go to a doctor if one of them got sick unless it was necessary. One day, this Universal Studios bigwig who employed Aguilar’s mom was complaining about his collection of Jaguars not being detailed correctly. She told him about her husband’s skill set as a car detailer. The employer tried Aguilar’s dad out for a couple of months. At that time, Aguilar’s dad asked the employer about getting a job at Universal Studios. 

A couple of weeks later, the Universal Studios bigwig asked Aguilar’s father to report to Universal Studios’ lower lot, to get work from the company’s labor department, and he got it, becoming the elder Aguilar’s first union job in the United States. 

His father initially faced suspicion and unkind treatment from co-workers — some assuming he got the job through favoritism — but he eventually earned their respect. Over time, union membership gave his family healthcare, stability and a path to a better life.

Aguilar was only 12 or 13 years of age at the time of the 1989 strike, the first his father participated in. But the memories remained, and the lessons remained.

“Everything we have is because of this union. Don’t you forget it,” Aguilar recalls his father saying. “Be grateful and always support union workers.”

Aguilar still recalls the lessons he learned from the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike when he was just a member of the rank and file. 

He was a young father, expecting a third child, while his wife was experiencing complications and couldn’t work. Finances were tight, and in just a nick of time, a seven-month production job on the Disney film G-Force, came through. 

Aguilar went to New Mexico on location. He, like every other union working person, thought they were safe, thinking they’d at least work for the next seven months. “Not only are the executive producers people, but they’re also writers,” they thought. 

When the WGA went on strike, no WGA screenwriter could make script changes, dialogue rewrites, or adapt scenes during shooting without crossing the picket line. For G-Force, a visual effects-heavy, comedic action film, this likely meant less flexibility on set — actors and directors couldn’t punch up jokes or adjust scenes in response to pacing or performance, but they didn’t allow the strike to slow down production.

Nevertheless, the other impacted union members on set who suddenly had less work were going through their savings. Things got bad enough in Aguilar’s household that he had to sell his vehicle to pay the mortgage. 

“Those were the days of Nextel [phones], when you could send out a text message to every single contact. I sent out a blast text saying, ‘Hey guys, I’m selling my car. If anyone’s interested.’ Then somebody said, ‘Must be nice,’ because others were hurting. They thought I was selling it to buy a new car because I got a new car. ‘Hey, I said no, I need to pay our mortgage, man, and feed my family. I don’t lie. I don’t have a job to go to. So I don’t really need a car at the moment,” Aguilar recalled.

“After selling the car, an industry friend said to him, ‘Hey, you should call MPTF, and I’m like, ‘What’s MPTF?’ He said it’s Motion Picture & Television Fund.”

The idea emerged during the early days of Hollywood, when many actors, crew and technicians had little to no safety net. Industry figures such as Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and William S. Hart helped establish it. It began as a charity to provide medical care, financial assistance and retirement support to those in the motion picture business who fell on hard times.

The goal originally was to create a community and resources for motion picture workers — a sort of “industry family.” Initially, the fund provided temporary financial aid and set up a rest home and hospital for industry professionals. Over time, the MPTF expanded services to include: comprehensive healthcare (now including a retirement community and skilled nursing); counseling and wellness programs; and assistance for families of workers. It eventually broadened to include television workers as the industry evolved.

Aguilar said he reached out and received $10,000, enough money to pay all of his bills for two months. 

“They asked me for the bills that I had, and I showed them to them. They cut the checks for every single bill.” 

It bought Aguilar just enough time for work to get him back and make it through the strike. 

“That was huge because, honestly, I was at a point at the time of starting to look for a new career, doing something else. My wife and family were like, ‘This is not good. You’ve got to find another job. I was thinking about starting a construction company, but then the work started picking up.”

Solidarity Across Jurisdictions

The interesting thing that is starting to happen is that unions are starting to engage with each other more collaboratively rather than competitively, causing jurisdictional battles to take a backseat to labor solidarity across the board. 

Aguilar recalled a pivotal moment when labor leaders from various Hollywood unions and guilds met at the Shrine Auditorium to show solidarity with the Writers Guild of America (WGA) during the strike. Despite decades of shared struggles, Aguilar noted that many of them had never been in the same room together before — an eye-opening realization that sparked a deeper, united labor movement.

He explains that the rise of streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon disrupted the industry’s traditional financial structure — particularly around residuals, which are critical for funding union pension and health plans. This shift, along with the collapse of DVD sales and the impact of COVID-19, severely weakened the funding mechanisms many entertainment unions rely on.

Aguilar emphasizes that this crisis underscored the need for inter-union solidarity — not just within the entertainment sector, but across broader labor struggles. He cites examples of unions showing up for one another, from Teamsters strikes to hotel workers’ rallies, asserting that true union strength lies in collective action and mutual support.

That’s why during recent ICE raids, which impacted Hollywood’s immigrant workforce, he reached out to members to alleviate fears — recognizing that around 20% are immigrants and nearly half are Latino. 

It’s also why he has championed unionizing efforts for production assistants, actively supporting the movement alongside AFM Local 47 and others this past year. 

This intergenerational commitment to solidarity is rooted in Aguilar’s family history. The senior Aguilar is retiring now that he has turned 65 and remains the central inspiration behind the younger Aguilar’s union work. He credits his dad with instilling a deep sense of gratitude, pride, and commitment to organized labor, encapsulated in the motto: “Live Better, Work Union.”