The Economic Justice Research Lab’s first project seeks to recover and preserve the activist cultures of two broad categories of essential laborers in the city: 1) tourism and hospitality, including hotel, restaurant, and other services such as musicians, cultural workers, and related construction and day laborers that are integral to the city’s economic base in tourism; and 2) healthcare workers. Both groups are making headlines in recent years as their unions have achieved unprecedented victories.
This project uses oral history and kindred methods to publicly document the history and present of essential workers’ own collective organizing in New Orleans, a city in the crosshairs of climate change and suffering extreme inequities further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our team of academic researchers partners with representatives from local unions, workers’ centers, non-profits, and community-based storytellers and archives to record and preserve new oral history interviews with tourism industry and healthcare workers who have been or are current advocates in the struggle for higher wages, stable employment, fair treatment, and unionization in their industries. Our pool of narrators includes rank and file workers, union staff, and community organizers.
We seek to learn directly from the rank and file leaders who not only advocated for better conditions on the job but also rallied their co-workers or brought neighbors and other activists into the fight with them. We want to understand the cultures of their workplaces, the solidarities they forged, the visions they expounded, and the successes and failures of their various campaigns, strategies, and tactics. We ask broad, open-ended questions about their childhoods and early lives, their transitions into the workforce, and the ways in which they got involved in collective organizing. Their stories shed light on not only their personal experiences but the broader experiences of the many workers they sought to bring together and represented as union and community organizers.
This project links leading academic researchers with community partners, both of whom play a central role in directing and executing the project. Our five-member Advisory Board includes allied researchers and representatives from relevant unions and membership-based working-class organizations. Board members work collaboratively with us to identify and recruit interviewees and are invited to join in conducting interviews and interpreting and presenting our findings.
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Oral History Interview with Kenya Slaughter
Kenya Slaughter and Rafael Delgadillo
Ken Slaughter is an organizer with Step Up Louisiana. She was born and raised in Oakland, California in 1982 and later moved to Louisiana in 2011, settling in Alexandria. Prior to her organizing work, she had various jobs, including working at Radio Shack and a hair store, before starting at Dollar General in 2018.
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Oral History Interview with Jose Torres Tama
Jose Torres Tama and Rafael Delgadillo
Jose Torres Tama is an Ecuadorian-American artist born in 1961 who had lived in New Orleans for approximately 40 years at the time of the interview. He was a multi-disciplinary artist whose work encompassed visual arts (painting, drawing), performance art, and writing (poetry, journalism). He studied art and creative writing in New York and New Jersey before moving to New Orleans. His work was deeply political and focused on social justice, drawing heavily from his identity as a Latino immigrant and his extensive documentation of the post-Katrina immigrant labor community in New Orleans.
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Oral History Interview with Greg Wilson (Part 1)
Greg Wilson and Rafael Delgadillo
Greg Wilson is a native of New Orleans, born in 1971 and raised in the Algiers neighborhood. He comes from a family with a history of community activism, with his grandfather and father both involved in local politics and organizing. Wilson was active in various student organizations in high school and college, which laid the groundwork for his later career in labor and community organizing.
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Oral History Interview with Greg Wilson (Part 2)
Greg Wilson and Rafael Delgadillo
Greg Wilson is a native of New Orleans, born in 1971 and raised in the Algiers neighborhood. He comes from a family with a history of community activism, with his grandfather and father both involved in local politics and organizing. Wilson was active in various student organizations in high school and college, which laid the groundwork for his later career in labor and community organizing.
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Oral History Interview with Ben Zucker (Part 1)
Ben Zucker and Max Krochmal
Ben Zucker is the co-director of Step Up Louisiana, an economic justice organization based in New Orleans. He grew up in a family of union organizers, with both of his parents involved in labor activism. Zucker was exposed to this work from a young age and continued his involvement in social justice movements as a student at Tulane University, where he supported campus workers' efforts to unionize. After graduating, Zucker worked on the Fight for 15 campaign, organizing fast food workers across the country, before returning to New Orleans to co-found Step Up Louisiana.
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Oral History Interview with Ben Zucker (Part 2)
Ben Zucker and Max Krochmal
Ben Zucker is the co-director of Step Up Louisiana, an economic justice organization based in New Orleans. He grew up in a family of union organizers, with both of his parents involved in labor activism. Zucker was exposed to this work from a young age and continued his involvement in social justice movements as a student at Tulane University, where he supported campus workers' efforts to unionize. After graduating, Zucker worked on the Fight for 15 campaign, organizing fast food workers across the country, before returning to New Orleans to co-found Step Up Louisiana.